Anyone have Uverse? Especially if they switched from Tivo?

[Fairy]

We're really tired of waiting for Tivo and DirecTV to get back together like they insist they've been almost ready to do for, like two years, now. We have DirecTV, we were wanting to keep it, and we weren't willing to go with their DVR, we wanted real Tivo. And we really still do. Our Tivo box is 11 years old, I kid you not, and it's still working, but it's not HD, and it's really almost on its last legs. Just a matter of time before it dies. However, we're reading about Uverse, and we're starting to wonder if this is ever really gonna happen or if they're just stringing us along.

So, who has Uverse, and what are the drawbacks, especially if you switched from Tivo.

[khm]

Funny, my brother is in the same boat, except his beloved old Tivo did die. The guy told him, "next month". We're doubtful, but who knows?

That said, we have their DVR and think it's fine, and I HAVE lived with t real Tivo in the past (my brother's, he lived with us for awhile). ;) Our DVR just recently added the "double play" feature with a recent update. It is nice and one of the things I missed most from real Tivo.

I've heard great things about Uverse, but is it not available for us, so I can't comment directly.

[Gena]

We have Uverse and it's been great for us. No experience with Tivo though, so I can't compare them. We switched from Time Warner, which has terrible customer service in our area.

[wendmatt]

We have uverse but switched from basic Time Warner cable so don't have anything else to compare it to. I like having a DVR thingie, it's amazing!

[JTsMom]

We just got it a week ago- we just had cable w/DVR before that though- no Tivo. I'm not a tech junkie, so take this for what's it worth.

Downsides that I've noticed:
-You have to have a box for each TV. With the intro deal, we still saved a little though.
-Setting it up took over 6 hours. I kid you not. The guy was still here at 10 pm. Granted, there was some issue with our phone lines, but still.
-You don't get local weather channel forecasts, which are a staple for me. You can, however, get high/low temp on a different channel, for any zip- not the same though.
-We weren't able to keep our phone number-switched from Vonage as part of the package deal.
-The remote is hard to see in the dark- our old cable one lit up more. I know that's nitpicky, but it annoys me.
-There is a limit to how many "uses" we can have going at one time. If you know about this, skip my pathetic attempt to explain. LOL

Let's say you have 6 credits. If you are DVR'ing something in HD, it eats up 2. DVR'ing 2 HD channels eats up 4. Watching a HD channel also takes up 2. Watching a regular channel eats up 1. I'm not positive about the exact number, but I think that's about what DH says. Anyway, you can't be in like 3 separate rooms, all watching one channel, and all DVR'ing another. Clear as mud?! ;) Told you I'm not tech savvy. I know DH said it has something to do with bandwith, and how far away you are from something, and with our distance, that's what happened. They're working to improve it.

On the plus side, I LOVE being able to watch my DVR'd stuff on any TV, and I also love that there is no delay when switching from regular to HD channels, which was beyond obnoxious with our cable company.

[Mommy_Again]

We've had UVerse for over a year and love it. Hated our local cable company (doesn't everyone?!) so we jumped at the chance to make the switch.

Super cool features:
- program DVR from any tv in the house, and watch recorded program from any TV in the house. Start in one room and finish in another. Love this!
- Can record up to 4 at once (in my area) - if you are a TV junkie, this is a huge plus.
- Great selection of OnDemand movies and shows
- Very rarely have outage issues, and customer service is pretty good.

The negative as another poster said, is that you are limited to how many different boxes you can run at one time. We have 4 credits - so if we are watching an HD show and recording an HD show, we have to erase one to switch to something else. DH loves his HD so this is sometimes an issue. Different areas of the county have more/less "credits" - California, from what I recall when they installed for us, had like 8. This will only improve as time goes on.

It can take a while to access a live rep on the phone for service - so the trick I found was as soon as the automated system starts, I literally say "blah blah blah" - and the recording says "I am sorry, I cannot understand you. Transferring to a live agent for further assistance." Works every time!

When we got UVerse they were offering a $200 rebate, which I was all about. And the chance to tell Comast to suck it was pretty fun, too.

[gordo]

We just got Uverse - switched from using Replay (which is basically the same as Tivo). I like Uverse WAY better! I can record up to 4 shows at once which is awesome! Love that I can access my recorded shows on any TV in the house. Or like PP mentioned, start a show somewhere and then move to finish it up I don't have HD TVs, so I have a TON of room on the DVR. I think we currently have 200 shows recorded (DH records every freaking Law & Order, West Wing, etc!)

I can control my DVR from my iPhone! Big plus for me!

It did take a while to set up and they did have to come out a second time because things were messed up. But I haven't had any issues so far. The only big minus in my book is missing the Comcast OnDemand. They had a ton of kids shows/movies that I used a lot and there isn't really anything like it on UVerse. It also annoys me that PBS sprout is not on the package i have, which is over 200 channels.

[Fairy]

It also annoys me that PBS sprout is not on the package i have, which is over 200 channels.

This kind of concerns me. PBS channel 11, and Noggin (NickJr -- I just hate calling it that) are must-have show-stoppers. Discovery Kids and PBS Sprout are almost must-have's. What else does it not have? Yikes!

[lilycat88]

We switched to Uverse about 6months ago I think. LOVE IT! Before, we had Comcast and reached our breaking point with them...couldn't stand it anymore. Before Comcast, we had Brighthouse cable and TIVO. In fact, we still have a Tivo box sitting here somewhere with a lifetime Tivo membership. When we moved to this house 2 years ago, we never got around to hooking up the Tivo for some reason.

We loved Tivo but love Uverse better. The ability to record 4 things at a time is great and being able to replay recorded tv on any tv in the house is huge great. Particular channels aren't a huge issue with us because DD just adapts. I don't know what package we even have but I think it is the 300 one...we have Sprout.

DH was a bigger used of Tivo when we had it but neigher of us would go back to Tivo from Uverse.

[Fairy]

Ah, I see. So, you have different packages. Gordo had the 200 channels, lilycat has the 300 channels. Ok, I feel better about that :-) I think I'm just very leery to leave Tivo and DirecTV -- well, just Tivo, really. I'm really attached. I know the entire remote by feel, literallly, top to bottom, which is really good considering all the letters have rubbed off of the buttons.

These have been so helpful, thank you!

[lcarlson90]

I had Tivo for about 4 years and I loved it. We currently have Uverse and while there are things I like about it, Tivo was way smarter. For example, if you have a show recording and it goes 2 minutes late, it will not record the next scheduled show. It's not smart enough to start recording the next scheduled show a few minutes late. I really likes a lot of the features on Tivo. I would love to go back to Tivo at some point.

[Penny's Pappa]

The negative as another poster said, is that you are limited to how many different boxes you can run at one time. We have 4 credits - so if we are watching an HD show and recording an HD show, we have to erase one to switch to something else. DH loves his HD so this is sometimes an issue. Different areas of the county have more/less "credits" - California, from what I recall when they installed for us, had like 8. This will only improve as time goes on.

Here is my understanding of why that is. In a practical sense, you're really only ever running one box -- the main one with the DVR. All your extra boxes are fed data from that one box. The main box only has a limited number of TV tuners (which is, I think, what you're referring to when you say "credits") so you can't watch/record more shows, on ANY box, than the main box is capable of handling.

This is true of any DVR tuner, AFAIK. When we had Time Warner, we could only watch/record two shows at a time. We're pretty happy with the four tuners we now have with U-Verse (we don't have HD).

Again, that's just my limited understanding. Please correct me if I'm wrong!

Personally, I LOVE my U-Verse service, especially the Internet. Having dedicated bandwidth makes for a much more stable Internet experience than I was getting with RoadRunner.