Social Feed

I use a 2020 Roku Ultra, and the DirecTV Stream quality is excellent. There were some issues when I first made the switch in March where it would buffer and crash at least once a day, but I haven't had any problems since a major app update in mid July. With that update, they added a more robust pause feature with a 60-minute pause buffer that allows full trick play functions. My experiences and screenshots were the basis of this article:

Another advantage of the Roku app over FireTV (I have a 4K FireTV stick) is the Roku app has preview thumbnails when you FF/RW recorded programing, as you can see in the images in that article.

I never use my 4K FireTV stick anymore as the DTV Stream experience is so much superior on Roku. I'm not familiar with any "best" settings on either device. I just hook it up and it works. If I have PQ issues, I toggle my TV's preset image settings.

Zookster said:

I use a 2020 Roku Ultra, and the DirecTV Stream quality is excellent. There were some issues when I first made the switch in March where it would buffer and crash at least once a day, but I haven't had any problems since a major app update in mid July. With that update, they added a more robust pause feature with a 60-minute pause buffer that allows full trick play functions. My experiences and screenshots were the basis of this article:

AT&T TV Adds "Pause on Live" Feature to Roku Devices to Pause, FF, and Rewind Live TV

AT&T TV has pushed a major update to Roku users that makes time shifting easier. Customers can now pause, rewind, and fast-forward Live TV across channels, with AT&T TV on their Roku streaming player and Roku …

thestreamable.com

Another advantage of the Roku app over FireTV (I have a 4K FireTV stick) is the Roku app has preview thumbnails when you FF/RW recorded programing, as you can see in the images in that article.

I never use my 4K FireTV stick anymore as the DTV Stream experience is so much superior on Roku. I'm not familiar with any "best" settings on either device. I just hook it up and it works. If I have PQ issues, I toggle my TV's preset image settings.

Click to expand...

Best, good, fair settings are under preference. The pause feature is also on firetv using the gen2 box replaced with the newer cube connected with an ethernet connection. The 15-second skip forward or reverse preview box work with firetv on live TV.

ncted said:

They are losing dozens of talented engineers because, for some reason, Disney has decided their engineers must live in a Florida swamp.

Click to expand...

Just moved here a year ago. no swamp as far as I can see and we live in the rural area of Kissimmee, where every house has about 2 acres of land/yard.

ncted said:

Much like cable/satellite fees exceeding inflation rates, so have Disney Ticket Prices, and the additional fees they are not starting to add, like Genie+ and Lightning Lane. It just isn't worth it anymore. I no longer am willing to pay for linear TV, and the same is true for Disney. Universal at least is still affordable in comparison.

Click to expand...

Went to Universal in July 2020, when I closed on the house, it may be less expensive, but my daughter and I made it thru both parks in a day, last time at just Disney World, took us about 3 days to see everything at Magic Kingdom.

And I agree with you on liner TV, we have 11 TVs and to get a box for each would increase a monthly bill about $70 a month.

Enough with the political posts! Next one gets a vacation. Everyone understand? Good!

camo said:

Best, good, fair settings are under preference. The pause feature is also on firetv using the gen2 box replaced with the newer cube connected with an ethernet connection. The 15-second skip forward or reverse preview box work with firetv on live TV.

Click to expand...

I wasn't aware of those settings in the DTV Stream app. I thought you were talking about picture setting on the Roku device itself. I guess that setting just always defaulted to "best" on my devices, and since I didn't have any issues, didn't look for them.

Playing around just now on my 4K FireTV stick, I did see the preview window FF'ing through I recorded program, but not live TV, and then when I went back, the preview window was gone again. So if the FireTv app has received an upgrade like the Roku, it's inconsistent at best.

camo said:

This is subjective of course but IMO the Roku has a crappy image. Same TV, the same camera no adjustments.

Click to expand...

I did an A-B comparison for one of my recorded programs, and I might give a slight edge to the PQ on my 4K FireTV stick, but that might be due to minor differences on my input picture settings for each device (using a different HDMI port for each one; HDMI cable to my Roku could be a factor as well). Regardless, the remote response lag on my 4K FireTV stick makes any slight PQ differences more tolerable on my Roku.

Having tested other services for the first time since moving from Dish to YTTV (which was meant to be a temporary switch during a cross country move, because we greatly preferred the Dish interface, DVR system, basically everything except the two year contract and the flexibility of not having to have wiring run to the TV locations) - here are my FWIW observations:

Hulu Live: Just didn't like their interface very much, DVR was limited.

Fubo: This is the one that I expected to replace YTTV. All the channels other than the Turner stations (and I was using a low cost Sling sub to supplement for those when needed) and in many ways I preferred their live guide and DVR interface. However, as much a YTTV's compression artifacts drive me crazy on our large 4K TV, especially DVRed network shows, flipping back and forth between Fubo and YTTV on the NFL games demonstrated a MUCH better PQ on the same game, same channel on YTTV. I don't think it was so much the 720 (Fubo) vs. 1080 (YTTV) as much as Fubo was streaming the game at 30 fps vs. 60 fps on YTTV. 1080/60 looks MUCH better than 720/30. I think if it had been 720/60 it might not have been so noticable. But that ruled out Fubo.

DTV Stream: I'd tested them back when they were "Now" and it is MUCH improved. The picture quality overall was better, without some of the compression artifacts you get with YTTV, channel lineup was superb (though I was missing the NFL network for games that are on that channel) and love having the RSNs back. Honestly, I'm not all that concerned about paying, say, $15 more for a service that gives me more of what I want. The one big downside is that it does not have a native app for my Sony TVs (which is crazy, there are more apps than you can count on the new Sony TVs.) I have a CCWGTV, Shield, and Roku Ultra, and I just received a new 2021 Apple TV 4K, so I assume one or all of those have the Stream app. I'm not crazy about paying over$200 for two DTV Stream boxes, though if I ended up using Stream full time I'd consider it.

For now, we're back to YTTV, but I see a test of Stream in our future. The great thing about streaming is you can test a service for a couple of months or so with no long term commitment.

FWIW.

You can stream Directv through Roku so no need to spend big bucks on the boxes.