Recording a TV Show or Series Remotely for Uverse Customers

I recently migrated from Comcast to U-Verse by ATT. While still trying to decide if I prefer U-verse over Comcast, I was captivated by an interesting U-verse perk that a TV junky (guilty) may find invaluable. That feature being, “AT&T U-verse TV Web Remote Access”. This handy feature allows a person, such as myself, to remotely set my DVR to record a show from anywhere, using any PC or any web-accessible phone. So, if you are a U-verse subscriber, perhaps these step-by-step instructions may be invaluable to you. While I am not the most savvy technological/computer minded person, I found this feature to be user-friendly and most exciting.

First, I have to tell you what inspired this technologically challenged person to pursue this. My co-worker that sits across from me is going on and on about the ninety-fifth annual “2010 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest” that will be televised on July 4^th at 9am on ESPN. She is chattering all about her disappointment over the six-time world champion, Kobayashi, not being in the contest this year and therefore, won’t be giving the two-time defending champion, Joey Chestnut, the challenge. I am just cracking up as she continues to throw sports-like details at me regarding a “hot dog” eating contest, no less. She goes on talking about the little 5 feet 5 inch, 99 pounds Korean contender named, Sonya “the Black Widow” Thomas. Who, she says, gets her name because she likes to beat the men and “take them down”, in a “sport” that is highly dominated by men.

My co-worker goes on explaining just how disgusting it gets. They soak their buns in water so they slide down easier…gross!! This continues for 10 minutes until they eat 60 something dogs in record time, and its all done in front of over, a jaw-dropping, 30,000 live spectators and 1.5 million households watched this event in 2006. I’m curious on how these “skinny” contestants keep their weight down by entering all these food eating contests, year after year. Anyway…She sparked my interest to the point where I wanted to, at least, tape this and watch this fiasco at my leisure, but I could see myself forgetting to search and record this after a long day at work, so…hence my topic, on-the-spot recording from a remote computer. Below are the steps.

This is for U-verse patrons only.

1. Go to web address, www.uversecentral1.att.com. You may want to “bookmark” that.

2. Log in to access you personal account with your user ID. Mine is my email address with att.net, and the password you set your account up with. If you haven’t set that up, you will click on the link toward the bottom that says, “register for an account”. For this you will need either your nine-digit Account Number, which was provided at the time of installation and is displayed on the top right corner of your bill or your member ID number. So many numbers!

3. Now you should be on your account page. Look for the section pertaining to your TV. You will see a little picture of a wide-screen TV. Just to the right of that, is a little link that is titled “Manage DVR”. When you click on that, you will be prompted to log in again. I don’t know why we have to log in again, but you use the same login information you used on the first login page.

4. That will bring you to the “AT&T U-verse TV Web Remote Access” page. Here there are three tab areas. The first tab is the “Guide” tab. This is where you can locate your show you want to record. It’s so easy. It has the same grid that you see on your TV search area at home. You can browse by clicking on the square corresponding to the show you want to record, but even better…there is a little search box in the upper right hand corner. There you can type the title, cast, or channel. With cast, you can put in a cast member’s name. I’ll use Betty White. You type her in and up comes a list of what she stars in. For example, Golden Girls, Hot in Cleveland, The Proposal, and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. If you do a channel search, just put in either the call letters, such as ESPN, or a channel number, such as 7. Then you can choose the date from a drop-down menu that goes 2 weeks out and it will bring up the choices for that day. Click on your choice and it will bring up a box that gives you a choice of (1) Record episode, or (2) Record series. All the same choices you would see using your remote from home. This amazed me and I think this whole user-friendly feature will amaze you too!

5. The second tab is the “Recorded shows” tab. Pretty self explanatory. What I do want to say about this area is, I am able to select all the shows I don’t need any more, such as all my old 11 o’clock news shows that I never watched that are literally “old news”. I just click on the ones I want deleted, then click the “cancel selected” button and wallah…gone. It’s actually much easier and quicker that the one-at-a-time method you have to do from home.

6. The third tab, “Scheduled shows”, just shows you what future shows you have coming up.

NOTE: Last resort, if you have problems, or need your account number, or your member ID number to register to log in, call AT&T @ 1 800-288-2020. The customer service is very good and all the people are extremely nice. One negative is their available times are limited and the main office is back east. With the time difference, they close very early for us in California. So far, U-verse shows promise. The remote and the onscreen features are different from Comcast and take some getting used to, but as I learn more—I’m liking it.