My Life, My World

I came home and fired everything up. I had no directory on my DVR box. I could get the little preview box in the lower left hand corner, but no directory.

A call into T2 Support let me to the reset where you hold the power in for five seconds. That fixed it.

Until I turned off my DVR to play PS3. When turning things back on again, no directory. Same as before. I had to do another reset.

Been busy with other things and no time to play around and see if it repeats. Lets hope it doesn’t. Had today not been MLK Jr. Day, I would have called ComCast to cancel my service. Maybe this is a sign not to? I hope not.

As I was writing the previous post, my phone rang.  It was a U-Verse rep..  He was reading my survey that I filled out yesterday and was calling to address some of my concerns.

He was concerned about some of the problems I reported and was very sincere about helping me work through them.  He gave me some additional codes that will get me into Tier-2 support through Feb. 10th.

My experience has shown that once you get past their horrible IVR and their Tier-1 people, you can actually get stuff done.

When looking at the DVR, you can’t see how full it is. ComCast always showed you a percentage of available space. This is something I miss.

My wife pointed out that when pausing and or watching a program from the DVR, you don’t get to see the bar across the bottom that shows where you’re at in the recording. I believe that this mostly occurs when doing the seven-second advance, which we use to skip through commericals.

Watched both football games today and outside of a few pauses and very brief scrambling of audio, both went very well. Better than what I’ve seen from ComCast. And based upon what I’ve seen on the forums, CBS has had its issues.

On a side note, I’ve officially unplugged my two ComCast boxes and my cable modem.  I believe that I’m going to call them tomorrow and cancel service, assuming no more major issues with U-Verse.

Here’s some additional information I received from AT&T:

This was happening on and off last night. I was on the phone three times. Here is the email response that I received from AT&T:

This is xxxx (xxxxxx) from ATT U-verse T2 support. I got off the phone with SPOC and they are aware of the problem. What is happing is the provider (FOX 59) is switching out some equipment causing the feed from FOX 59 to U-verse network to be broadcasted sometimes in Spanish. I apologize for the inconvenient and ATT is working hard on this issue. If you have trouble with this issues again, you can call back T2 at 877-293-9986 Code 7830 (until 1/20) or 7841 (until 1/28). We value your business. Thank you for choosing AT&T.

It would appear that my south-of-the-border experience isn’t new:

http://www.uverseusers.com/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,2/topic,3770.0

http://www.uverseusers.com/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,2/topic,3782.0

Well, tonight was my first negative experience with my three day old U-Verse install.

I was watching WXIN, Fox 59, on channels 11 and 1011.  All of a sudden the audio stream for the Simpsons and a very small part of the Family Guy was in Spanish.  Nothing was changed on the box.  I even checked another box in our bedroom.  Same problem.

All commercials were in English, but the program was in Spanish.  Then all of a sudden it cured itself.  As I sit here writing this now, I haven’t seen the problem resurface in the past 20 minutes or so.

I tried several other channels and none exhibited the problem.  I even switched over to Comcast to confirm it wasn’t a Fox 59 problem.  It wasn’t.

Calling to support was a total nightmare.  Then after 20+ minutes, probably 12 of which were on hold and giving them my phone number, address and verification information four times, I finally got to a second level tech.  By that time the problem had resolved itself.  The tech did give me the direct number to second level.  The catch is that the code he gave me is only good for seven days.  He did give me the following week’s code.  So at least if this happens again in the next two weeks, I’ll have a faster way into support.

I’m really looking forward to dumping Comcast….  I just hope the problems are minimal with U-Verse.

Purchased a new Slingbox today.  I had the Slingbox Tuner, but unfortunately in order take full advantage U-Verse, I needed to be able to control their box.  So I picked up the Slingbox AV from BestBuy.  I have no need/desire to get HD TV from remote, I just want to be able to watch what I have.

I was a bit concerned about the Slingbox supporting U-Verse.  However, I was pleasantly surprised when during the setup, AT&T U-Verse was one of the options.

On a side note, I have an EyeTV 250 for my iMac.  Unfortunately they get their service from TitanTV, who doesn’t support U-Verse currently.  I’ve emailed them asking about it, but nothing yet.

Anyway, I have the new Slingbox AV working, and have full control of my low-def box from remote.  I’ll definitely give it a shot from outside my network tomorrow, but since I had the Slingbox Tuner working fine before, I anticipate no problems.

So far, I’m impressed.  I’m looking forward to their future upgrades.

The AT&T tech that installed my stuff told me that the DVR takes two streams all the time, however I’ve learned that it only takes two when you’re recording and watching something else.

As far as the aspect goes, I can’t get it figured out.  Right now I’m watching a regular def Showtime channel.  My aspect on the VIP1216 is set to Widescreen.  My TV reports that I’m at 480p.  I’m connected via HDMI.  The screen is still both sides, the only way to get it stretch is to change the aspect of my TV, which in turn screws up the menu system, until I change the aspect back.  And regardless of what aspect I choose on the TV, it doesn’t fill the entire screen.

I wish the box would dynamically set the aspect based upon the output.  I can switch over to Comcast right now, and watch the same program.  The TV reports 480i, but the picture fills the entire screen of my 50″ Plasma.

I can get a full-screen image by putting my VIP-1216 into 720p mode, even though this isn’t an HD channel.

It does appear ok, using the h-fill aspect of my TV, but I need to manually change this on the TV, its not automatic.

Here’s another question:  If I’m recording in HD, I should be able to watch a non-HD program on the same box, right?  How to I switch to the other stream?  This would be the equivalent of the swap command on the Comcast remote.

Another thing I’ve noticed missing from Comcast is the reminder feature.  If you’re surfing the directory and see a program starting in a couple of hours, you can’t set a reminder for it.

All-in-all I’m liking it so far, and hope that I can keep it.  No major issues so far, and like you say, it sounds like it will only be getting better.  With Comcast, things just stay the same, which exception of your bill, which increases $6 every year.

Installed today. Here’s some notes regarding the installation:

I had a bit of trouble integrating the DSL it into my home network, but then again my home network is rather advanced. I have Cisco ASA (new version of the PIX) firewall, and a Cisco AiroNet wireless access point. I had them disable their wireless and had to jump through a few hoops to get their gateway to deliver its public IP address to my Cisco firewall. But its all running now.

I had the following installed:
1 - HD/DVR (Motorola VIP-1216 box)
3 - Motorola VIP-1200 Boxes

Here’s some general information that I didn’t know until the install today:

1). You receive four video streams. That is the maximum.
2). The DVR uses two of those streams, so only three of my boxes can be on at any give time.
3). It is not possible to have two DVRs or two HD boxes yet.
4). The boxes all connect via ethernet, which is really cool. I wasn’t expecting this, I was under the impression that I’d have to have a phone line next to each box.

They are supposed to be upgrading this, but who knows when?

Here’s what I’ve learned since the install this afternoon:

1). The Logitech Harmony remote can be programmed for the AT&T boxes.
2). I haven’t found an on-line directory service, like Titan TV that supports U-Verse yet. Which is a major bummer since I have an Elgato Eye-TV on a Mac that interfaces directly with Titan-TV (they do support comcast).
3). It doesn’t appear possible to record/watch an HD program without going to the recordings menu and watching it from there. I would have expected to be able to watch as it records, without the extra step.
4). There is no swap feature to switch between tuners (streams) like on Comcast.
5). No live tv button like on Comcast. So if you’ve paused and just want to skip ahead to live TV, you have to FF to it, I guess.
6). If you have a HD TV, (I have a 50″ Panasonic 1080p Plasma) the box has to be placed into a single aspect mode. It doesn’t appear that it switches automatically depending on content. This sucks, since if you move to regular TV from HD, the screen sits in the middle of my 50″ TV.
7). Changing aspects on your TV screws up the directory when you go back to it. You can cycle through your aspects to get it all to display on screen. I would have expect it to adjust to the current aspect.
8). There is only one digital audio output on the box. My Comcast box has both coaxial and optical outputs, which was nice, because I had my optical on my Blu-Ray player and the coaxial digital on my Comcast box. Since the install, I’ve moved my optical to the AT&T box and the coaxial to the Blu-Ray player. Maybe its time to get a new received with multiple optical/HDMI. But my Onkyo isn’t that old!

I’ll post more as I figure things out. Since I get the first month free and will be getting the $100 rebate check in a few weeks, I plan to keep Comcast until I know all is well. I’m really looking forward to calling Comcast and tell them to stick it. My cable bill just went though its yearly $5-$6 price hike.

In December of 2007, I received a letter from Comcast letting me know that effective January, 2008, my monthly bill would increase. This was not entirely unexpected, because the same thing happened last year. As it turns out my bill increased ~$6 per month. I believe it increased ~$5 last year.

While my bills continued to go up, my over all level of service from Comcast either stayed the same or decreased. I’ve been looking at other options for a while now (DirectTV, Dish Network). Unfortunately, by the time I configured their packages to match what I currently had, they cost was just as much or more than my current Comcast bill.

A couple of months ago, I learned of AT&T U-Verse. After hearing good things about it, I immediately came home and plugged my phone number in into their webpage. I was disappointed to find out the service wasn’t available at my home. So, I basically forgot about it until a couple of weeks ago. I surfed out their their website and plugged my phone number in again. This time it showed available, so I scheduled my appointed for Monday January 14th, between 12:00pm and 2:00pm.