Cord cutting time

SpaethCo said:

Everything on Vue maxes out at 720p, including on demand. (same as the other services)

Vue excels at preserving native broadcast frame rates and pushing streams at 60fps. Sling cuts everything back to 30fps. You can see the artifacts from this readily on channels with scrolling text at the bottom of the screen (news channels, sports channels) -- it shows up more subtly in other content where there will be more motion blur (from blending 2 frames) and judder in panning shots.

Most Sling channels top out at 720p30 at 3.8mbps, whereas Vue feeds are 720p60 at 5.2mbps. To me, the difference is night and day.

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Ok, this is great info!

Zookster said:

The Walking Dead is looking really good on PS Vue on the PS4 this season. It's 720p of course, but PS Vue runs at a fairly constant 60fps on the PS4 I've seen reported. Not aware of any 1080p content. On Demand stuff does look really nice and I've found if I'm willing to wait a week, the commercials are stripped on most shows.

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YES!!

bruce said:

Roku has no limit on how many devices you own (I have 8 on my account), content providers have limits on how many devices you can run their content at the same time ( Vue-5, Sling-2 or 3 for example).

Sent from my iPad using the SatelliteGuys app!

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Oh ok.. I guess maybe they use to limit the devices you could have but must have eliminated that restriction. Years ago I had four of them then I bought one for my dad's birthday and I tried to add it to my account so I could pay for and manage everything for him. He doesn't deal with stuff like that very well, I just wanted to set it up so he could watch whatever he wanted and not have to worry about how it works. Roku, at the time, wouldn't let me do that and made me create another account for that device.


Well so far things are looking good for pulling the plug on Dish. I wish Sling would have a better frame rate but oh well... As long as I can authenticate to use the A&E app on Roku I can bypass the Sling stream and get it straight from A&E.
That's one area that Dish fails big time. More channels than not do not recognize Dish credentials, BBCA, Science (Discovery), etc... That really annoys me big time. I've read that almost all the channels on Vue will authenticate so you can watch stuff directly from the channel libraries. That will go a long way with me. I can binge on How the Universe Works 20 hours a day but lately all they run is idiot reality "survival" cr*p and idiot level conspiracy theory "what is it????" shows. Finding shows that actually educate, anywhere on any channel, good luck with that. The dumbing down of America is complete. I only wish I could subscribe to the REAL BBC archives. Not the stupid BBC Americanized junk (they have a FEW shows I like but not many). The real BBC in the UK has GREAT shows and their science shows are excellent, no dumbing down for the common denominator !! If they would offer it I would gladly pay for it! I would pay a lot too, just let us!

This might just sink Sling.

https://www.hulu.com/press/hulu-ann...works-for-upcoming-live-tv-streaming-service/

I'm already paying about $13 a month for Hulu plus without commercials. I wonder how much more it would cost to add the A&E package? It says under $40 (yeah, like $39.99, bet me!) but they don't say how that works if you're already a subscriber to H+.. If it' $40 on top of the $13 I'm paying now, that's a big incentive. Sling would be only $25 to get them. BUT, Hulu video quality is really, really good.
Doctor who on Netflix was 720p and a low bit rate but on Hulu it was 1080p and a high bit rate. The picture was dramatically superior. IF Hulu will provide a superior picture for A&E than Sling then I might well pay the higher price.
Sling needs to get on board with the 21st century already. With 4K already here people aren't going to be very happy with 720p -30fps and bit rates from yesteryear. I know that won't be my first choice.
As soon as one service steps up their game I'll drop the other in a heartbeat. I don't want to give my money over for third rate video quality and lame features. And $5 to DVR stuff? Um, no..

Oh, and my Plex server that DVRs my local OTA? Here's what it's showing me right now.

Ok, I don't know what the deal is but it made my screenshot into a very tiny little picture that you can't read so, never mind.

WOW....... If I get blocked from watching things on Science Channel I will be P*SSED!! Like go on a murder spree p*ssed... (not really but you know what I mean)..
I have to have my How the Universe Works and Space's Deepest Secrets. Those are about the only shows I care about on that channel.
And if they block me from Doctor Who, there will be some MDK187 go down!


Another question that I have is what happens if I use a VPN? I'm really freaking ANGRY that they passed some BS legislation that allows ISPs to sell your browsing history to parasite advertisers and anyone else that will pay.
If they can see you looking up medical things then they can safely assume you are ill or afflicted with (whatever) and use that to their advantage. That's 10000000% unacceptable and I am not going to tolerate it.

I'm shopping for a VPN service to thwart this new level of privacy invasion but I'm concerned with PS Vue, one of the things I read in their TOS is that if your IP address changes they assume you are up to something shady and they ban you for life from Sony services. Presumably running my entire home through a VPN would make it appear to Vue that I'm in say, Oregon, or California or Dallas, yes? I'm worried that the VPN provider may switch me around servers to different IP addresses and cause me to be banned by Sony, permanently. A bit dramatic IMO but Sony is run by a bunch of jerks from everything I've ever heard.

Is the Vue (and Sling) data stream encrypted against ISP nosey snooping data collection? I really do not want my ISP to know ANYTHING about what I watch or read, it's none of their business especially if they are going to monetize it.
If Vue (and Sling) is an encrypted stream that my ISP can't monitor other than seeing that there is an encrypted connection between me and Vue (and Sling) then that's fine and I can place those devices outside of my VPN and use it just for general browsing. This is all new territory to me as I've always just used stuff at default and not cared too much because I felt that my aggressive ad blocking was enough. But they are taking it way beyond what I consider acceptable and I am going to resist and fight back.

edit: Oh hey, and one other thing, does anyone know if you can bind multiple remotes to a single Roku box?

What I want to do is place one Roku in a central location in my home then run multiple HDMI cables from it to all the TV's in different rooms of my house. Then I want to leave a remote in each room, each remote being able to fully control that one Roku. So I am watching something in my office, I hit pause, set the remote down and go down to the kitchen. Turn that TV on, pick up the remote that I leave in the kitchen and resume play. Then later pause again, set that remote down and go upstairs to my bedroom and use the remote in there to resume and control that one Roku.

Is that possible? I don't want to have a Roku in each room because how could I shuffle what I'm watching between the different Roku boxes in each room? I doubt you can do that. But having one with an octopus of HDMI cables going to other rooms, that works because I'm doing that now with one of my Dish receivers.

Oh man! I am sooooo getting one of these !!

Amazon product ASIN B00MWLZR0I
I can ditch the Plex DVR (which is really decent) and go back to standard Plex. The Plex DVR service fills the drive on my Mac at a maddening pace and it leaves behind HUGE mpeg2 files that would be better off as HEVC files.
If I can throw an 8tb disk on a Tablo that should hold me over for a long time but the huge draw for me is that not only can I DVR with it but I can watch LIVE OTA on my Rokus and other devices!

Yep, this is a no brainer. I'm getting one.

Sorry Dish, you're overpriced.