# Is it just me, Picture Quality on ATT is very poor



## imported_Cheeseboy (Feb 16, 2009)

We just changed from the Dish Network and combined our cell, internet, phone and cable TV with ATT. Uverse. The installation was finished and I asked why the installer had used the RGB connectors and not the HDMI. He indicated that there are artifacting problems with the HDMI interface and they don't reccommend it. He said it was a software problem. I insisted that he install both connections. 

Yes there artifacting opportunities with the HDMI. Switching between the two. The HD signal is very poor on both. There is no comparison with the Dish Network. It sucks. 

The user interface is acceptable. The channel selection is comparable. The regular TV signal is comparable to the DISH. 

All of this was observed on a Sony 52 inch LCD TV. We switched because DISH raised our rate after we had signed a 2 year contract with them bundled with the rest of our ATT services. That was just not right.


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## Stereodude (Feb 6, 2010)

Uverse's HD is not so good due to low bitrates. Their SD supposedly is pretty good.


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## PhenomeNhan (Mar 4, 2008)

My buddy noticed the same issue with his (going from Comcast). However, he requested AT&T come out to diagnose the issue. Seems they needed to replace some parts across the street that caused lowered bandwidth to be sent to this house (I can't recall what they did, but I will check with him on it).


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## imported_Cheeseboy (Feb 16, 2009)

PhenomeNhan said:


> My buddy noticed the same issue with his (going from Comcast). However, he requested AT&T come out to diagnose the issue. Seems they needed to replace some parts across the street that caused lowered bandwidth to be sent to this house (I can't recall what they did, but I will check with him on it).



That would be a great help. Thanks. There is hope. 

We were extremely angry when DISH raised our rates after we signed a 2 year contract with them. We switched from Comcast to DISH. The picture on DISH beat Comcast. I would be settled if the ATT came up to Comcast quality.

We just moved into a new home and I'm just getting the Audio dialed in. The room configuration is miles ahead of where it was. It is distrurbing to say the least that the HD on this installation blows canal water.


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## imported_Cheeseboy (Feb 16, 2009)

Stereodude said:


> Uverse's HD is not so good due to low bitrates. Their SD supposedly is pretty good.


What is SD? 

What are you shoveling at these women?


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## Stereodude (Feb 6, 2010)

Cheeseboy said:


> What is SD?


Standard Def


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## imported_Cheeseboy (Feb 16, 2009)

Yup. Standard Def is good, better than comcast and Dish.


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## engtaz (Jul 9, 2010)

Yes cable is poor quality They have to amp the signal till it gets to your house. All that does is add noise to the signal. Directv and Dish have short runs to you TV. even with SD, cable is worse.


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## se-riously (Mar 6, 2009)

Steve,

If you can receive it, OTA is the only way to go for local HD. Any other means is, at best, equal to (rare) or worse (most likely) than the original broadcast.

Bryant


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## gwilks98 (May 3, 2008)

The two Uverse connections I saw here was quite impressive and killed Charter's HD signal quality and the satellites companys'. 

Sorry man, that sucks to have junky TV quality.


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## Stereodude (Feb 6, 2010)

engtaz said:


> Yes cable is poor quality They have to amp the signal till it gets to your house. All that does is add noise to the signal.


Uh... It's all digital, so the distance it traveled has no bearing on anything. Besides, signals from space travel just a bit further than your local phone company.


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## imported_Cheeseboy (Feb 16, 2009)

Stereodude said:


> Uh... It's all digital, so the distance it traveled has no bearing on anything. Besides, signals from space travel just a bit further than your local phone company.


Yes the installer indicated a software opportunity in thier system. We all know there is a tuna in opportunity. When they do get it down the line there may be a routing problem and applification opportunity. There is that word again.

Steve


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## engtaz (Jul 9, 2010)

Stereodude said:


> Uh... It's all digital, so the distance it traveled has no bearing on anything. Besides, signals from space travel just a bit further than your local phone company.


You telling me that digital cable makes a difference? No, noise is still there. I don't mean to correct you but your wrong. The digital cable still comes on the same copper wire that brought the previous analog signals. It just takes up more bandwidth. It's still using the same amplifiers as before. Take time to watch digital cable and FIOS/Satellite side by side and you will see how noisy digital cable is. Your cable company downloads it from satellites also.


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## gwilks98 (May 3, 2008)

engtaz said:


> You telling me that digital cable makes a difference? No, noise is still there. I don't mean to correct you but your wrong. The digital cable still comes on the same copper wire that brought the previous analog signals. It just takes up more bandwidth. It's still using the same amplifiers as before. Take time to watch digital cable and FIOS/Satellite side by side and you will see how noisy digital cable is. Your cable company downloads it from satellites also.


I'm with you. As a communications admin for a 300 branch T1 system, I can verify that distance, bandwidth, and latency are all huge factors when it comes to sending media down a pipe. If it doesn't get there in time, in order and intact, you will see serious consequences: moreso than an analog feed being disrupted by interference.

ATT is busy as hell burying new cable inside St. Louis and the installations typically look great. ATT's cust service is hell, but that's another matter.

If ATT is piggybacking in your area, that might be why you're seeing performance loss.


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## imported_Cheeseboy (Feb 16, 2009)

I'll find out about all of that on Tuesday when the installer makes a return visit. Piggybacking? That may be the problem. I think they are sending so much down the line, Internet, phone and interactive sd and HD signals for TV. I'll use the P word on Tuesday.


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## theelviscerator (Nov 7, 2008)

I have Dish HD and helped my brother with his ATT Uverse and sony 46 in setup.

Yup, Dish looks better..way better.

Blu ray beats all though! :toilet:


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## gwilks98 (May 3, 2008)

Cheeseboy said:


> I'll find out about all of that on Tuesday when the installer makes a return visit. Piggybacking? That may be the problem. I think they are sending so much down the line, Internet, phone and interactive sd and HD signals for TV. I'll use the P word on Tuesday.


just to clarify: piggybacking meaning they're using someone else for at least a piece of the trip, whether it be that last mile, or at some part of the backbone.


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## Stereodude (Feb 6, 2010)

U-verse uses AT&T's internal Lightspeed IP network. It is not run over the public internet, so I don't think piggybacking has anything to do with it.


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## JimP (May 18, 2006)

With cable, you also have to deal with low and high signal strength not to mention noise from their amplifiers.

If you can go with OTA for your locals(and be sure that you do it right) and satellite for everything else...you'll have a more robust system.


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## imported_Cheeseboy (Feb 16, 2009)

Ok here's the report on the ATT repair visit. 

ATT repair stated that I am the last one on the wire. When I asked them to clarify they could not really give me a technical answer that I could understand or recite. They commented that I should have checked the signal strength before I bought the house. That was rude. They went out to the box down the street and worked thier voodoo. They came back into the house and messed with the boxes in the house, called for a down load and we waited. We reset the "setting" "Aspect ratio" and behold a 50% improvement. Major improvement.

The HDMI input is still not as good as the RGB input. The HDMI on video still artifacts like a shattered DOT window. The white and black levels are way down. I like to watch the Sony LCD on Normal mode not Vivid mode. It's just too dark to watch via HDMI. Vivid the colors are too fake. Over modulated.

The signal is nowhere as good as the Dish Network was in my old home. It is on par with Comcast. It still has a considerable amount of noise in the picture. Grain like high speed film. If the HDMI were a clean signal it would be improved. I think the noise has to do with the amplification, boost and/or cosmic defribulation they added as well as the conversion to RGB from digital. However the signal boost helped alot. 

My conclusion is simple. When the contract runs low not out on the ATT Television part of our bundle, I'm going back to the DISH. These guys worked for two hours to make it right. They were very good at what they do. On the customer service aspect of the transaction I have to say that ATT went the distance. The cable strength and bit rate fell short.


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## se-riously (Mar 6, 2009)

I agree with AT&T Steve. You should have checked the signal strength before buying the house. Where are your priorities? :yes:


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## gwilks98 (May 3, 2008)

Cheeseboy said:


> My conclusion is simple. When the contract runs low not out on the ATT Television part of our bundle, I'm going back to the DISH. These guys worked for two hours to make it right. They were very good at what they do. On the customer service aspect of the transaction I have to say that ATT went the distance. The cable strength and bit rate fell short.


You can't get out of it based on picture quality still sucking?


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## imported_Cheeseboy (Feb 16, 2009)

gwilks98 said:


> You can't get out of it based on picture quality still sucking?


Maybe I should try. Good point.


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## imported_Cheeseboy (Feb 16, 2009)

se-riously said:


> I agree with AT&T Steve. You should have checked the signal strength before buying the house. Where are your priorities? :yes:


What was I thinking? I bought it in a short sale as is. 

We invested in a very expansive Home Inspection. Perhaps they should include signal strength in thier reporting. Good Suggestion. 

I should have brought in a team to check the living room acoustic properties as well. The wood floors and exspansive walls are a problem. There are room treatments in my future. The furniture arrangement and the speaker placement are ideal. It was tough enough to convince the wife that the room in the home we purchased must be a certain size and build. for Music. We have brought in a 10 x 10 area rug for the room. It has helped.


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## se-riously (Mar 6, 2009)

Cheeseboy said:


> I should have brought in a team to check the living room acoustic properties as well. The wood floors and exspansive walls are a problem. There are room treatments in my future. The furniture arrangement and the speaker placement are ideal. It was tough enough to convince the wife that the room in the home we purchased must be a certain size and build. for Music. We have brought in a 10 x 10 area rug for the room. It has helped.


Pure windowdressing. Assuming you'll let me come over, I won't be able to take my eyes off that (bad) AT&T picture quality. :biglaugh:


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## imported_Cheeseboy (Feb 16, 2009)

se-riously said:


> Pure windowdressing. Assuming you'll let me come over, I won't be able to take my eyes off that (bad) AT&T picture quality. :biglaugh:


You'll be OK if you wear the sunglasses with the built in notch filter. You are welcome anytime. Come up and we'll get you behind the wheel of one of our electric cars.

We've been in the house for 2 weeks. Window dressing works for me right now. Any window dressing.


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## se-riously (Mar 6, 2009)

Just let me try out one of the Zapinos, or better yet, the prototype Alias.


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## jlohrenz (Feb 25, 2009)

Not to thread-jack but I'm glad to hear people are/were happy with the dish. We're switching from Charter Cable to Dish (Silver 200 + HD) this weekend. It will save me about $90/mo the first year and about $75/mo after that. Plus I'm getting a ton more HD (70 compared to 10).

Jason


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## Cujobob (Feb 12, 2008)

I'm in the process of choosing between DISH and Directv myself...Directv has a few more channels I like but seems like it'd be quite a bit more expensive the second year. Comcast cable is absolute **** and I can't wait to get rid of it.

After you add in all the fees you're still saving that much?


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## imported_Cheeseboy (Feb 16, 2009)

I wish, I wish, I wish I stuck with DISH.

Now the box in the living room won't stay in HD. It has to be reset evey time I turn on the television.

Suc.


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## engtaz (Jul 9, 2010)

That is the problem with their boxes, if happening alot. See if there is an update for the cable box.


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## Scottfox (Jul 11, 2008)

where does Verizon's FIOS fall in all of this? After some initial teething pains when first installed for over a month, they came backed & fixed everything. Partially my fault in that we have 5 boxes, so the signal strength drops. Overall, I am very happy with the picture & sound quality. How do U find out what the bitrates are for a given system?


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