I have had U-Verse for about 3 months and am (almost) very pleased with it. The HD PQ is decent but I really love the set top box in each room as they give full HD at each one. One downfall is the HD PQ is a little worse than Dish. I had Dish for 10 years, but switched to U-Verse because they were a little better priced and I love the speed of the internet.... Not to mention they gave me 300.00 (150.00 in cash, and 150.00 in a pre-paid Visa Card) and no contract. My contract was up with Dish but I had them put a suspension on the account instead of canceling the service just in case U-Verse was not all it was cut out to be. I also live in an apartment, so I felt it smart to keep the Dish account open because I am planning on moving into a house within the next several months, as there is no guarantee U-Verse will be available there, and I refuse to go to Comcast or Charter (I don't know where you live, but around here, they both suck big time!) As for the Weather Channel's local on the 8's, I was used to the Dish (National Feed) and that's exactly what U-Verse has. It also has an interactive weather channel on the set top boxes as well. The set top box fees are the first box DVR is free then $7.00 per each additional. All boxes see the DVR and can program, watch and record to it as well. 4 streams of SD Can record at the same time, and 2 HD and 2 SD can record at the same time. Pretty cool technology, but I just wish the HD PQ was better. The SD PQ is outstanding. They beat Dish and Direct both hands down on the SD PQ.
Hope this helps!
B-)