Anybody using streaming tv services yet?

flhrci

flhrci

Final Approach
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David
Talking Playstation Vue, DIrectv Now or Sling TV. Was wondering how you like them and if they are a good replacement for cable now.

Time Warner is upping the broadcast tv charge next month by $3.50. I think its time to cut the cord, except for internet service. I have no other choice there.

David
 
I have both Sling and Directv Now. Getting rid of Sling as soon as Directv Now is available on Roku. You get way more channels on Directv Now over Sling. But make sure you have really good internet, because Directv Now does drop sometimes, supposedly more often with lower internet speeds.
 
There are a lot of options out there. If you share what you watch/what you want access to it is much easier to figure out which services are best for you.
 
I don't really watch a ton of TV (have a Mohu Sky antenna to grab a few OTA stations), but I did sign up for DIRECTV Now the day it came out, for a few reasons:

1. I had been contemplating getting an Apple TV 4. By prepaying for 3 months (min. $105), they threw in a 32GB ATV4.
2. One could supposedly lock in the 100-channel package for $35/mo, regularly $60, as long as you kept the service uninterrupted.
3. I wanted to see if it was something my parents could try to save them money. I think my dad has too much "channel up" remote control muscle memory to make the switch. :D

It's been fine on both the ATV and the iPad app around 10PM and weekends. It's has very few bugs and stream freezes, but others complain more loudly online. I think it's pretty good service. Times are a changing.

P.S. The ATV and $35 lock in offers end tomorrow I believe.

P.S. 2: it only supports 2 simultaneous streams. Don't know if that will ever be increased.
 
Sling TV isn't bad idr if it had local stuff or not. Honestly I'd pay for a 9.99 sports package and thats it. Watching TV live is a pain when I can just watch it next day on hulu or just pirate it. I don't mind paying for stuff I use but it gets annoying streaming from so many different sources(hulu netflix amazon, HBO Go) that I'm kind of back to mostly pirating stuff. Type in episode click it go make a sandwich and then its instantly available to stream to any device in my house or phone. Sad that pirates offer such a better product than someone who supposedly wants my money.
 
We use Sling and like it. Have had a few issues with the application crashing when watching it over the computer, but haven't experienced any problems using a Roku.
 
We have roku, I have the basic 8.99/month sling package just do I can watch my soccer. I did sign up for their "gold" package or whatever the big package is for the one week free trial just do I could watch some soccer games that weren't on the other package and cancelled at the end of the week. Sling is good stuff and no better or worse than satellite or cable.
 
Hulu is coming out with a live option soon too. As someone who cut the cord and has Hulu, Netflix, HBO and Showtime subscriptions now, the thought of not needing another service is quite appealing.
 
jetrep said:
There are a lot of options out there. If you share what you watch/what you want access to it is much easier to figure out which services are best for you.
Click to expand...

Looking for mainly live sports, the ESPN suite of channels, Fox sports channels, and NFL network would cover it for me. I live close enough that I bet I can get by with an antenna for games on the three majors.

What's best for this?
 
I've got an Apple TV and testing PlayStation Vue as I contemplate dropping Directv. Vue working quite well. Was able to watch all NFL playoff games last weekend by using a combination of Vue for ESPN games and the FoxSportsGo app to watch Fox NFL games (Vue doesn't have my local channels).

Also doing a trial of CBS All Access. This gets me my local CBS station and CBS On Demand.
 
Bill Jennings said:
Looking for mainly live sports, the ESPN suite of channels, Fox sports channels, and NFL network would cover it for me. I live close enough that I bet I can get by with an antenna for games on the three majors.

What's best for this?
Click to expand...

If you get good antenna reception then you've probably won half the battle. The rest are available on Sling, but unfortunately ESPN is on one package and FSN/NFL are on another package so that means you'll need to buy both packages for $40. Roku, Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV will all work. If you do a lot of business with Amazon and have Prime then get the FireTV. If you buy a lot of other iTunes content then get Apple TV. If you are vendor-neutral then get Roku.
 
I'd start out by buying an antenna and seeing how you like that. One thing you may miss is the digital menu system that cable/direcTV have. Some TVs do offer the menu. My Sony Android TV has an awesome built in menu/schedule system that pulls the info from the internet.

Most of the services offer free trials...no reason to not take advantage of that. The apps are not the same on each device so make sure the apps you want will work on the device you buy. At one point my Roku couldn't do Fox Sports. That changed a few months ago. I find most apps work better on the Roku than they do on my Sony Android TV.
 
kiddbats said:
What kind of internet speeds are needed in reality
Click to expand...

6Gbps at the bare minimum, depending on the codec and assuming you aren't using the Internet for anything else while streaming.
 
asicer said:
6Gbps at the bare minimum, depending on the codec and assuming you aren't using the Internet for anything else while streaming.
Click to expand...

I think you meant to say 6Mbps?

As for DIRECTV Now, I canceled after three days. I have never used a supposedly release-level service that worked so infrequently and so poorly. Maybe one out of every four attempts to start a program were successful, and not a single one ran to completion. That's with a 60 Mbps connection that actually gets 60 Mbps most of the time. I've tested alpha-level stuff that worked better.

It's kind of a shame, too, because their channel lineup would be pretty good if the service actually worked.

You may also want to look at these links:

https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/16/a...mers-despite-the-services-performance-issues/

http://bgr.com/2017/01/17/directv-att-refunds-customers/

http://fortune.com/2017/01/17/directv-att-customers-frustrated/

Many users reportedly have been taking their complaints to the FCC, which reportedly has been rather gleefully ruling in favor of consumers. That's not surprising considering that the FCC has already gone on record as believing that the service violates net neutrality.

In my opinion, AT&T is playing with fire on this one. The FCC complaints could start getting expensive. In addition to the refunds that the FCC can order and reportedly has been ordering, there are also the adjudication costs. But if the company simply caves and doesn't dispute the complaints, and word gets around, it will only increase the complaints, and their no-refund policy would become nothing but empty words.

An unusually large number of credit card disputes could also have catastrophic consequences for the company. Disputes are expensive for card issuers because they require human action. Excessive disputes against the same vendor could theoretically affect their ability to accept plastic. Some customers have also started talking about class-action suits against the company.

If I were running AT&T, I would offer anyone who requested a refund 60 days of free service followed by the opportunity to continue at the now-expired introductory rate, or else refund their money if they declined the offer. They'd lose money on the carriage fees, but I think it would be the smarter long-term approach. The tough stand they're taking now is ****ing off consumers, banks, merchant processors, card logo companies, the FCC, and the attorneys general of several states. That can't possibly be good for business.

Rich
 
Another thing to consider is that Amazon Video, Netflix, and Hulu, any of which are roughly 1.7 bazillion times more stable than DirectV Now, are also trying to get into the live-streaming business; and Sling and PS Vue are constantly in negotiations to increase their channel offerings.

I also wouldn't be surprised if Samsung, Vizio, and Roku were quietly looking into deals with content providers to offer live streaming on their own platforms sans middlemen such as Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, et al. Even if they passed the carriage fees on to the subscribers at cost, the ability to live-stream a decent variety of content would be a platform-specific marketing advantage. Other than Google's and Apple's respective fanboy bases, most users don't give a rat's ass about the manufacturer of the streaming device itself. They're interested in what content it can deliver.

Rich
 
rpadula said:
I don't really watch a ton of TV (have a Mohu Sky antenna to grab a few OTA stations), but I did sign up for DIRECTV Now the day it came out, for a few reasons:

1. I had been contemplating getting an Apple TV 4. By prepaying for 3 months (min. $105), they threw in a 32GB ATV4.
2. One could supposedly lock in the 100-channel package for $35/mo, regularly $60, as long as you kept the service uninterrupted.
3. I wanted to see if it was something my parents could try to save them money. I think my dad has too much "channel up" remote control muscle memory to make the switch. :D

It's been fine on both the ATV and the iPad app around 10PM and weekends. It's has very few bugs and stream freezes, but others complain more loudly online. I think it's pretty good service. Times are a changing.

P.S. The ATV and $35 lock in offers end tomorrow I believe.

P.S. 2: it only supports 2 simultaneous streams. Don't know if that will ever be increased.
Click to expand...
^^^^^^. This.

I did the same. A fair number of dropouts, at least on the iPad (ATV seems to handle it better), but I want the RoKu support. This service has a number of limitations, including only two simultaneous logins and certain local TV blackouts. The local blackouts are from the local content providers, so I can't place a lot of blame on DTV for that, but the two logins is problematic - you have to completely log out of one device to use another and/or close the app completely. Sorta defeats some of the convenience of ATV. Also, when watching on a computer, it's only compatible with certain browsers (including I.E. But NOT Edge, go figure, and not Firefox). Silverlight seems to be required, and devices like iPad and iPhone MUST have location services turned on or the app/site won't even load. From what I can tell, anyone concerned about privacy should just avoid. And in that vein, they sent a survey yesterday (fron survey dot bz) that insisted on loading and tuning on 6 plug-ins to Safari, including Citrix, Silverlight, GoogleTalk and GoogleTalk video, zoom, and something else. I shut all that crap off and didn't bother with the survey.

Sling doesn't carry the same restrictions, and will run with location services off.

It's clear that DTV is simply trying to move its satellite/cable service to IP distribution and doing nothing really innovative. The CEO of ATT has said he wants to move all content distribution to Internet/wireless in the near future, which would substantially reduce the satellite transmission costs and local headend equipment for their cable services and push that cost onto the subscriber (who still has to pay internet access fees unless on ATT wireless network, which opens net neutrality concerns). Think of it that way, any you'll get the idea.

My take: if you want local content (including some, but not all, of the local TV stations) DTVN is the only way to go. If you're looking for national content only, Sling is good and has worked out many of their kinks. For me, i may well dump it because they didn't cut a content deal to carry MASN, which carries the Baltimore and Washington baseball teams, and MLB network blacks out local teams from their national streaming service. Or we give up watching baseball.

FWiW, I have a separate router for the streaming services as RoKu identifies and phones home with info on the other devices on your network, and I assume that ATV does, too. That opens a security hole, so I just separate it from my main network.
 
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