I am currently on Uverse and while I really like it (I despise TW as a company), I feel like I'm paying too much.

What do you guys pay and who provides your service?

I have 3 HD TVs(1 DVR reciever, 2 non-DVRs) and internet service (12Mb) and pay 150-ish a month.

6/30/2011 10:28:19 AM

have been thinking about getting Uverse.... while it seems like it is a bit more than TWC (currently paying ~120) I will gladly pay more if it means no more headaches dealing with twc's bullshit service and customerservice

6/30/2011 10:32:19 AM

Quote :

"I will gladly pay more if it means no more headaches dealing with twc's bullshit service and customerservice"

6/30/2011 10:34:06 AM

1 - log into your uverse account online
2 - drop your tv/internet service down to lowest levels, drop premiums
3 - promotions will appear to upgrade ur service
4 - ...
5 - profit

6/30/2011 10:37:10 AM

directv has by far the best picture available in the triangle. I pay $65/month for everything including sunday ticket, no contract. once race season is over if the NFL is not there, I'll be dropping pay-tv for hulu+ and netflix

6/30/2011 10:42:38 AM

I do the hulu+netflix thing on a Roku box for my tv. It's more than enough for me. For a while I missed getting the news, but NBC and Fox are now publishing to Roku so I can catch the broadcast sans commercials on like 30 minute delay

6/30/2011 11:18:17 AM

OP:

your price sounds about right. however, as synapse said, you can often get promotions (either outright, or by dropping down service).

directv is an option, though it comes with a 2 yr contract, and you still have to pay for extra boxes. then you also have to get internet from somewhere... when I was looking, i found that it was always cheaper to bundle with 1 company than to split the services - unless you can get good promotions/deals that will both last (or you make them last, hopefully) throughout your time at your place.

6/30/2011 11:32:57 AM

I have went from TWC to U-Verse and to DirecTV within a month and I can tell you that regarding picture quality DirecTV is far and away the best with U-Verse coming in last. U-Verse has nice features but whole home DVR is also available from DirecTV.

I got DirecTV through AT&T and bundled it with my U-Verse so hopefully I will be paying $45 - 15 for 6 months for internet. I also got NFL Sunday Ticket free for a year with DirecTV.

AT&T's billing scares me and I have heard bad things. If they jerk me around with the bills I will go back to TWC for internet. I really like having a hybrid setup with no TWC in my house for now.

6/30/2011 11:52:51 AM

There is no way in hell that TWC HD is better than Uverse HD. It's unpossible. Really.

6/30/2011 12:13:04 PM

Quote :

"I pay $65/month for everything including sunday ticket, no contract."

How is that even possible? I have Directv and pay $54 a month for the second highest package. NFL Sunday Ticket is $335 by itself.

6/30/2011 12:19:21 PM

I want to know how anyone gets anything out of directv without a contract. I offered to pay 25% to stay off contract and they turned it down.

6/30/2011 12:25:19 PM

That's because their system is set up to do everything via a contract. I just don't believe that the average customer could get NFL Sunday Ticket for free, pay $65 a month for every Directv channel, and still have no contract.


Do you work for Directv? Is this some kind of employee discount program? Seriously, I'm baffled.

[Edited on June 30, 2011 at 12:27 PM. Reason : costumer lol!!]

6/30/2011 12:27:19 PM

Quote :

"There is no way in hell that TWC HD is better than Uverse HD. It's unpossible. Really."

begin rant

It is sadly. What I don't understand about U-Verse is that they only have to send down ONE channel at a time and not the whole shebang. So it seems to me that they could offer the utmost quality but they do not. They use the superior MPEG-4 compression while TWC uses MPEG-2. I found a comparison chart weeks ago but can't dig it up. I think that the bitrate from TWC is higher than U-Verse so in the end it looks better even with MPEG-2 enconding. Some channels on U-Verse like TBSHD or COMHD seemed to have a higher resolution than on TWC but the colors in the picture were all faded and had a bluish tint. I'm not exactly sure what leads to this.

It was sad when I went from watching Lost on Netflix with X-High HD quality and switched back to a recorded show. The lack of quality was very apparent. To experiment I bought an OTA HD tuner and switched back and forth. The U-Verse compression is total ass. I am very picky about the picture on my 54" TV and as of now am extremely happy I made the move to DirecTV. I tried to move 4 years ago but they didn't have the technology to run everything down a single coax line. I should have called them two years ago when they finally could do it.

6/30/2011 1:13:49 PM

I have heard complaints about uVerse's picture/compression. when it comes to HD tho, I'm a simpleton and enjoy my sub-par compression

6/30/2011 1:42:41 PM

Some of this is in the eye of the beholder but during my googling most people consider U-Verse quality to be the lowest. Here are the numbers. I'm not sure what DirecTV passes down but I know it is MPEG-4 (maybe its somewhere around 8 Mbps). Anyways anyone who is using a tuner and downloading all their shit is a genius. I wish I could do that but with football and needing the Bravo channel to keep the GF busy while I play PS3 ....

Quote :

"Cable: 1920x1080i/59.94 @ 12 Mbps MPEG-2 (bad) U-Verse: 1920x1080i/59.94 @ 6 Mbps H.264 (not good :smileyhappy: ) OTA: 1920x1080i/59.94 @ 15 Mbps MPEG-2 (decent) AVCHD: 1920x1080p/24 @ 10 Mbps H.264 (nice) Blu-Ray: 1920x1080p/24 @ 25 Mbps H.264 (pristine)"

6/30/2011 1:49:22 PM

well it may just be infrastructure then because TWC has always looked worse than uverse ever did at my old place (twc looks like shit in my new place, too).

6/30/2011 1:51:36 PM

how much of the signal difference is area specific? Because I cannot imagine any "HD" service being worse than TWC's. wireless streaming HD content via netflix on my xbox has better picture quality.

6/30/2011 2:13:01 PM

TWC is shit. I think comparing U-Verse to TWC is like comparing dog shit to chicken shit.

6/30/2011 2:21:05 PM

I had a 2 year contract, signed up via AAA which got me my boxes for free, and had a ton of other promos that basically included everything for free if you just paid the amortized sunday ticket fee. 2 year contract ran out and I told them I was leaving and would use the nfl.com streaming/espn360 solution for football and sunday ticket was the only thing keeping me around. They offered me the sunday ticket promo price without a contract to stay and left my programming at choice xtra-HD (not xtra-plus-HD so I'm missing like 8 channels no one watches like sundance, mgm, and starz).

when I wanted another box for my room it was actually much cheaper/better for me to get a slingbox and a 3rd monitor, though you could use a tv as a 3rd monitor, and use my tv as the box. The dvr outputs to my tv out front and the slingbox at the same time. now that I have twc wideband I can watch tv on my phone or at work as well.

I've never paid for a box from directv. Read the directv thread, lots of great tips there and if this was helpful advice, PM me so we can both get $100 off our bills ($10/month for 10 months)

6/30/2011 3:34:04 PM

Hey smoothcrim I am new to DirecTV. Can I just buy some DirecTV compliant receiver for my upstairs bedroom and save on the monthly charges for the receiver? It is just a simple SD receiver.

6/30/2011 3:58:50 PM

you can buy them outright but they are very expensive. an sd receiver will run you at least $150

6/30/2011 9:03:27 PM