Yes, it's another U-verse thread.

Seriously though, am I the only one that finds their channel guide ugly, unappealing, and difficult to read?

I can't put my finger in exactly what it is... probably something with each block being very small, and filled in with that giant bolded font, which on 30 minute blocks usually doesn't even fit, or maybe it has something to do with them trying to overlay the guide on top of what you're watching.

For example, here we have Comcast's guide. Nice, clean, easy to read, color coded, most text fits properly:



Here we have the Dish Network guide. Not quite as good as Comcast's IMO, but still nice.



Now here's DirecTV's guide. Not as nice as the above two IMO, but still very easy to read.



Now here's U-verse's guide. It's ugly, and particularly difficult to read when you're scrolling through it quickly.



Am I alone on this opinion?

[This message has been edited by 99CentBeer (edited 1/25/2010 5:00p).]

Yes

Once I learn what the channels are I'll be fine. Just had mine installed a week ago.

yes

yes. you are alone.

my only complaint about their guide is that you can't only show the channels you are subscribed to like dish.

I actually like the ui. Atleast 2nd best of the ones shown above. I do see your point, just don't happen to agree!

quote:

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my only complaint about their guide is that you can't only show the channels you are subscribed to like dish.

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You can you just have to set it up manually. Go into the menu under system options I think and find the channel options. You can choose to hide channels.

I personally think uverse (because of iptv) has the best guide out there.... only for the "live preview" as you browse to each channel. I wish my directv or media center could do that (and personally directv is pretty horrible for many things from a ui perspective).

I am really surprised none of them are really doing channel logos properly yet.... this is my media center guide (which shares alot with uverse since both are designed by microsoft).

(when watching live tv it does the same effect where the guide overlays on the tv feed)


[This message has been edited by jagouar1 (edited 1/25/2010 9:24p).]

It's slow and poorly laid out.

theres nothing i dont like about uverse

especially after i told them i was gonna go to directv and they dropped my bill from 110 to 70

I have no problem with it.

uverse tries to fit in 2hrs of programming vs 1.5hr on the others

Meh.

The Tivo guide is the best. I like to be able see what's on all day on individual channels.

And it's fast.



[This message has been edited by MGS (edited 1/26/2010 12:13p).]

you can modify your uverse guide to show you one channels listing likt the tvguide one has

I miss the Dish Network PIP!

you are kidding right? i cant believe anyone that has had to use comcast or heaven forbid tvmaxx would ever think they are better than uverse

I like the Verizon FiOS Interactive Menu Guide.

jagour - what signal do you feed your media center PC? I am unaware of any decent feed for it; OTA is very few decent channels, cable you can't tune to HD or movie channels, and satellite you can't tune anything. Do you do the box and IR-blaster solution?

No problems here with the on-screen U-Verse guide.

I do wish the web-based guide had all of the details, namely the actors & star rating, that the on-screen show descriptions have.

Right now I use a HDHomerun which gets me locals via qam. Silicon Dust (maker of the hdhomerun) is releasing a cablecard tuner in 6 months for $249 which will give me 4 total tuners. That will give me all channels through media center (and my 360 extenders).http://www.silicondust.com/press

They also have a quad tuner card coming from a company called ceton but since I already have 2 tuners I dont need to spend more for quad tuner system (it costs $399 and will be out in march).http://cetoncorp.com/

There is also dish network and uverse in the works but no release date yet.... http://hd.engadget.com/2009/09/10/video-dish-network-media-center-tuner-in-action/

[This message has been edited by jagouar1 (edited 1/26/2010 8:11p).]

The Uverse guide is pretty bad. The nice thing I remember from my parents' place is that the channel you're currently on remains behind the translucent guide, and the channel the guide is currently highlighting is played in a small window in the corner. That was pretty nice. The overall look and feel is bad, but not unbearable. The unbearable part is the latency in everything you do.

The Comcast guide is easy to read and well organized, but a couple things bug me about it. Mine (Denver) only displays 4 channels at a time, the bottom row is and ad, that is selectable. The main thing though is that the display doesn't scroll with me. With Cox's guide, the highlighted channel was always the middle of 5, and when you scrolled down one channel, the 5 displayed would all scroll with you. With Comcast, it shows 4 channels at a time, and the 4 displayed don't scroll with you, it will just load the next 4 channels when you scroll off the bottom. Extremely annoying to me. Cox's interface is much nicer than Comcast's, and is the best one I've used or seen, other than Tivo's

It's definitely one of the best looking guides out there.

I need to look into this Media Center extender situation. I really like Media Center and my HP PC came with a remote. Right now, I would have to go the box and IR blaster route, and that's just too Sanford & Son for me. Once there's a tuner card, it becomes a much more palatable solution, especially if you can then use your wireless network to control content remotely.