Programming Thoughts/Rant

[Rage17]

Did you notice that almost all providers have a channel or channels that you like but are not available with only one service? For example, Discovery is missing from Sling, Hulu Live, YouTube, and a few others. A&E and History are missing from PS Vue, YouTube etc. So many miss either Discovery and/or A&E, The most well rounded seems to be DTV Now. PS Vue doesn't have Viacom but no big deal to me. Sling doesn't have BTN and PS Vue (and Sling) doesn't have CBS Sports Network. While most of the others have CBS Sports but lack Discovery and/or History. It's a pain in the a$$, really. There is one service listed here in the forums that starts with an F that I haven't checked out. Fubo or something like that.

The PS Vue App on Roku really sucks! When recording college football you can't pick only one game, it records many games on many channels. Also, most games don't fit into the time frame. Sling TV sucks as has no record feature on the ESPN channels. Ugh! Also, if I'm paying DVR fee I should get pause on live TV with every channel, not only some.

Now for my Hulu Live rant! Roku is the leader in market share as I understand, and they don't support it first or yet?! I'd get that to replace Sling as Hulu has A&E, History, and the CBS Sports Network while using the regular Hulu as well for about $10 more. But then I won't have the Pac 12 channels so like I said, It's a pain in the A$$. So in the end you need to have more than one service to get the channels you want and then there is still some you probably won't get with even 2.

I see myself getting DTV Now one day but I assume they have no DVR Yet on Roku? Also, they probably don't have a Sports add on package. So, even with DTV Now being the most rounded package IMO, it may be lite on sports and Boomerang is in only the most expensive package. This crap makes cable look good. That is if you don't need DVR and lets face it, with Demand, only sports lovers need DVR? If I wanted TV full time, a special 2 year plan is not bad when you get limited speed internet service through a cable company. After 2 years, you'd have to quit long enough to get a new deal. I don't do TV all year and don't like contracts, so streaming is right for me. Good Day!

 

[Ronnie-]

You might want to try the fire TV. It has access to the Hulu live, and the ps Vue app is bounds better than the Roku.

 

[Zookster]

You might want to try the fire TV. It has access to the Hulu live, and the ps Vue app is bounds better than the Roku.

^This.

Even though there's no way around recording every college football game on PS Vue, it will be much easier to pick out the specific game you are looking for on pretty much any other device's app (you won't have to click on each and every game listed in My Shows to find it). I recently got a Roku and was surprised to see the PS Vue app was much worse than I had expected based on the many complaints in this thread and elsewhere.

Also, I read somewhere, but haven't confirmed it, that PS Vue now adds 50 minutes of extra time to sports recordings. Regardless, I just got in the habit of recording whatever show was listed in the guide following an important game I didn't want to miss one second of. Yes, my cable company's DVR offers certain conveniences in that area, but it's a trade off. Now with Vue, I can watch any where in my house without renting additional equipment or paying the premium 'whole home' fee (not to mention $75+ more for everything else ).

 

[spencer7779]

Yeah, Sling blue would be usable for me if they had Discovery. Now that Discovery bought Scripts don't know if that is good or bad for Sling. Right now Vue is not perfect,but its my only choice. Now has the most channels, but it would cost $60 to get the channels I want and no Dvr.

 

[JTBenson]

You might want to try the fire TV. It has access to the Hulu live, and the ps Vue app is bounds better than the Roku.

There is still no DVR on DirecTV Now for Fire TV either. I have both Roku's and Fire TV's so would welcome DVR for either.

 

[Ronnie-]

There is still no DVR on DirecTV Now for Fire TV either. I have both Roku's and Fire TV's so would welcome DVR for either.

That is true, and I should have quoted the part that that particular piece of my post pertained to.

I was addressing his complaint about the Roku Vue app.

 

[andy_horton]

I guess what makes streaming your live tv over traditional cable is with some trade offs, it does cost less money. Take me. My situation is I have DTVN, Gotta Have It. It costs 70.00, no taxes, regional sports fee, or broadcast tv fee. It ad the Big 10 in my package, but most of my Ohio State football games are usually on ABC, since they are always ranked in the top 3 or 4. So I can either watch on my antenna, or my stream on DTVN on the other local ABC channel. Occasionally it's on ESPN. When I had Sling, both Orange and Blue, with all their add ons, at least the one's I wanted, it ended up costing me a little more and still didn't offer the SEC Network, Big 10, or others. Then, they said, ok, if you take our kids package, we'll give you some of the other add ons for free. I don't have kids. Granted I get he same kids channels with DTVN, but I do like the Encore channels included in. Comcast doesn't even come CLOSE to offering the same lineup (minus the Big 10 which costs extra) and you must usually sign a 2 year contract with them at minimum to get a decent price. Yes, their X1 is great, and you do get a lot of DVR space. It's 10.00. This 50 hours for 5.00 is crap. Especially for only saving it for a certain amount of time, etc. I understand it takes up Sling's or PS Vue's servers, or whatever service it is that only stores it for so long, but lets get real. 5.00 for 50 hrs, or 10.00 for at least 500 hrs in HD, more if you record some things in SD. Who likes SD? Really anymore nobody. But Comcast doesn't have all their channels in HD like the streaming services, if the provider offers it in HD. So there are trade offs. Yes, to get everything as a streamer you can get on cable, you need more than 1 service. I think over time this will change. Sucks right now. Am I tempted to go back to cable for a 2 yr plan? Most definately!! But, it requires a 2 yr contract, and while the base price can't go up, equipment, tv fees, and sports fees can. I read an article today that said in Oregon, Comcast was hiking tv fee and sports rates from 11.00 to over 14.00 a month!! Just to watch ESPN and your locals!! That is ABSURD by todays standards. Yes, tv channels want more and more fees to allow Comcast to carry their channel, but I'm sure Comcast is making a profit in the figures somewhere!! After all, even with sub losses last year they still were making BILLIONS of dollars in revenue!! And corporate execs salaries went up...there is no one good solution

 

[Zookster]

PS Vue adding CBS Sports Network this week solved 90% of my problems with getting all my live TV from streaming, even with the $10 price increase I'll be paying come November (from $35 to $45/mo). I would actually have to pay $10/mo anyway with cable to get the sports package that includes CBSSN along with other sports channels I already get with PS Vue's Core channel package (NFL Network, NBA Network, MLB Network, ESPNU, BTN, SEC, etc.).

andy_horton makes a great point that even paying for multiple OTT services, or having these services go up in price, nothing stops the cable companies from raising their fees as well, even with a contract. I said last summer I'm saving $60-$70 month over cable (their best negotiated, noncontracted offer), and I'm sure that's still the case even though I'll be paying $10 more for Vue. I'm currently on a two-month Hulu trial (commercial free) and I'm now tempted to keep it if a lot of the regular shows I record during the TV season are available. The PQ is slightly better and I'm getting spoiled not having to FF commercials for shows I record on PS Vue's cloud DVR, which is still not as responsive as a cable TV DVR HDD would be.

 

[Ronnie-]

You prefer the Hulu live pq to Vue? Or the normal Hulu library?

Hulu for sports is simply average when it comes to pq. The 30fps really shows when watching football.

Their normal library service pq is quite good however.

 

[Zookster]

You prefer the Hulu live pq to Vue? Or the normal Hulu library?

Hulu for sports is simply average when it comes to pq. The 30fps really shows when watching football.

Their normal library service pq is quite good however.

I haven't tried the live TV service, just the $12/mo. on demand service, watching a show that I would normally record on Vue, but is available on Hulu after it airs. I still can't believe no 5.1 on Hulu, even for more recent movies and such. And the PQ difference isn't a knock on Vue. I'd probably feel the same if I still had cable.

 

[osu1991]

As long as Cox keeps giving me a double play deal for $125-130, with my Tivo's I will remain. Get everything I want in the advanced basic package. If it gets to a point that internet and streaming is the better deal, then I will have to evaluate the streamers closer.

 

[Ronnie-]

I haven't tried the live TV service, just the $12/mo. on demand service, watching a show that I would normally record on Vue, but is available on Hulu after it airs. I still can't believe no 5.1 on Hulu, even for more recent movies and such. And the PQ difference isn't a knock on Vue. I'd probably feel the same if I still had cable.

Oh I don't disagree.

Hulu regular service has great pq.

 

[tigerfan33]

You prefer the Hulu live pq to Vue? Or the normal Hulu library?

Hulu for sports is simply average when it comes to pq. The 30fps really shows when watching football.

Their normal library service pq is quite good however.

Speaking of 30fps.
YouTube live tv big wig said in an interview lately (sorry can't find the link) when asked if they plan on changing from 30fps to 60fps?
"No"
Sad....

 

[ncted]

Did you notice that almost all providers have a channel or channels that you like but are not available with only one service? For example, Discovery is missing from Sling, Hulu Live, YouTube, and a few others. A&E and History are missing from PS Vue, YouTube etc. So many miss either Discovery and/or A&E, The most well rounded seems to be DTV Now. PS Vue doesn't have Viacom but no big deal to me. Sling doesn't have BTN and PS Vue (and Sling) doesn't have CBS Sports Network. While most of the others have CBS Sports but lack Discovery and/or History. It's a pain in the a$$, really.

Yes, this is why I haven't been able to bring myself to switch to one of the OTT services. I just signed up for a 2 year deal with Dish because I don't see the streaming services getting good enough between now and then to make it worth changing, especially not in a way that ends up costing me less money or providing a superior experience to what I am getting with Dish.

 

[Rage17]

Cable is not a bad deal if you want TV year round in my case, however I only want it for college football season then get rid of it for months. Internet service is very limited so my internet is through cable and it's like 6X.XX per month with renting the router. And they also limit me to 25MPS instead of 100. For the first year of TV it's $89 for first year and bumps my speed up to 100. But with fees etc it's like 115ish then year 2 it's 109 per month plus all the crap. So that first year I'd get TV for like 30 per month since I already pay for net service, so a really good deal. Broadcast fee is 7 per month on top of that and that's obscene when I can get it for free with antenna. I'd gladly pay the 5 per month RSN fee since none offer mine although I have hope that DTV Now may since AT&T took over Root.

As for Sling, it does offer the SEC channel and THE PAC-10 channels although it may be in the Sports package add-on.
I was waiting and waiting for Hulu Live on Roku but now that PS Vue has CBS Sports, I no longer care anymore. I might be willing to switch Hulu for Sling though,

I have a questing about Hulu live DVR... Can you record sports and can you FF through commercials? There is some confusion over the 15 ad on which gives you more space and mentions something about FF.

 

[andy_horton]

Kinda unrelated, but since DTVNOW kept having severe buffering issues, even on my laptop I synced the time to the second, constantly cleared cache, cable co has replaced 3 line amps, ALL wiring both inside and out, new gateway modem, it still buffered a lot. Even bought a new Roku. Decided to go back to using Comcast cable. Yes I'll pay regional sports fee, but all sports channels except Big 10 and Red Zone, which Ohio State games are usually on ESPN, ABC or FOX, don't care for Redzone, will get Starz included (all multi channels) on demand is MUCH better and more complete than DirectvNow, on a major event like American Horror Story, Walking Dead, or even GOThrones(don't watch that) but those shows when they start a new season are IMPOSSIBLE to stream. Just too much demand. No DVR yet, but others offer 50 hrs for 5 dollars?! And it is erased on some services after 28 days....for 5 more dollars i can record 6 shows at once(wouldn't record over 2) over 500 hrs press 1 button i can get sports scores in real time, standings, for me right now, I just felt cable was the better option. Maybe when a streaming service can fix a lot of these issues, get a good DVR, and have the channels that currently they don't provide at a good rate, I'll switch back. As it stands now, I'm paying roughly the same price vs before with just internet and streaming.

 

[JTBenson]

I have DTN, no DVR. I have not really missed not having a DVR. I don't really have a need to record anything because I can find almost everything I want to watch on demand somewhere.

 

[andy_horton]

I have DTN, no DVR. I have not really missed not having a DVR. I don't really have a need to record anything because I can find almost everything I want to watch on demand somewhere.

JTBenson, I'm reconsidering my switch back to cable. Had it over the weekend to watch, DVR on its way, not here yet. While DirectvNow lacks some in the On demand, I really don't have a big need to record shows. Most shows I stream on DirectvNow are American Horror Story, which reairs like 50 times a week before the next one airs, baseball games I catch on MLB Network, as I have no interest in the Braves locally, (postseason shortly anyway) and nightly shows are like a regular set schedule after a shower anyway (creature of habit..lol) so really for the best bang for my buck DirectvNow really does suite my needs and I have 3 Roku players. Even though it's limited to 2 streams, it's just me and my dad, and I love their Gotta Have It plan and price for the channels. If I ever needed a DVR, maybe I'd switch back to cable, but after evaluating both options for price and channel selection for money, DTVN seems better. Their buffering is a lot better now, too. I run about 90Mbps down and stream mainly off a new Roku stick using 5Ghz band and didn't think I'd like the sick. But do like the voice thing, point anywhere, and the dual band pretty much guarantees if you can get 5Ghz, you're almost as good as ethernet connected. I have a newer Roku 2 that is ethernet connected and buffers much more than the stick!! (Think the Roku is bad as it's always had its quirks and resets a lot for no apparent reason) Bottom line, you make a very good point and it made me take a hard look at giving up being a cord cutter, which I enjoy. Andy

 

[ncted]

I have DTN, no DVR. I have not really missed not having a DVR. I don't really have a need to record anything because I can find almost everything I want to watch on demand somewhere.

On Demand with or without commercials?

 

[JTBenson]

On Demand with or without commercials?

Without. Hulu, Netflix, CBS All Access, HBO all without commercials. Rarely watch commercials unless I am watching live TV which is usually just watching at night as I am going to bed or watching sports (or Crackle).