As of yesterday I have subscribed to the new AT&T TV service. Here is my take on how things look so far.
My setup:
- Charter Spectrum 200/10
- AT&T VDSL2 18/2
- Dual WAN router
- VLAN 1 is uplinked to the dual WAN router and has failover internet access
- VLAN 99 is uplinked to the BGW210 and only has access to the AT&T gateway and services
- 1x uverse DVR and 2x uverse STBs hardwired to VLAN 99
- 3x C71KW-200 AT&T TV STBs hardwired to VLAN 99
As you can see I ran the UVerse IPTV service over its own VLAN. For now I have decided to plug the new AT&T TV STBs into the same VLAN so that they only go over my AT&T service. These are hardwired connections. The setup was easy. Plug everything in and turn it on. The first thing you'll do is pair the remote which is basically an idiot proof process. The STB will download updates and reboot. The process takes several minutes so be patient. I also noticed that the STB is very laggy after this first reboot and the live streams may cut in and out a few times. I suspect there is some initialization processes that may be invoked upon first time use.
My initial impression is positive. The STBs respond reasonably well to the remote commands. Navigation through the menus and guide are acceptably quick and snappy though it could be better in some areas. It's still a much better experience than the UVerse STBs so that's a win. Changing channels might be a hair slower than UVerse, but still acceptable. The guide does take a couple of seconds to fully populate especially the first time you pull it up and is probably a bit slower in this area compared to UVerse, but it wasn't a terrible experience. I'd much rather have the remote be snappy and responsive and tolerate the 1-2 second delay on the guide than deal with the annoyances of the UVerse experience.
Pros:
- For the most part the remote is snappy and responsive.
- Changing channels is acceptably quick.
- The voice commands work really well and I truly mean REALLY well.
- Netflix, YouTube, etc. are included by default.
- Except for the first 15 minutes after the initial setup when the STBs are laggy the streams seem to be pretty solid and reliable.
- The Android app on my phone works pretty well.
- My Logitech Harmony remote works well with the C71KW STB.
- Overall the OEM remote is pretty good.
- The OEM remote automatically learns how to operate the TV (probably figured it out via the HDMI link?).
- The C71KW has a small footprint.
Cons:
- The boot time is 100 seconds.
- It's pricey especially after the 12 month promotion.
- DVR recordings expire in 90 days (or 30 days according to some literature).
- No Amazon Prime app yet.
- The navigation arrow buttons on the OEM remote are blended together too much which makes it harder to "feel" which button you are pressing without looking.
Observations:
- Multicasting is not used for the live streams. If two STBs watch the same live stream it will double the internet bandwidth used.
- Multicast packets (like from the old UVerse IPTV) may have been aggravating one of my new AT&T TV STBs. There was some weirdness like failed channel changes and the like that was occurring. I enabled IGMP snooping on that particular endpoint switch and haven't had a problem since. Note...I am NOT saying that you need an IGMP snooping switch to run AT&T TV. I had an atypical situation where I was running BOTH the old UVerse and AT&T TV at the same time on the same switch and without IGMP snooping the AT&T TV STB was being flooded with multicast packets it didn't ask for.
Questions:
- What happens when I link more than one Google account? Will watch history, favorites, etc. be tied to the user or the STB as a whole?
- Is the experience different when I run things over my Charter Spectrum connection?
- Is the experience different when using different devices like my XBOX One?
I'm sure I'll have more pros/cons, observations, questions later as I learn more. And, of course, if anyone has a question please post and I'll do my best to answer it.
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