This has to be the poorest excuse for journalism I've ever seen and not the sort of reporting I've come to expect from HTR. While it sounds like you feel you've been wronged, there is absolutely no attempt to be objective. Even to the point of name-calling, hyperbole, and a complete lack of any scientific testing. This is a personal rant attempting disguise as a review. You mentioned being "wireless" - are all the receivers connected wirelessly? Many people assume that this sort of data stream is all or nothing, like HDMI, which isn't true. As with any wireless data, there is error-correction built in for late or lost packets and this can affect video quality. Did you test your lines (if wired)? Did you test and adjust your settings on your transmit and receive devices (if wireless)? I'm sure the answer will be that this is a review of a "normal install & service", but what if it isn't? Not everyone lives in sunny SoCal and lives cloud-free 350 days a year. This is where a responsible journalist would have dug in deeper and broadened their report.

I've had U-verse for over a year now and love it. We replaced DishTV due to constant outages with storms and even heavy cloud cover. The video quality is generally much better and the reliability has been phenomenal. Having also had Cox in Las Vegas (HORRIBLE - poor reliability & quality on TV, constant outages on internet), Comcast in MD (Very Bad - very poor video quality, high cost), and DirectTV (horrible video quality and 30 second lags on the normal channel interface, but that was 5 years ago), we're extremely satisfied with our U-verse.

This is all running on the previously installed RG6 cable. The AT&T technician that did our initial install corrected some issues with the cables installed by the Dish installer (before we bought the house). He arrived on time and didn't make any mess, despite having to walk & crawl in the attic.

The only problems we had were due to the router that was initially used. Unfortunately, I can't remember the brand or model, but we went through 3 of them in less than a year. The last technician brought a 2WIRE 3800HG-B router and it's been smooth sailing for over 6 months. The video quality seemed to improve after that as well, so perhaps it's providing a better data flow and reducing the need for error correction at the receivers. The WiFi has also been much better with this router. Unfortunately the receivers are still the original Cisco (Scientific Atlanta) boxes. SA has always been infamous for providing lousy picture quality, but they manufacture most of the boxes for most of the service providers, so most of us will be in the same boat.

This has to be the poorest excuse for journalism I've ever seen and not the sort of reporting I've come to expect from HTR. While it sounds like you feel you've been wronged, there is absolutely no attempt to be objective. Even to the point of name-calling, hyperbole, and a complete lack of any scientific testing. This is a personal rant attempting disguise as a review. You mentioned being "wireless" - are all the receivers connected wirelessly? Many people assume that this sort of data stream is all or nothing, like HDMI, which isn't true. As with any wireless data, there is error-correction built in for late or lost packets and this can affect video quality. Did you test your lines (if wired)? Did you test and adjust your settings on your transmit and receive devices (if wireless)? I'm sure the answer will be that this is a review of a "normal install & service", but what if it isn't? Not everyone lives in sunny SoCal and lives cloud-free 350 days a year. This is where a responsible journalist would have dug in deeper and broadened their report.

I've had U-verse for over a year now and love it. We replaced DishTV due to constant outages with storms and even heavy cloud cover. The video quality is generally much better and the reliability has been phenomenal. Having also had Cox in Las Vegas (HORRIBLE - poor reliability & quality on TV, constant outages on internet), Comcast in MD (Very Bad - very poor video quality, high cost), and DirectTV (horrible video quality and 30 second lags on the normal channel interface, but that was 5 years ago), we're extremely satisfied with our U-verse.

This is all running on the previously installed RG6 cable. The AT&T technician that did our initial install corrected some issues with the cables installed by the Dish installer (before we bought the house). He arrived on time and didn't make any mess, despite having to walk & crawl in the attic.

The only problems we had were due to the router that was initially used. Unfortunately, I can't remember the brand or model, but we went through 3 of them in less than a year. The last technician brought a 2WIRE 3800HG-B router and it's been smooth sailing for over 6 months. The video quality seemed to improve after that as well, so perhaps it's providing a better data flow and reducing the need for error correction at the receivers. The WiFi has also been much better with this router. Unfortunately the receivers are still the original Cisco (Scientific Atlanta) boxes. SA has always been infamous for providing lousy picture quality, but they manufacture most of the boxes for most of the service providers, so most of us will be in the same boat.

Jim,

I'm sorry you feel the way you do about my approach and style of writing when it came to my review of AT&T's U-verse service. Was the review a rant in some places...sure. Did I try to find a silver lining in all that is wrong with U-verse...you bet I did. In the end did any of it truly matter...nope. In my experience (emphasis on my) after spending considerable time with U-verse in my home for a period of one year I found the entire service to be an utter joke. Now, I've since gotten reports that on the East Coast (where U-verse really has a following) U-verse is better, faster and more reliable than the service myself and others are receiving here in California. If that's true, then great-I'm happy for those individuals. However, in my "hood" it's average at best-and I'm being fair.

WIth regards to your issues about wireless. I stand corrected for the AT&T U-verse system, with regard to their DVRs, are not wireless-instead they use MoCA (Multimedia over Coax), which allows them to transmit data via Coax or CAT5 depending on how the installer has set them up. Knowing this and having dug deeper with the help of readers like yourself I say this new information makes AT&T U-verse even worse. Before I blamed outages, stuttering and general poor quality on a shoddy wireless signal and router-which isn't the case. AT&T U-verse really is THAT bad all by itself. No scapegoat or excuse required.

Lastly, I can't help but notice that you are defending U-verse after you, yourself, had to endure several of the very issues I wrote about in my "poorest excuse for journalism" review. You too have gone through several modems and are complaining of crap picture quality. Forgive me but I'm at a complete loss for I would not, nor do I, defend a product that is half cocked. You are free to bash me and my writing style. You're free to disagree with my tone. But near as I can tell, while you disagree with everything I appear to have said about U-verse, you've encountered most of, if not all of, the issues I wrote about yourself.

Thanks for reading and for taking the time to post. I sincerely appreciate it.

Andrew Robinson
Managing Editor
Home Theater Review

P.S. Special thanks to reader Daniel K. for catching my error about U-verse wireless and MoCA.

I live in northern California and had had U-verse service for the better part of a year now. I continue with it because for me the pros outweigh the cons, but there are very serious cons.

I have never had satellite service (surrounding hills and trees prevent line-of-sight), so I only have Comcast to compare it to. I watch mostly HD, on a 58-inch plasma TV.

Picture quality is OK. I have seen severe "image skipping" as described in the review, but rarely. I would say SD picture quality is possibly slightly better than Comcast. HD quality is inferior to Comcast on fast-motion content such as sports, but overall acceptable to my eye.

On-Demand content is much more limited than Comcast. But that's not something of much value to me.

On initial installation, I had severe audio-video sync problems. After multiple technician visits and a long process of proving it was not an inside-the-house problem, they found and removed a "bridge-tap" in a manhole down the street, after which the sync problems went away. (They also worked on a problem with a DSLAM remote box about the same time, which may also/instead have solved the problem.)

The most annoying ongoing problem is audio drop-outs, which the review mentions in passing, when the U-verse audio is set to surround sound. The dropouts vary from only once every half-hour or more, to once every few seconds, depending on channel and content. When the frequency is seconds, the channel is unwatchable. On the channels on which this occurs, it is completely repeatable and not an intermittent problem: the channel is never watchable.

The only workaround for the surround sound problem is to change the U-verse setting to stereo instead of surround sound.

There is a 1600-plus long message thread on the AT&T U-verse forum regarding this audio problem. AT&T tech support says it is a known problem requiring a software (or possibly firmware or hardware) fix, for which no timeframe is available. AT&T currently advertises that surround sound is a U-verse feature, but they know it doesn't work reliably. Some posters in the forum have reportedly sent formal complaints to the BBB and even their state's attorney general.

Nonetheless, I continue with U-verse because it gives me higher capacity DVR recording, with OK picture/audio quality as long as I don't use surround sound, at much less expense (for the channels I want) than Comcast.

I concur with Jim's comments. My setup uses the Mot VIP1225 STB and 2Wire 3800HGVB, and the HD quality is the best I've seen. The installer did have to swap the Mot box during installation because it kept resetting, and he seemed to be aware of this issue. My comparisons are from past Directv service and watching Comcast elsewhere.

I'm using the RGB to display the signal and have not tried the HDMI. Granted HDMI is supposed to be better than RGB, but every HW is different.

Andrew, I'm not sure why you're concerned about MoCA. Wired is always better than wireless in my book. The coax is HPNA3.0 and is running at 112Mpbs, which should be more than sufficient for any video streams.

As for the DSL connection, I've only had one retrain in 2 weeks. I consider that good compared to Directv dropouts.

I had the top package with two receivers, bundled with internet and phone. HD, SD, audio reception was excellent, equal to or better than my ComCast. With two boxes, I could record two HD plus 6 SD shows, adequate for my heavy user needs.

However, I just returned both of my boxes, though I am keeping (provisionally) the internet and phone.

My problems were exclusively with the DVR playback features. I bought my first VCR, a Betamax of course, back in 1985. I got my first DVR, a Panasonic Showstopper, in 2000 (with lifetime subscription for $100).

Sadly, the U-Verse playback was the worst I have had in 25 years. With such great recording capability, production made inexplicable decisions on playback. Two were disqualifying, to me:

1. Lack of slow motion. I use it constantly for sports. Comcast even has slow motion reverse. Replay has the easiest access, simply pressing the play button to toggle in and out of slow-mo. I hate that Comcast requires three buttons, but at least it works.

2. A travelling bar when you fast forward and reverse. I power-watch immense amounts of sporting events. I fast forward at high speed until an interesting point in the score appears, say break point in tennis. The bar obscures most scores. On Comcast, the damn bar comes up, but can be taken down with the exit button. The U-verse bar is a permanent, unremovable curse. Replay has no bar at all.

3. The 29-second skip is, as noted, a three-step, 2-seconds too slow process. Worse, you cannot press it twice to go forward a minute. You have to push, wait 2 seconds, then push again. My Mitsubishi VCR from the '90's had the multipush capability. Still, it's better than Comcast, which, like Tivo, omittted it. Replay, of course, is the best.

4. My two boxes were for two TVs, next to each other, a HD Bravia and a 12-inch tube I use for TV news, of which I watch 4 hours a day (related to my work), and HD is wasted on the talking heads. Replay offers a function whereby multiple remotes can use different signals, so each remote operates only its designated box and TV. The U-verse remotes had only the single shared signal. That by itself makes it impossible for my wife to watch the HD while I am watching news with my headphones on.

Even worse, you can't use one box without causing havoc on the other. I told the tech installer I could get around the single signal problem by manually turning on one box to do my programming. I was shocked after he left to find out the boxes turn themselves on with the OK key, which has to be used to do almost anything with the desired remote. That activates the other box, and you end up with random duplication and strange artifacts.

The only thing to do was cover one box with a long strip of duct tape when using the other. Absurd.

5. Ergonomically, the remote was the second-worst I've ever used. Too small, and the main replay buttons too high on the remote.

I've had AT&T phone service all my life, and still regret the breakup of Ma Bell. I'm very pleased with the current U-verse internet, much better than the BellSouth ISDN I switched away from in 2005. Uverse offers more channels--I signed up as soon as they added The Tennis Channel in HD--and, my being only 300 feet from the fibreoptic, I had great reception with no dropouts.

As bad as Comcast is compared to Replay (I have an old, non-HD box for my news shows; incredibly, Replay went mostly out of business despite, like Betamax, being technically far superior to the competition), I now appreciate it more, just as when I tried a Tivo a few years back. I had to go through 4 Comcast boxes to get one that worked alright, but now I count my blessings.

If ATT fixes the above problems, which I would thing would be incredibly easy, I'll go back. It is inexplicable to me that they would have such great hardware, but then consciously choose to offer far worse playback features than the competition. And didn't anyone over there ever try using two boxes at once? Don't they want to encourage price-insensitive types like me to order more of everything?

Thanks for a great site. I wish I had read it before I signed up, but feel I am helping someone else with the bad news about the bar and the dual box overlap.

Yup. This is pretty bad. You got a terrible technician, but that doesn't mean that Uverse is a terrible service. I've had it for over 2 years and have had minimal issues. We had some interference early in the installation, but AT&T sent two technicians to the house ON A SUNDAY to get it resolved. One guy worked the the line from the house to the box down the street while the other worked the lines in the house. They upgraded all my existing switches for free, ran a couple new cat5 lines to replace what was in the house from when it was built, installed filters and the tech even gave us his cell phone number in case we had issues with anything after he left. The techs we dealt with were amazing. This weekend we had a switch go out and they replaced it (at 9pm) with no charges as well. Our HD service is better than some I've seen and the guide is much better than Cox's. The internet has been MUCH more reliable than Cox, not to mention a lot faster.
I think you got a bad technician and possibly have something against AT&T. You're receivers, by the way, should be connected with cat5 rather than coax; that may be the reason for the quality issues.