AT&T Just Donated $500,000 to Locast

From AT&T and Dish's point of view, what's the point of having a service like Locast out there if you're afraid to make it useful? Having it locked away in an "app" means hardly anyone will ever use it. You have to start up an app and you're forced to watch LIVE? Screw that, that's hardly better than not having the channel at all as far as I'm concerned.

Its like you had a machine to turn lead into gold but you're afraid the government make your machine illegal and take it away, so you decide you will only convert one ounce of lead into gold a year. Might as well not have it at all then. Convert a ton of lead and then you'll know where you really stand.
If you can get the locals with an OTA antenna, then you don't need Locast and can record all you want. But if you can't, then having Locast available can be very handy during a retrans dispute blackout. I don't think Dish is "afraid" to integrate the Locast app, but with only 13 of 210 DMA's covered so far, they may be waiting until there's deeper market penetration.
 
From AT&T and Dish's point of view, what's the point of having a service like Locast out there if you're afraid to make it useful? Having it locked away in an "app" means hardly anyone will ever use it. You have to start up an app and you're forced to watch LIVE? Screw that, that's hardly better than not having the channel at all as far as I'm concerned.

Its like you had a machine to turn lead into gold but you're afraid the government make your machine illegal and take it away, so you decide you will only convert one ounce of lead into gold a year. Might as well not have it at all then. Convert a ton of lead and then you'll know where you really stand.

I don't think AT&T really ever expects customers (using their current TV packages) to use Locast except in cases where there's a blackout. (Just saw this morning, BTW, that my local ABC affiliate owned by Nexstar is in a standoff with all of AT&T's systems and may go dark soon.) Just as in the same way, AT&T doesn't expect their customers to use the LCC for OTA locals unless there's a dispute (which is why those situations are the only instances in which AT&T will send the LCC out, apparently).

For DISH customers, I can see Locast being a little more useful because DISH does offer the option not to take locals as part of your package and therefore pay less. My hunch is that AT&T has not negotiated the ability to make locals optional with their restructured channel packages (Plus, Max) with the exception of the line-up offered on AT&T Watch TV, which doesn't include any networks owned by ABC, NBC, CBS or Fox; getting your locals isn't even an option with that package.

Specifically to your question about Locast's streams being locked away inside their own app, that's Locast's decision to make, not AT&T's or DISH's. When I watch Netflix on my Apple TV box, do you think Apple has the capability to hijack Netflix's streams and integrate them into Apple's own TV app? No, of course not. I have to launch the Netflix app and watch the streams there. If Locast wanted to, for whatever reason, yes, they could have their coders work with the coders at AT&T and DISH to let their streams pass through to the native UIs of those boxes, I guess. Or, short of that, they could allow AT&T and DISH's boxes to deep-link to the relevant streams inside the Locast app; this wouldn't be seamless but it would allow the user to select a local channel from the native channel grid guide and then be taken directly to the live stream inside the Locast app.

What's a reason that Locast might choose not to cooperate so closely with DTV or DISH in that way? Well, if Locast takes a $500,000 "donation" from for-profit AT&T and then turns around and "gives" them something of value (something that isn't given to the general public, such as customizations specific to AT&T's proprietary boxes), that looks a little fishy, doesn't it? Might endanger their non-profit status, which is how Locast can get away with doing what they're doing.
 
What's a reason that Locast might choose not to cooperate so closely with DTV or DISH in that way? Well, if Locast takes a $500,000 "donation" from for-profit AT&T and then turns around and "gives" them something of value (something that isn't given to the general public, such as customizations specific to AT&T's proprietary boxes), that looks a little fishy, doesn't it? Might endanger their non-profit status, which is how Locast can get away with doing what they're doing.

They don't need to cooperate with a specific provider. It looks like it is just a simple video stream that could be very easily built into the software to appear as "9-3" or whatever just as with an AM21/LCC. From their FAQ:


Q: Can I get Locast.org on any device with an Internet connection?

A: Although Locast.org is not optimized for every device, generally speaking any device that can connect to the World Wide Web and has typical software supporting video streaming can display the programming stream.


That also means there's nothing stopping Dish or Directv from from supporting recording the stream just like they record programming received from their OTA devices.
 
They don't need to cooperate with a specific provider. It looks like it is just a simple video stream that could be very easily built into the software to appear as "9-3" or whatever just as with an AM21/LCC. From their FAQ:


Q: Can I get Locast.org on any device with an Internet connection?

A: Although Locast.org is not optimized for every device, generally speaking any device that can connect to the World Wide Web and has typical software supporting video streaming can display the programming stream.


That also means there's nothing stopping Dish or Directv from recording the stream just like they record programming received from their OTA devices.

So it appears that Locast isn't doing anything to protect or lock-down their streams. But are they publishing their raw IP addresses? Or must one still click through from a Locast app or webpage in order to actually find the streams?
 
So it appears that Locast isn't doing anything to protect or lock-down their streams. But are they publishing their raw IP addresses? Or must one still click through from a Locast app or webpage in order to actually find the streams?

Device compatibility is not the same as geofencing, which they are doing.
 
Device compatibility is not the same as geofencing, which they are doing.

Yes, I know that. And also, my point still stands that if one doesn't know the raw IP address of Locast's streams (which could be changed at any time Locast wants), it makes it pretty hard for a third party not in cooperation with Locast to direct their own app to access Locast's streams.
 
So it appears that Locast isn't doing anything to protect or lock-down their streams. But are they publishing their raw IP addresses? Or must one still click through from a Locast app or webpage in order to actually find the streams?

Where does it say they are only accessible via IP address and not via a DNS name? Locast has no reason to make it difficult for implementers, they want to make it as easy as possible.

They aren't like other streaming services where they have content they need to keep locked down to prevent people from copying it. This isn't Netflix or Hulu.
 
Where does it say they are only accessible via IP address and not via a DNS name? Locast has no reason to make it difficult for implementers, they want to make it as easy as possible.

They aren't like other streaming services where they have content they need to keep locked down to prevent people from copying it. This isn't Netflix or Hulu.

I'd check to see, but Locast doesn't operate in my market, so there's no point in me creating a free login. I do know that when you select a particular market, e.g. Baltimore, it takes you to a certain URL featuring that city's channel guide. For Baltimore, it's locast-dot-org/markets/?dma=512. I can't go past there without logging in to see if each channel has its own publicly visible URL or if the URL just stays something generic while the video stream gets displayed in a window embedded on the page.

You may be right that Locast wants to make it as easy as possible for others to embed their streams in their own UIs/wrappers/apps. I'm not aware of anyone who's done that yet though. Doesn't mean they aren't. If you come across any, post about it.
 
The channel selections on the website are handled by a Javascript routine and not displayed as a url. Examining the page code, I'm not seeing anything client side indicating individual IP's or URL's for the channels, just arguments that are passed back to locast.org
 
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The channel selections on the website are handled by a Javascript routine and not displayed as a url. Examining the page code, I'm not seeing anything client side indicating individual IP's or URL's for the channels, just arguments that are passed back to locast.org

But that's fine, so you implement Javascript so you can run that on your end. It is still locast.org and an HTTP connection. Though it might be possible to see what that Javascript is doing and it turns out it ends up as locast.org/market/channel but unless they document that somewhere or assure e.g. AT&T that they won't change those URLs you wouldn't want to program it in that way. Running a bit of Javascript is hardly an imposition.

Another thing you could do is see what their client does - sniff the network as you change channels to see what HTTP requests it is sending.
 
But that's fine, so you implement Javascript so you can run that on your end. It is still locast.org and an HTTP connection. Though it might be possible to see what that Javascript is doing and it turns out it ends up as locast.org/market/channel but unless they document that somewhere or assure e.g. AT&T that they won't change those URLs you wouldn't want to program it in that way. Running a bit of Javascript is hardly an imposition.

Another thing you could do is see what their client does - sniff the network as you change channels to see what HTTP requests it is sending.
Or they could just ask Locast for their API... ;)
 
Last time I checked...most streaming boxes are linux based and have nothing to do with java

Sent from my SM-G950U using the SatelliteGuys app!

While the two are not mutually exclusive, classic Java isn't particularly well suited to STB use as TWC discovered with their Navigator product. That said, anything Android based is running software very similar to Java.
 
Not a streamer...which is where the vast vast vast majority would use locast

Sent from my SM-G950U using the SatelliteGuys app!

I suppose so? A lot of embedded processors don't have FPUs, and JS numbers are always floats. This is why Roku uses Brightscript, which is similar to JS in a number of other ways.
 

New OTA adapter

I’m so happy with directv I moved from dish to directv

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