DirectTV and ATT's UVerse

[Chitown2477]

Hello all,
I currently have DirecTV (HD) and I like it. However, the Chicago area where I live just got ATT's UVerse. I am curiuous what others who may have went from DirectTV to Uverse think about the picture quality and channel slection (given price or packages were about the same).

I know the TV itself and calibration settings can make a huge differece. However, I have seen fiber optic cable in NYC and other cities and picture has generally been fantastic. I would like to hear what others think about Uverse before making a decision.

Finally, I wonder if the fact that the fiber optical cable cannot go directly to my "door step" is a big deal or not. My understanding is that it may go "to the pole" in my alley and then to my door step via other cabling. Any thoughts techies????

 

[highfigh]

Hello all,
I currently have DirecTV (HD) and I like it. However, the Chicago area where I live just got ATT's UVerse. I am curiuous what others who may have went from DirectTV to Uverse think about the picture quality and channel slection (given price or packages were about the same).

I know the TV itself and calibration settings can make a huge differece. However, I have seen fiber optic cable in NYC and other cities and picture has generally been fantastic. I would like to hear what others think about Uverse before making a decision.

Finally, I wonder if the fact that the fiber optical cable cannot go directly to my "door step" is a big deal or not. My understanding is that it may go "to the pole" in my alley and then to my door step via other cabling. Any thoughts techies????

Cable goes to the pole, too and their video quality is OK but at the Chicago apartment I helped a friend with, Comcast didn't bother with proper grounding and the hum/video noise bars were really bad. Video quality was OK. I'm in the MKE area and while Time Warner video is better than when I was with them, it's not as good as what I get with DirecTV. Also, DirecTV has new connectivity features with their receivers- if you have a high def DVR and the new receivers with a network connection, you can watch the programs that are stored on the DVR on any of the other TVs. Also, if you would want more storage capacity than the receiver can handle, you can plug a SATA hard drive into the port and use that. The SATA drive overrides the built-in one, but only when it's plugged in. This means you could record programs on the SATA and move it to your computer to watch them, or to another location entirely, if it has the same kind of receiver. If the SATA isn't connected, you would still be able to record to the built-in drive and watch the programs as normal.

 

[JP99]

HighFigh --

I didn't know I could connect a HDD to my Direct-TV HD-DVR.. do you know what model number started doing this? (or about what point in time... I got mine around March of 2009)

That feature would be HUGE for me... since my 2 yr old daughter watches a few different children's shows with about 40 episodes each now recorded. Would be nice to offload 'em!

 

[MidnightSensi]

I have both DirectTV and U-Verse. Picture quality is similar, my problem with DirectTV is that typically when I want to watch TV is when it is pouring rain... and that's when the dish stops getting signal. In Florida, when it rains it is a thunderstorm, so signal is lost basically immediately.

Another advantage of U-Verse is the Internet speed. I get a real and consistant 17Mbit/s down.

For TV programming, I think they are a toss up. Both are filled with mostly junk and don't look or sound as good as blu-ray. And when I want to watch a movie, I typically end up getting it from Netflix, or if I want it now, I download it on AppleTV.