Replies to Readers

Have you tried component video? HDMI often has handshake issues and needs to be started in a specific order to work.

-L.L.

Only the HDMI port on the TV was free. Besides, HDMI is the wave of the future, right? And it's a consumer product, so the system is just supposed to work.

FYI, the U-verse DVR has two composite (yellow, red, white), one component (YPrPb), one S-video, one optical, and one RF (coax) output.

More concerning than the HDMI handshake is the digital rights management and copy restrictions Hollywood has forced into the protocol.

So this is an ATT package with phone, internet, and TV together?
How do they pass the bandwidth for the TV over copper? Or do they have some fiber at the street? Or am I out to lunch?!

Just curious. I'm always looking for ways I can make any provider (in this case TWC) not a monopoly.

- T.L.

Yes. The Residential Gateway supports television, Internet, and two Voice over IP phones.

The TV is Internet Protocol Television (IPTV). The DVR talks with the distribution node over an aDSL link and switches the programs there. This design engineers around the limits of solid copper lines and removes the need to pull optical fiber to the home (FTTH).

See the FAQ at UverseUsers.com.

So, are you still using Time Warner internet connection?

-G.D.

Yes. The month long trial is a test. A CATV line holds a lot of bandwidth, even more when digitized and compressed. Under TWC/Roadrunner, the TV and Internet services have separate networks on premises. The U-verse DVR and Internet service run over a single Ethernet network; let's see how well Internet and TV traffic play together. Then, if it works well, plays nice, and competes on cost, it stays.

I wonder how AT&T feels about the blog? If more people rubbed their noses in how it really works, they'd have to get it working better.

A friend of mine has Verizon FIOS in Ontario. It's really fast, non-compressed high definition video and it's really integrated with fiber.

-H.H.

What AT&T feels is immaterial; how well U-verse works isn't.

Verizon's FiOS costs a fortune to pull FTTH, and AT&T is working around the technical constraints of their existing copper infrastructure. For Verizon's $10BB outlay, AT&T can emplace a lot of distribution nodes on their network. Hopefully, their exploding box problem (hat tip to M.G. for the link) has been licked; the node in this neighborhood is large and would make a loud bang.