# TiVo & AT&T UVerse - Something new?



## Joe Siegler (May 10, 2000)

Before you reply "Dude, use the forum search - that is a known issue", this is a possible new angle. I've been a TiVo customer for 14 years, and despite having AT&T UVerse for my home internet, I don't have TV. Because I know UVerse doesn't work with TiVo.

A few minutes ago (8:30PM? Seriously?) I had this sales team show up at my door from AT&T, and was notifying me of fiber upgrades in the area. OK, we started talking, and the guy figured out I knew what I was talking about as I was aware of a few things that the general public didn't know about with AT&T in this area (right outside of Dallas).

Anyway, they asked about TV, and I said I didn't have that. When they asked why, I gave 'em the standard reply, "Incompatible with TiVo".

Now here is where we get to why I'm posting. This guy was telling me that they "fixed" the problem with UVerse TV being incompatible with TiVo relatively recently. I find this seriously suspicious, but I let him talk. He said there's some sort of "converter box" that would sit between the TV system and the TiVo to make it work. When I sent a bunch of doubt his way, he was insistent that they fixed this.

I find this seriously hard to believe after all these years of it not working. But I'm throwing this out there JUST IN CASE there really is something going on where it would work with TiVo.

Bueller? Bueller?


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

Almost certainly nonsense. It's salespeople that are either misinformed or deliberately lying to make a sale. As far as I've heard, nothing has changed.


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## Joe Siegler (May 10, 2000)

LoadStar said:


> Nonsense. It's salespeople that are either misinformed or deliberately lying to make a sale. Nothing has changed.


That's what I figured, but I thought I'd throw it out there in case something was going on I didn't know about.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

Joe Siegler said:


> That's what I figured, but I thought I'd throw it out there in case something was going on I didn't know about.


You caught my ninja edit.  I had go go back and moderate my response slightly, given that there is a slight chance they were telling the truth... but no, I haven't heard of any such box.


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## cannonz (Oct 23, 2011)

Maybe he was at someones house that had a converter going to a series 2, did not realize you were thinking cablecard and HD.


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## Joe Siegler (May 10, 2000)

cannonz said:


> Maybe he was at someones house that had a converter going to a series 2, did not realize you were thinking cablecard and HD.


He knew. We were talking about Cablecard and SDV with Time Warner and all that crap. This wasn't a newbie chat we were having. He seemed to know what he was talking about. Which is why the TiVo/UVerseTV thing was so puzzling.


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## cannonz (Oct 23, 2011)

Joe Siegler said:


> He knew. We were talking about Cablecard and SDV with Time Warner and all that crap. This wasn't a newbie chat we were having. He seemed to know what he was talking about. Which is why the TiVo/UVerseTV thing was so puzzling.


Would be nice if true, I would like to get Prism.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

Joe Siegler said:


> Before you reply "Dude, use the forum search - that is a known issue", this is a possible new angle. I've been a TiVo customer for 14 years, and despite having AT&T UVerse for my home internet, I don't have TV. Because I know UVerse doesn't work with TiVo.
> 
> A few minutes ago (8:30PM? Seriously?) I had this sales team show up at my door from AT&T, and was notifying me of fiber upgrades in the area. OK, we started talking, and the guy figured out I knew what I was talking about as I was aware of a few things that the general public didn't know about with AT&T in this area (right outside of Dallas).
> 
> ...


That would some box between the U-Verse IP HDTV and than converting that signal to Quam for all the channels, not possible as U-Verse has only about 4 to 6 channels at the same time and all can't be HD at the same time. Have them show you their cable card ha ha. The HD TiVos have no output to changer channels unless some type of USB output is connected to some type of tuner adapter. U-Verse IMHO would not go through the trouble of such a development for the few TiVo customers they may get.

The people that have done this use a Series 2 and an IR blaster and a U-Verse box at each Series 2 TiVo, your HDTV does not look very HD using this system.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

He was either lying to make a sale or he didn't know what he was talking about.


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## Pacomartin (Jun 11, 2013)

Joe Siegler said:


> Before you reply "Dude, use the forum search - that is a known issue", this is a possible new angle.


I tried some searches, and I found this recent article that describes TiVo as the spoiler in this lawsuit. Is there a quick defense or a link to something in the forum?



TiVo Law Suit Might Affect IPTV Future said:


> *There could be little worse than a guilty verdict in the TiVo vs. AT&T law suit from the standpoint of the average consumer.*
> 
> After all, if nearly any home theater device or gaming console can also be a DVR STB, then where will that leave dedicated DVRs? Chances are that it would leave devices such as TiVo in the pages of history books, and in museums dedicated to gadgets.
> 
> Source


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

tarheelblue32 said:


> He was either lying to make a sale or he didn't know what he was talking about.


Or has been lied to by his "trainer".

Most, if not all, of these door-to-door U-verse sales people don't actually work for AT&T but as contractors for a third party.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

Sure, they have a converter box that will work with a TiVo. A Series 2 TiVo.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

Must be the same sales team that appeared at my door several months ago. I was having fun politely debunking everything the leader claimed and even invited them to come in, get on the internet, and find the word CableCARD anywhere on AT&T's website. They declined, but the guy eventually got so upset that he took a swing at me and his two trainees had to hold him back.

When I grabbed my cellphone to call 911 they took off and haven't been seen in the subdivision since. Maybe they moved from Pasadena to Garland.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

Pacomartin said:


> I tried some searches, and I found this recent article that describes TiVo as the spoiler in this lawsuit. Is there a quick defense or a link to something in the forum?


The article is dated Sept 2014, but Tivo filed that suit in 2009 and AT&T (predictably) settled 3 years ago. The tortured argument over IPTV is mostly unnecessary as Tivo has embraced IPTV, they just lobby for continued 3rd party access to the content. Nothing more or less.


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## Diana Collins (Aug 21, 2002)

The article also states that Uverse has 20 million subscribers. AT&T wishes it had that many. They are currently at about 6 million. They only pass 24 million homes with their service, so they would need about 90% of those homes to subscribe to reach 20 million.

That website is a curated site...they just reprint content from other sites.


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## Pacomartin (Jun 11, 2013)

Diana Collins said:


> That website is a curated site...they just reprint content from other sites.


Thank you for that. Sort of sucks that an article dated Sep 2014 would have five year old information. There oughta be a law.


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## cannonz (Oct 23, 2011)

Pacomartin said:


> Thank you for that. Sort of sucks that an article dated Sep 2014 would have five year old information. There oughta be a law.


At least the pic was current, a single tuner S2.


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## MikeAndrews (Jan 17, 2002)

Ignorance. At least not intentional like when Comcast and DirecTV salesdroids were assuring you that you'd get "a TiVo" when they meant a DVR.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

MikeAndrews said:


> Ignorance. At least not intentional like when Comcast and DirecTV salesdroids were assuring you that you'd get "a TiVo" when they meant a DVR.


Even with U-verse, I think some of it is intentional. And it could be ignorance with some Comcast and DTV sales people also.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I'm curious, how exactly do Uverse boxes connect to their network? Do they plug right into the phone jack and use the DSL signal directly? Or do they connect to the local network and talk to a central modem? Or is there some box on the side of your house that converts the signal to like MoCa or something so you can use coax?


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## cannonz (Oct 23, 2011)

Dan203 said:


> I'm curious, how exactly do Uverse boxes connect to their network? Do they plug right into the phone jack and use the DSL signal directly? Or do they connect to the local network and talk to a central modem? Or is there some box on the side of your house that converts the signal to like MoCa or something so you can use coax?






 can use coax or cat5/6


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

So basically it's a special modem that then uses either MoCa or ethernet to talk to the individual boxes via standard IP. 

So really there is nothing that precludes a Roamio from working with U-verse other then a licensing deal that would allow the TiVo to talk to the modem and receive the TV channels. I wonder if TiVo and AT&T have ever talked about this? Since U-verse isn't regulated the same as cable the FCC doesn't force them to make their service accessible to 3rd party boxes, so the only way this is ever going to happen is if AT&T and TiVo strike some sort of deal.


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## MikeAndrews (Jan 17, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> So basically it's a special modem that then uses either MoCa or ethernet to talk to the individual boxes via standard IP.
> 
> So really there is nothing that precludes a Roamio from working with U-verse other then a licensing deal that would allow the TiVo to talk to the modem and receive the TV channels. I wonder if TiVo and AT&T have ever talked about this? Since U-verse isn't regulated the same as cable the FCC doesn't force them to make their service accessible to 3rd party boxes, so the only way this is ever going to happen is if AT&T and TiVo strike some sort of deal.


They also can connect within the home over the POTS phone lines with HPNA and can be wireless on a separate VPN.

The boxes run Windows CE and the whole system is Microsoftish. You'd think that first place UVerse could interconnect would be with Windows Media Center.

Methinks, like with other MSOs, there's nothing in interoperating for AT&T and the MPAA would have conniptions.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

Brief description of U-Verse: 
- either VDSL2 or, in a small number of areas, fiber to the home. 
- the Residential Gateway is a DSL modem (or ONT) that connects the home to the U-Verse network 
- the receivers connect to the Residential Gateway via Ethernet over Coax HPNA (not MoCA), via standard ethernet, or wireless.
- the channels are a series of MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) multicast IP streams, encapsulated into an encrypted MPEG-2 transport stream.

Right now, I don't see that the TiVo would be able to be easily modified to receive U-Verse.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

But the point is it's using standard TCP/IP to talk to the "gateway", so there is no reason a TiVo couldn't work on the system other then the fact that it's closed and AT&T wont allow it. 

Although from what I've read most people with Uverse are limited to 4 streams at a time, so a Roamio Plus/Pro wouldn't work to it's full potential even if it could be paired with the service. 

Honestly the more I read about it the whole service sounds crappy. Low bitrate video, limited to 4 (some cases 6) simultaneous streams, complicated setup, etc... no wonder AT&T wants to buy DirecTV.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

LoadStar said:


> Brief description of U-Verse:
> - either VDSL2 or, in a small number of areas, fiber to the home.
> - the Residential Gateway is a DSL modem (or ONT) that connects the home to the U-Verse network
> - the receivers connect to the Residential Gateway via Ethernet over Coax HPNA (not MoCA), via standard ethernet, or wireless.
> ...


Why not? TiVos have Ethernet and they support H.264/TS. Seems like a simple software update to allow authentication and add the tuning API is all that would be needed. If the user doesn't have ethernet to a location then a simple HPNA bridge or even wifi could be used instead. Or you could put a MoCa bridge at the gateway and convert the Ethernet to MoCa so the TiVo could work without a bridge on it's end. Or you could use powerline like the guy in the video posted above. One good thing about IP networking is it's pretty flexible.


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## slumber (Dec 27, 2014)

The discussion here assumes this incompatibility is AT&T's fault.

Long time Tivo user, and U-Verse DVR has horrible human factors;
not even close to Tivo.

I moved, and was forced to switch to AT&T U-Verse because that was the only internet available in the area. Irritated that I couldn't use coax to connect Tivo to Motorola vip2250 receiver.

But that's Tivo's fault. The only Input choice is coax.

There are two other HDTV connection options from that AT&T receiver,
but my choice is for Tivo to provide an hdmi input.

Then it's just: Receiver -> hdmi -> Tivo hdmi-in ; 
Tivo -> hdmi-out -> TV
and we're done ... almost ... still have to provide Tivo with a mechanism
to switch channels. There is no IR receiver on the Motorola box.

> Only 6 million AT&T U-Verse customers

That's still way too many Tivo customers to lose.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

slumber said:


> The discussion here assumes this incompatibility is AT&T's fault.


It is. They chose a crappy technology because it was cheaper to build out.



slumber said:


> I moved, and was forced to switch to AT&T U-Verse because that was the only internet available in the area. Irritated that I couldn't use coax to connect Tivo to Motorola vip2250 receiver.
> 
> But that's Tivo's fault. The only Input choice is coax.
> 
> ...


That kind of setup would limit you to a single tuner. If that's all you want, then just go buy a used Series 2 and hook it up that way.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

There are PC based capture cards that support component or HDMI input. If you really want a setup like that you could build an HTPC. But like tarheel said it will only support one tuner, which may not be ideal.


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## slumber (Dec 27, 2014)

> Single tuner

Ooops ... of course. Thanks.
I'm using Tivo 3 because of the HD support.

U-Verse option 480 has some 850 stations in the lineup.
All of the lower numbered stations are standard video, adding 1000 gets you the High Definition version of the same channel.

So I deleted every channel below 1000 ... and all the Shopping Channels ... and all of the "Paid Programming" channels, so now it is possible to browse and actually find something worth watching.


I made another discovery tonight about U-Verse.

I've been unable to understand any dialog from recorded shows.
It is all garbled ... I can go for 10 minutes and realize I haven't understood
a single word that was said.

Try turning up the volume: Nope, doesn't help at all.
I thought it was just poor recording/playback technology.

Then I realized I had the same problem understanding dialog watching live TV.

While I was deciding what to do about my Tivo -vs- U-Verse problem, I hooked up the Tivo via HDMI to the same TV. Can't record anything new, but I can watch recorded programs 

No problem understanding the dialog at all. I had blamed U-Verse, then the Panasonic TV sound system. Tivo made it clear it is the digital distribution of video and sound coming from AT&T that is the problem.

That's my story and I'm sticking with it ... until the experts in this wonderful forum point out where my logic failed.

Thanks ---


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

I'm confused - what's your story, that the U-Verse receiver you're using has garbled sound? Because that's all that I got out of your post. What does that have to do with a Tivo when you watch recordings?


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Diana Collins said:


> The article also states that Uverse has 20 million subscribers.


They might have erroneously used the total number of U-Verse customers (I'm not sure what the number actually is), including IP-ADSL, POTS, VOIP, and VDSL in that number, without bothering to differentiate that the lawsuit only applies to VDSL customers that also subscribe to the VDSL-based TV service.



lessd said:


> That would some box between the U-Verse IP HDTV and than converting that signal to Quam for all the channels, not possible as U-Verse has only about 4 to 6 channels at the same time and all can't be HD at the same time.


You are WAY overthinking this. U-Verse is IPTV, it could be compatible with a Premiere or Roamio via Ethernet if AT&T gave TiVo an API to work off of. But hell will freeze over before that happens.

U-Verse sucks anyway, but people who want U-Verse will have to wait until a universal gateway standard is developed that works across all TV providers, including satellite, IPTV, and QAM.



LoadStar said:


> Brief description of U-Verse:
> - either VDSL2 or, in a small number of areas, fiber to the home.
> - the Residential Gateway is a DSL modem (or ONT) that connects the home to the U-Verse network
> - the receivers connect to the Residential Gateway via Ethernet over Coax HPNA (not MoCA), via standard ethernet, or wireless.
> ...


Mostly correct. The RG isn't the ONT, the RG connects to a separate ONT via Ethernet.

And how is it MPEG-2? It's MPEG-4 AVC. It can't be both...

It wouldn't be technically hard for a TiVo receive U-Verse TV over Ethernet, if both TiVo and AT&T wanted to support it.



Dan203 said:


> But the point is it's using standard TCP/IP to talk to the "gateway", so there is no reason a TiVo couldn't work on the system other then the fact that it's closed and AT&T wont allow it.
> 
> Although from what I've read most people with Uverse are limited to 4 streams at a time, so a Roamio Plus/Pro wouldn't work to it's full potential even if it could be paired with the service.
> 
> Honestly the more I read about it the whole service sounds crappy. Low bitrate video, limited to 4 (some cases 6) simultaneous streams, complicated setup, etc... no wonder AT&T wants to buy DirecTV.


Yeah, most U-Verse users are limited to 4 streams. FTTH is either 6 or 8 HD. It is a crappy kludge to avoid having to pay for a fiber build-out. The problem is, they have already fallen behind the cable providers, who just keep cranking the bandwidth up.



Dan203 said:


> Why not? TiVos have Ethernet and they support H.264/TS. Seems like a simple software update to allow authentication and add the tuning API is all that would be needed. If the user doesn't have ethernet to a location then a simple HPNA bridge or even wifi could be used instead.


Pretty much. It could work over Ethernet, but likely they would have to release an HPNA bridge for TiVos for most installations where only coax is available.



slumber said:


> That's still way too many Tivo customers to lose.


TiVo's customers don't subscribe to U-Verse because of TiVo. They will go to the local incumbent instead, so it's AT&T that loses. There are very, very few places that have U-Verse that are beyond the reach of HFC plants.



tarheelblue32 said:


> It is. They chose a crappy technology because it was cheaper to build out.


Sort of. Their choice of IPTV was actually ahead of it's time, although it was forced by their use of VDSL. IPTV could also be run over FTTH, i.e. the small pockets of U-Verse Gigapower, and Google Fiber. Verizon chose QAM over IPTV, because it was a more established technology. That wasn't very forward thinking, although it worked out really well for TiVo users, since it forced them into CableCard support, and still leaves Verizon with an upgrade path to IPTV in the future.


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## MikeAndrews (Jan 17, 2002)

HDMI _*input *_i_s illegal_, chum. The whole point of HD*CP* is copy protection, meaning no digital recording.

I have a UVerse receiver connected with HD component cables to a dedicated to a El Gato EyeTV HD and that works. Getting content off of the El Gato is less than trivial but it works.

I think the U Verse UI is the best thing next to a TiVO. It is very similar. You just have to adapt your TiVo remote muscle memory for the different type peanut remote.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

Bigg said:


> Mostly correct. The RG isn't the ONT, the RG connects to a separate ONT via Ethernet.


Fair enough; the number of areas that have U-Verse in optical are so small that I've only heard rumors of how it works.



> And how is it MPEG-2? It's MPEG-4 AVC. It can't be both...


MPEG-2 transport stream is a "container format." It doesn't define the codec, only the transport layer of the video. Think of it like an envelope - saying "#10 envelope" doesn't define what is inside the envelope, it only defines the physical shape of the envelope.

MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 defines the codec used. You can encapsulate a MPEG-4 AVC encoded video into an MPEG-2 transport stream.

ETA: something I just remembered: M2TS, the format used for Blu-Ray, is in fact an MPEG-2 transport stream (with some modifications) that can contains an AVC encoded video.


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## Joe Siegler (May 10, 2000)

MikeAndrews said:


> HDMI _*input *_i_s illegal_, chum. The whole point of HD*CP* is copy protection, meaning no digital recording.


What about the Xbox One and their HDMI input? While you can't DVR it at the moment, there's talk that might come at some point.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

MikeAndrews said:


> HDMI _*input *_i_s illegal_, chum. The whole point of HD*CP* is copy protection, meaning no digital recording.


As long as the device is HDCP complaint, it is perfectly legal to have an HDMI input. As pointed out above, XBox Ones have an HDMI input, and so do SlingBox 500s.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

LoadStar said:


> Fair enough; the number of areas that have U-Verse in optical are so small that I've only heard rumors of how it works.


Yeah, there's only a few pockets, mostly new developments. There are some posts on DSLR about it. Many of the customers that started on BPON got screwed, as for several years, their BPON was provisioned slower than copper VDSL, until it was upgraded for Gigapower and GPON.



> MPEG-2 transport stream is a "container format." It doesn't define the codec, only the transport layer of the video. Think of it like an envelope - saying "#10 envelope" doesn't define what is inside the envelope, it only defines the physical shape of the envelope.


I get the concept of a file container, like .mkv, which can be encoded in just about anything under the sun (usually x264 or xvid, but all sorts of stuff is possible).



> MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 defines the codec used. You can encapsulate a MPEG-4 AVC encoded video into an MPEG-2 transport stream.
> 
> ETA: something I just remembered: M2TS, the format used for Blu-Ray, is in fact an MPEG-2 transport stream (with some modifications) that can contains an AVC encoded video.


Why on earth would you put MPEG-4 video into a contained designed for MPEG-2? That makes no sense. It sounds like trying to put a Mustang engine in a Civic or something.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

Bigg said:


> Why on earth would you put MPEG-4 video into a contained designed for MPEG-2? That makes no sense. It sounds like trying to put a Mustang engine in a Civic or something.


Not really. Given that it is a container format, and therefore "extensible" in that you can use whatever encoding method, there's no reason that MPEG-2 Transport Stream wouldn't still be suitable to carry AVC encoded content. In fact, per Wikipedia: "The functionality of a transport protocol stack for transmitting and/or storing content complying with ISO/IEC 14496 is not within the scope of 14496-1 [MPEG-4 Part 1] and only the interface to this layer is considered (DMIF). Information about transport of MPEG-4 content is defined e.g. in MPEG-2 Transport Stream, RTP Audio Video Profiles and others."

In other words, it sounds like they basically said "If it ain't broke - don't fix it... keep using MPEG-2 Transport Stream."

BTW: if there is any doubt, scroll down this page to the question from "rchadwic." The expert from AT&T provides a terrific amount of detail about the U-Verse architecture.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

Bigg said:


> You are WAY overthinking this. U-Verse is IPTV, it could be compatible with a Premiere or Roamio via Ethernet if AT&T gave TiVo an API to work off of. But hell will freeze over before that happens.


Sure TiVo could be compatible with most anything xmitting a cable ch. but we are talking about the current retail TiVo as it is today, and it is not compatible nor can we purchase any equipment to make a 6 tuner TiVo compatible to U-Verse. I can't answer the question if TiVo will ever make a DVR compatible with U-Verse, ATT did it so it is technical possible if TiVo and ATT wanted to do it, but my money is on TiVo never doing it.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Bigg said:


> Why on earth would you put MPEG-4 video into a contained designed for MPEG-2? That makes no sense. It sounds like trying to put a Mustang engine in a Civic or something.


MPEG-2 is a spec that contains several parts which define different things. Part 1 is the transport stream AND program stream containers, part 2 is the video codec. It also contains two audio codecs, including the initial version of AAC. MPEG-4 also contains several parts. It includes a container (MP4), two video codecs MPEG-4 part 2 which is essentially what DivX/Xvid was and MPEG-4 part 10 which is H.264/AVC, a revised version of AAC which is the one most commonly used, as well as a bunch of other things. (There are 31 parts in MPEG-4)

The TS container is not designed for MPEG-2, it was designed for broadcasting to allow random access to a stream without needing a header. It's also used for BluRay discs. Although they use a slight variation with 192 byte packets, instead of 188, which contain some more timing bits that make them better for a local storage container rather then a streaming container. A lot of web video also uses the HLS format, which is basically a bunch of short TS segments linked together with a playlist file. The TS format is not designed for any specific codec, it was designed for a specific purpose, namely live broadcasting.

There are two main difference between a TS and a file based container like MP4 or MKV.

1) File based containers have a single header with all the information about the streams in the file. TS files have a special packet called a PMT that is repeated several times a second that contains all the info about the streams so you can grab any chunk of a TS and it's still playable.

2) TS files use a muxrate so that broadcasters can have a constant data rate for a given "channel". This allows them to approximate seeking simply by using byte based calculations. If a given bit of the stream is smaller then the muxrate it's padded with null packets (0s) to maintain the data rate. If it exceeds the muxrate then it causes an underflow which can result in sync issues depending on how the decoder is designed. Broadcasters typically set the muxrate of the stream much higher then the max possible for the combined audio and video to avoid underflows.

The original intention of the MPEG-2 part 1 spec was to use TS for live streams and PS for file based storage. But BluRay changed that when they extended the TS format to work better as a file based format. Although even the original 188 byte streams work fine for local playback in most cases.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

LoadStar said:


> In other words, it sounds like they basically said "If it ain't broke - don't fix it... keep using MPEG-2 Transport Stream."


That really weird. How do cable providers that use H.264 do it? Are they using an MPEG-2 container too, or are they going fully to MPEG-4?



lessd said:


> Sure TiVo could be compatible with most anything xmitting a cable ch. but we are talking about the current retail TiVo as it is today, and it is not compatible nor can we purchase any equipment to make a 6 tuner TiVo compatible to U-Verse. I can't answer the question if TiVo will ever make a DVR compatible with U-Verse, ATT did it so it is technical possible if TiVo and ATT wanted to do it, but my money is on TiVo never doing it.


My point is that U-Verse is technically compatible with TiVo without additional hardware, due to TiVo's IPTV architecture. I'm sure hell would have to freeze over before AT&T open up to TiVo, but it is, at least theoretically, possible. And VDSL installations would still be limited to 4 "tuners", basically one Roamio Basic. U-Verse was crippled from the get-go because of it's reliance on century-old copper technology. At least with FTTH, they could have scaled the IPTV to 8 or 12 or 16 "tuners" if they wanted to. I say "tuners" not tuners, since IPTV doesn't really tune anything, it's just a QoS'ed stream running on a private IP network.



Dan203 said:


> MPEG-2 is a spec that contains several parts which define different things. Part 1 is the transport stream AND program stream containers, part 2 is the video codec. It also contains two audio codecs, including the initial version of AAC. MPEG-4 also contains several parts. It includes a container (MP4), two video codecs MPEG-4 part 2 which is essentially what DivX/Xvid was and MPEG-4 part 10 which is H.264/AVC, a revised version of AAC which is the one most commonly used, as well as a bunch of other things. (There are 31 parts in MPEG-4)
> 
> The TS container is not designed for MPEG-2, it was designed for broadcasting to allow random access to a stream without needing a header. It's also used for BluRay discs. Although they use a slight variation with 192 byte packets, instead of 188, which contain some more timing bits that make them better for a local storage container rather then a streaming container. A lot of web video also uses the HLS format, which is basically a bunch of short TS segments linked together with a playlist file. The TS format is not designed for any specific codec, it was designed for a specific purpose, namely live broadcasting.
> 
> ...


So is cable TS based since it's broadcast? If it is, then how does TiVo (or anything else) deal with channels that are stat multiplexed, and have bitrates that run all over the place?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Cable is TS based as well. But as I mentioned above broadcasters use a constant muxrate for each stream. So even if the video bitrate is "all over the place" they simply pick a muxrate that's high enough to include the peak, then pad out the stream using null packets to maintain the constant muxrate. Stat multiplexing actually avoids wasting bits on null packets by muxing multiple "channels" into a single TS stream allowing the bitrate of one "channel" to use up the extra bits, while still maintaining a constant muxrate for the entire stream. I'm not exactly sure how the tuner technology works in that case, but I assume that the CableCARD spec or the QAM spec has some standard for dealing with stat muxing multiple channels into a single stream. Maybe the channel map includes a map to the PIDs that belong to the channel?


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## Diana Collins (Aug 21, 2002)

Bigg said:


> ...So is cable TS based since it's broadcast? If it is, then how does TiVo (or anything else) deal with channels that are stat multiplexed, and have bitrates that run all over the place?


That's why they record live TV...so they have a known bit rate/offset to use for trick play.

Don't confuse MPEG-2 transport with the MPEG-2 codec. While they are both part of the same spec, they deal with different technologies. A rough analogy would be compressed files (equivalent to the codec) and email/SMTP (the transport protocol). I can pack any flavor of compressed file ("classic" DEFLATE/Huffman-Lempel-Ziv, BZip, LZMA, PPMd, etc.) I want as the attachment and the file gets delivered. I can attach file types that didn't even exist when the email software was written. The transport is independent of the contents.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> Cable is TS based as well. But as I mentioned above broadcasters use a constant muxrate for each stream. So even if the video bitrate is "all over the place" they simply pick a muxrate that's high enough to include the peak, then pad out the stream using null packets to maintain the constant muxrate. Stat multiplexing actually avoids wasting bits on null packets by muxing multiple "channels" into a single TS stream allowing the bitrate of one "channel" to use up the extra bits, while still maintaining a constant muxrate for the entire stream. I'm not exactly sure how the tuner technology works in that case, but I assume that the CableCARD spec or the QAM spec has some standard for dealing with stat muxing multiple channels into a single stream. Maybe the channel map includes a map to the PIDs that belong to the channel?


Ooooooooh, that makes more sense. They have a series of fixed streams that are 38mbps, and might have 2 HDs and some SDs wrapped up together, or 3 HD's, all in one "stream".


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

Bigg said:


> My point is that U-Verse is technically compatible with TiVo without additional hardware, due to TiVo's IPTV architecture. I'm sure hell would have to freeze over before AT&T open up to TiVo, but it is, at least theoretically, possible. And VDSL installations would still be limited to 4 "tuners", basically one Roamio Basic. U-Verse was crippled from the get-go because of it's reliance on century-old copper technology. At least with FTTH, they could have scaled the IPTV to 8 or 12 or 16 "tuners" if they wanted to. I say "tuners" not tuners, since IPTV doesn't really tune anything, it's just a QoS'ed stream running on a private IP network.


* technically compatible * means nothing if the equipment is not plug and play, if your point is that TiVo would not have to do much design change to make use of U-Verse, so what, I still can't use todays Roamio on the U-Verse system. To any customer, even if it only the movement of a switch on the mother board, the TiVo would still not be compatible as delivered as the customer is told not to open the TiVo. Today a compatible piece of equipment is plug and play with some user setup sometimes needed.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

lessd said:


> * technically compatible * means nothing if the equipment is not plug and play, if your point is that TiVo would not have to do much design change to make use of U-Verse, so what, I still can't use todays Roamio on the U-Verse system. To any customer, even if it only the movement of a switch on the mother board, the TiVo would still not be compatible as delivered as the customer is told not to open the TiVo. Today a compatible piece of equipment is plug and play with some user setup sometimes needed.


Since he wrote


> |without additional hardware


, I believe the thinking here is that it could be done via s/w mods alone.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

lpwcomp said:


> Since he wrote , I believe the thinking here is that it could be done via s/w mods alone.


Could be, but the OP asked if TiVo (Series 3 and up) could now be used with U-Verse, answer *no*.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

lessd said:


> * technically compatible * means nothing if the equipment is not plug and play, if your point is that TiVo would not have to do much design change to make use of U-Verse, so what, I still can't use todays Roamio on the U-Verse system. To any customer, even if it only the movement of a switch on the mother board, the TiVo would still not be compatible as delivered as the customer is told not to open the TiVo. Today a compatible piece of equipment is plug and play with some user setup sometimes needed.


My point is this. If someone today has a U-Verse RG for internet, and a TiVo with CableCard from their cable company for TV with an Ethernet connection to their RG for internet, _if AT&T and TiVo wanted to_, they could push software updates such that, with no additional hardware, and no truck roll, _that user could switch from cable to U-Verse TV on their TiVo by popping the CableCard out and re-doing guided setup_.

I'm not saying those companies will do that, *I would be totally shocked if they did*, but it is possible to do with a software update and the accompanying coordination between the two companies. That being said, it would be hugely beneficial to both AT&T and TiVo to make U-Verse compatible with TiVo, but I don't believe that AT&T has any interest in supporting TiVo users, and would rather that they be forced over to AT&T's competitors and lose their business.

Your babblings about a switch on the motherboard make absolutely no sense. It's all in software, just like moving from OTA to cable (on the Base Roamio).



lpwcomp said:


> Since he wrote , I believe the thinking here is that it could be done via s/w mods alone.


Correct. There is no additional hardware needed if there is CAT-5 access from the RG to the TiVo. Yes, most setups would require additional MoCA or HPNA bridges, but that's a networking issue and really has nothing to do with TiVo being compatible with U-Verse in the first place. I suppose for the networking side of things, if the RG could not be co-located with the TiVo, and no U-Verse boxes were used, the easiest way to bridge would be a MoCA adapter at the RG, and no HPNA used at all.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

Yes, it could probably be done with just software mods... but I have a feeling those mods would be rather substantial. I don't think it would be a particularly easy retrofit.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I'm not sure about that. Based on everything I read the gateway device does all the heavy lifting. It maintains a simple list of MAC addresses for the devices that are allowed to access it and simply passes the requested channel to an approved device when it's requested. I'm sure there is some sort of decryption that has to be handled at the box level, which could possibly not be done in software, but otherwise the API seems pretty simple.

I think the biggest problem TiVo would have is tuner allocation. Most Uverse installs only support 4 simultaneous streams, so if TiVo needs to record 6 things it's SOL. And even if they limited the box to 4 tuners there is a possibility that one, or more, of the streams could be in use by other boxes in the house preventing TiVo from using them. (not sure how they handle that situation now in their own DVRs)


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## Joe Siegler (May 10, 2000)

lessd said:


> Could be, but the OP asked if TiVo (Series 3 and up) could now be used with U-Verse, answer *no*.


I was the OP, and when I posted it, I didn't have a hardware/software thought - just asked a question if there was some new solution out there. The sales guy I spoke with seemed to imply there was some hardware box in between TiVo & UVerse. But I said in the OP, it seemed highly suspicious to me.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

LoadStar said:


> Yes, it could probably be done with just software mods... but I have a feeling those mods would be rather substantial. I don't think it would be a particularly easy retrofit.


I didn't say it would be easy on TiVo's end. 



Dan203 said:


> I'm not sure about that. Based on everything I read the gateway device does all the heavy lifting. It maintains a simple list of MAC addresses for the devices that are allowed to access it and simply passes the requested channel to an approved device when it's requested. I'm sure there is some sort of decryption that has to be handled at the box level, which could possibly not be done in software, but otherwise the API seems pretty simple.


Encryption is the big one, as I think it's a totally different system from CableLabs like cable uses.



> I think the biggest problem TiVo would have is tuner allocation. Most Uverse installs only support 4 simultaneous streams, so if TiVo needs to record 6 things it's SOL. And even if they limited the box to 4 tuners there is a possibility that one, or more, of the streams could be in use by other boxes in the house preventing TiVo from using them. (not sure how they handle that situation now in their own DVRs)


That's pretty simple. It would have to hit a server telling it how many HD and SD tuners it has available, and TiVo would have to honor that. The only weirdness would be how to handle scheduling priority with HD and SD channels on an installation that supports something like 3HD/1SD. It would be even more confusing on a Roamio Basic that also had OTA set up at the same time. TiVo has always had it's full number of tuners able to hit any channel, without preference to them being SDV or not, so they haven't had to deal with this issue before.

The system would have to be limited to 4 tuners on one TiVo, box, with everything else run through TiVo Minis. I'm not sure how AT&T's system handles it, as they have one DVR box with 4 "tuners" plus other boxes that can also tune HD channels.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

Would it be possible to develop a PCMCIA device that plugs into the CableCARD slot to do the decryption?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

It's funny we're talking about this and I just got a notice in the mail today saying U-verse TV went live in my neighborhood a few days ago. The 4 tuner limit would be a deal breaker for me even if it supported TiVo, but it might be something my Mom would be interested in if it saved her some money. She's also a TiVo user, but she's not dedicated.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

lpwcomp said:


> Would it be possible to develop a PCMCIA device that plugs into the CableCARD slot to do the decryption?


No. It would have to be software based, as it's totally different from CableCard.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Bigg said:


> No. It would have to be software based, as it's totally different from CableCard.


It is, but the CableCARD slot is just a PCMCIA slot, so there is nothing that would preclude them from developing a card that would do the decryption if some sort of hardware was required. TiVo would just need to write drivers for Linux to detect the special card and allow them to use it.

Don't forget that at it's core a TiVo is still a Linux PC, so it's pretty flexible.


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## Diana Collins (Aug 21, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> ...TiVo would just need to write drivers for Linux to detect the special card and allow them to use it...


And design, pay to have built (in relatively small quantities), and distribute said "special card."


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

Diana Collins said:


> And design, pay to have built (in relatively small quantities), and distribute said "special card."


I was merely wondering if it is technically possible, not whether or not it is worthwhile doing. Just FYI, I don't believe it is worthwhile, especially with the current limit of 4 simultaneous HD streams _*per household*_.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Diana Collins said:


> And design, pay to have built (in relatively small quantities), and distribute said "special card."


Well yeah, there's that.  I didn't say they should, just that they could.

I think the only way it would happen is if they could do it via software. Or if they struck a deal with AT&T for them to use TiVos as their main DVR like RCN does. Then it might be worthwhile to design a special card, if it was necessary.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

How likely is it that the Roamio CPU has enough spare cycles to do the decryption?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I bet it could do it. But it really depends on how complicated the decryption is. The bigger issue is business related. The chances of AT&T allowing this, even if it's technically possible, is close to zero. And even if they did TiVo may not want to pursue it because of the other technical difficulties involved in dealing with U-verses stream limitations.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> It is, but the CableCARD slot is just a PCMCIA slot, so there is nothing that would preclude them from developing a card that would do the decryption if some sort of hardware was required. TiVo would just need to write drivers for Linux to detect the special card and allow them to use it.
> 
> Don't forget that at it's core a TiVo is still a Linux PC, so it's pretty flexible.


That wouldn't make any sense, as it would be a proprietary system, so it would be easier/cheaper to do it in software anyway.


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## JosephB (Nov 19, 2010)

Lots of misunderstanding about the way U-Verse works and who would have to allow what.

U-Verse uses the (formerly Microsoft, now Ericsson) Mediaroom platform. This is why Xbox 360 used to have a client application, and doesn't anymore. Ericsson would have to work with TiVo to write a client app for TiVo. There's way more to it than just subscribing to the IP streams. Yeah, the TiVo could do it hardware wise because the streams are just IP multicast sessions that the box subscribes to, and the U-Verse gateway forwards the packets for when it detects a subscription. But, there's getting the guide data, conditional access data, encryption, interactivity, etc. I highly suspect that a lot of that stuff is based on Windows technologies and would not in a million years be worth the investment required to port it to a Linux platform.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

JosephB said:


> Lots of misunderstanding about the way U-Verse works and who would have to allow what.
> 
> U-Verse uses the (formerly Microsoft, now Ericsson) Mediaroom platform. This is why Xbox 360 used to have a client application, and doesn't anymore. Ericsson would have to work with TiVo to write a client app for TiVo. There's way more to it than just subscribing to the IP streams. Yeah, the TiVo could do it hardware wise because the streams are just IP multicast sessions that the box subscribes to, and the U-Verse gateway forwards the packets for when it detects a subscription. But, there's getting the guide data, conditional access data, encryption, interactivity, etc. I highly suspect that a lot of that stuff is based on Windows technologies and would not in a million years be worth the investment required to port it to a Linux platform.


I didn't say it would be easy, or that AT&T cares enough to actually do it, but it is possible. They also don't need guide data, as TiVo already has that, so really all they need is to be able to put "channel" "numbers" to the IP multicast streams, and handle decryption of them from AT&T, and maybe access VOD as well. All CableCard does is a one-way decryption of cable channels, it doesn't provide guide data or VOD.


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