AT&T U-verse customers have been complaining about lack of DVR (Digital Video Recorder) support that works throughput the home. Sure, you can get a single DVR box, but you can't view the recorded (or paused) content in the rest of the house. Part of AT&T's promise with U-verse was that you could watch digitally recorded content stored on a single DVR on any TV in the home. Sadly, this hasn't been the case, but from what I hear they're working on it. You could of course buy or rent a DVR in each room, but that is cost-prohibitive for most, and makes managing your recorded TV shows a nightmare!Fortunately, there is a DIY workaround that will enable you to view your centralized DVR content (as well as pause rewind/fast-forward live TV) by using a combination of RF coax splitters, IR (Infrared) repeaters, coax balun, Cat5 - RJ11 cable, and more - all using a single DVR set top box.
Essentially, you set your DVR STB (set top box) to SD mode which will allow the STB to output an RF Signal which can then be picked up by other STBs simply by switching to CH (channel) mode. What you've essentially done is output the DVR's signal over RF analog and then switched the remote STB from viewing AT&T's digital channels to viewing the analog channels. See? - sometimes analog TV signals come in handy!
It's too bad Congress mandated that analog TV be completely phased out by 2009. (I'm kidding, all digital will be a good thing)For the full DIY explanation of how to DVR-enable your entire home with a single DVR - including a diagram - go check out TheDigitalVault.
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We ordered U-verse and were shocked by what the salespeople DIDN'T tell us. I wrote about on my blog...
We just got the AT&T U-verse, we had dish network threw AT&T and was told "Yes you can pause live TV from any of the rooms, just like dish, etc. The truth was not told to us, and that really upset us after giving up our dish network.
The AT&T video is not fully truthful, they say you have total control over your TV, again not true. Only one DVR box in the main room and the other two boxes which you pay for each month that does nothing, we could not pause, tell it to record to the main tv, if there was something we saw watching tv in bed, we had to get up, turn on the tv system in the living room to tell it to record and by that time, you have missed part of the show you was going to record.
With dish we didn't have to do that, with this new U-Verse it's like going back in time not in the future. It's no different then setting up your vcr in your bed room, what is the point of having this service. Why are they charging for these boxes that does nothing. We have talked to AT&T and again, all they can say is we are sorry you was giving the wrong information, but we are trying to get our new costumers set up and we will get to the problems everyone is complaining about.
I asked them did you hear what you just said, if everyone is talking about these problems why haven you tried to fix them. Why do we have to wait, give me a time line, she could not. We will not be keeping the u-verse after only two days of having it. It's not worth it if you can't control your tv's for the systems your paying for each month, why should we pay for something that in the middle of the night we have to turn on the main tv to record something, another thing, turning your tv on and off is not good either. If your thinking of getting uverse think twice, keep your dish network.
Cindyrsdu
Have had Uverse installed here in San Diego for a couple of months. Installation was superb. Did have one receiver failure but it was replaced promptly.
Now the problems:
1 We have had "freezing" ie dropouts in picture and sound. These only occured in HD channel as we could switch to non HD of same channel and it was ok.
2 Did not opt for DVR but am able to use my VCR on the channel 3 output on the receiver. I do this on another receiver in another room so I can record on a different channel than we are watching. This works ok except---
I found blank tape recording due to the receiver (Motorola) timing out!! A call to Uverse got the reply that indeed the receiver does have an internal time out!!! I asked how long and she replied "five or six hours" So, if I leave the receiver on to the set channel and just turn the monitor/TV off, and the VCR timer is set for the day before the desired program is to view, we end up with the receiver shutting off ie timing out and we get a blank recording!!!! Uverse says there is no fix for this !!. So now I have to set up for recording no more than an hour before my program is to take place.
I guess I'm lucky to not have problem such as you guys..but hopefully in the future I won't as well. I was just wondering does it have something to do with the location or it's really the equipment...