[mythtv-users] MythTV with AT&T uverse

[Tim Hamer]

I've had uverse for a while now, and its ok not great. Better than cable by
a longshot, but I still haven't gotten around to using myth to record from
the boxes. They use motorola boxes that you cannot just go buy in the store,
but they give you a DVR box and two more regular boxes before charging
additional fees. I can't remember how much it is per extra box.

Yes, the new firmware allows two HD streams, which is very nice. The HD
quality is not outstanding, however, as it is still compressed. Hopefully
soon I'll be able to get something like the new Hauppauge HD capture box and
resume using mythtv for my recordings, which seems to be the best strategy
I've seen so far.

HTH,
Tim
On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 10:40 AM, Willy Boyd <willyboyd at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 4:48 PM, Brandon Mintern <bmintern at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> A representative came today trying to sell me AT&T's uverse plan. If I
>> had not already built a pretty expensive MythTV machine (4 320 GB HDDs
>> in a RAID 5, AMD X2 4200+, 1 GB RAM, 2 pcHDTV 5500 tuners, 1 Hauppauge
>> PVR-150), I would have switched on the spot (its 4 digital streams,
>> faster Internet, and lower price are all improvements over WOW). While
>> talking with the representative, however, I learned that the uverse
>> service uses IPTV, receiving only the requested channels on demand
>> instead of all of them as most cable companies do today. In my mind,
>> this is a much more scalable, intelligent approach to broadcasting
>> television and I view it as a step forward.
>>
>> That said, it also seems like it should be possible to tune these
>> channels directly without the need for a uverse set-top box, by
>> mirroring the same protocol. I suppose the problem then is that the
>> received stream is probably still encoded, which doesn't really get us
>> anywhere. The other alternative, of course, is to connect the MythTV
>> backend to the set-top box, but is there a way to tune more than one
>> channel at a time? So my initial question is: Has anyone had any
>> success with MythTV and uverse? If not, what are the best options in
>> the midwest (Columbus, OH), where my choices seem to be WOW, Time
>> Warner, and this new uverse?
>>
>> I've had this wonderful machine just sitting here for several months
>> because I haven't bothered to set it up -- there just seems to be no
>> easy way to get all the channels I want in HD while being able to
>> tune/record multiple channels at once. It seems the closest I can get
>> is to have WOW or Time Warner, have the two 5500s hooked up to the
>> coax, and have the PVR-150 (along with an IR blaster) hooked up to the
>> set-top box, but then I can't get channels like ESPNHD, TNTHD, and
>> STARZ ondemand in HD. Does anyone have any better-working
>> configurations?
>>
>> Alternatively, if I can't get something suitable working, is anyone
>> interested in some great MythTV hardware? ;-)
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Brandon
>> _______________________________________________
>> mythtv-users mailing list
>> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
>> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>>
>
> Sorry that I'm not directly answering your question, but I just wanted to
> throw out that I also am very interested in hearing as much about uverse
> from other Myth users as I can.  I'm in the Houston area and have been
> watching my service fees go up with Comcast ever since the switch from Time
> Warner.  I am SO ready to give Comcast the finger and uverse seems like the
> likeliest of targets to switch to right now.
>
> From what I know, supposedly the service now DOES support 2 simultaneous HD
> streams, which was a drawback in the past.
>
> However, just like satellite, it will require a tuner box on every single
> TV afaik.  We're one of those households that have 4 televisions because
> it's so easy to plug in a cable-ready tv to analog cable.  I will miss being
> able to do that, and have thought about odd video distributions schemes,
> wireless radio remotes, etc. to get all the tvs working again (thought of
> course not all at the same time).  Someday analog cable will go away as
> well, I'm sure.
>
> At best I'm thinking one dedicated box for the mythbackend, which means
> only one recording at a time from uverse.  Thankfully most of what we record
> is available OTA and the HDHomerun serves that purpose.  But how many boxes
> does uverse "rent you"?  Are boxes available commercially in stores, etc?
> Those are the sort of details I'm hoping to hear from people as well.
>
> Thanks!
> - Willy
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/attachments/20080926/bcbfd5cc/attachment.htm