Attn: Cordcutters! Sling vs Google Tv vs DirecTV Now vs Vue vs whatever else?

I should probably add, that I only take Sling five months out of the year (during the college basketball season). It’s real easy to activate and then deactivate.

Yep, I like watching KU beat the crap out of Texas.

@Barney
At basketball. KU is very good as basketball.

Congrats. You’re welcome.

I like sling too. I get more buffering than I would like tho.

For me a DVR feature is essential.

I wanted to see what else was out there and how folks do and do not like the options.

@f00l You’re no fun. I trash UT and you say nothing? You been taking mellow pills?
/giphy mellow yellow

@Barney

I said nothing. Really?

Au contraire, mi amigo.

I was trying to go easy and be subtle. But let’s try this again.

@Barney
At basketball. KU is very good as basketball.

Congrats. You’re welcome.

At BASKETBALL.

Now basketball is a very noble sport. A number of family members are way way into it. (One of whom is 6’9", and I am a bit jealous.)

How my national championships does KU have a basketball?

Let me mention that I am impressed before I even get near to an answer. I know they’re great.

Uh, off-topic, but how many do they have at football?

Just curious.

/image Bevo

Obviously, the only thing left for Staubach to do, was finish his Navy commitment and then go play for the Cowboys. He knew where to go to repair his reputation.

I was on the stands for some of the National Championship games. My older bro was in the stands for all of them.

@f00l I’ll have to do some research about this thing you call football. Sounds dangerous to me.

@Barney

It might be fun for you to watch. Problem is, no one in Kansas seems to know anything much about it. You think they actually ever play football in Kansas?

If I called KU and asked for the NCAA sports office, and asked about foodball, they might know less than you.

@therealjrn If you ever need service or simply want to upscale your current TiVO, check out www.weaknees.com . Good prices, lots of boxes and accessories, and really good customer service.

I couldn’t watch TV without a TiVO; having to deal with commercials drive me bonkers now.

@magic_cave Thanks for the tip! Looks like a great site!

@moondrake

CLARIFICATION

Ease of navigating playback?

Or FFWD and REW and Jump Forward and Jump Back.

Incidentally, Sling does not allow standard DVR-style FFWRD or REW, just a 30-sec Jump Forward and a 10-sec Jump Back. They need to offer less ch more flexibility, but it’s a good start.

The paise works with a Bluetooth headset. The Jump Forward and Jump Back do not.

The Sling DVR is decent. Only 50 hours tho, so if i am recording news or daily shows, I have to clean it out every day.

I could use a better interface and less buffering.

The Sling DVR capacities are not yet available for IPhones, IPads, dunno re other Apple devices.

They have been adding features and devices pretty quickly, so I suspect that will change soon.

I would like a larger DVR capacity. Who among us doesn’t long for a billion hour DVR with more stuff on it than we could want in 100 lifetimes?

I certainly want that.

I mostly use it for news access. For HBO, I already had that.

Just stated watching some TV again after much time spent with the screen dark. And I’m already far, far behind.

Haven’t even started on Breaking Bad or Walking Dead or some other recent gems yet.

Poor pitiful me.

@OldCatLady
They’re hoping that when you sell your house, the next resident will want to activate.

Yeah satellite sux when it rains. Have you tried streaming cable-type services?

One of the nice things is no equipment, no contracts. Just month to month AFAIK.

I don’t know how well they do true HDTV tho. I don’t care about that.

@OldCatLady directv is a sat provider… I think we are talking about OTT providers here (over the top) ala “cable” tv that is sent over the internet… or did you mean DirecTV NOW the ott product?

@OldCatLady

1. I’m curious if folks have tried Directv in storms since they supposedly added satellites for improved signal strength. And perhaps location latitude impacts access?

2. None of that matters since we truly detest Directv’s in harrassing sales tactics. Get calls. Get door to door. Get tripped by them every time we go to SAMs. (SAMs hasn’t yet realized section sales go down wherever the Directv slingers hang out.) At least Costco’s contract allows them to kick the Directv slingers out if they harass customers.

@thismyusername @RedOak I was talking about DirecTV the sat provider, but my experience (and their CS) was so bad that I wouldn’t even try their other products. It’s frustrating that CSPAN is only in their package.

@OldCatLady great news the cs for the directvNOW product appears to be the att side not the directv side… so you can be frustrated and annoyed by a completely separate division!!!

@thismyusername
And month to month for the streaming. I think. Amd no equipment? Right?

Just wanted to add:
if you need it to work in multiple locations then directvnow and slingtv are the choices for you.

playstation vue it tied to one physical location… you can usually catch the shows you want away from home after they air using the network app logins.

good news for all 3: they all offer trials.

Another piece of advice… if are looking to really cut the cord and don’t have a streaming device yet…

AVOID STICKS AND EXPRESSES

firetv stick, roku stick, roku express, etc… they are cheap for a reason… the lack of ram and horsepower really stands out on these new services with immature applications.

netflix and hulu (and any other mature applications) will work great on them… but don’t expect directvnow, ps vue, or slingtv to perform as well as your cable/sat did on a dedicated cable/sat box.

If you want a good experience go with a device inside an ecosystem you already use…

apple tv 4th gen, fire tv 4k (the box not the stick), roku premium+ or ultra (the premium is $10 cheaper but lacks an ethernet port… and if you want reliability in a crowded wifi area ethernet is a must).

apple tv advantages: if you have a lot of apple products it will let you screencast your phone for things that don’t support tv… it integrates well with itunes and app store etc.

apple tv disadvantages: if you use amazon video services (prime video) there is no native app (but it was announced it is coming this year)

firetv 4k (box not stick) advantages: if you use amazon prime or amazon media it is well integrated… also there are apps for most things (including the 3 mentioned ott’s)

firetv 4k (box not stick) disadvantage: not much itunes support, no BBC America app

roku premiere+ / ultra advantages: as always the actual picture quality on roku always seems superior to me… no matter the connection. being around all this time has clearly given them some advantages.

roku disadvantages: most apps look like something from the 90’s they are generally function over form.

decent article on what apps are on what streamers:

https://www.cnet.com/news/what-you-can-watch-on-the-new-apple-tv-vs-roku-vs-fire-tv-vs-chromecast/

@thismyusername

Ohh thanks!!!
That’s kinda what I wanted to hear about. People who had tried the various services.

I haven’t paid for cable or dish or the like since pre y2k. I just kinda stopped watching tv much.

Subscribed to Sling last fall to watch election stiff. Like it so far. It could be better. Keeping it, so far.

I own a big tv. It’s in the storage locker. Never unboxed it. Someday I’ll do something with it.

Nothing against tv. Tv us currently excellent. Just, so is a lot of other stuff that competes for time.

I wondered how sling compared to the others.

I don’t have att cell service and am not interested in getting it. I do have unlimited cell data.

I don’t do much apple stuff. I do have netflix and prime and i seem to own a lot of streamable amazon digital films, and a very few iTunes, Vudu, and google play films.

Unless the film is utterly awesome or beloved, I’m happy not to deal with dvds or blu-rays.

What about Google TV? Is that currently rolling out in limited markets only?

Can you get around the google tv market limits and geo-restrictions by using a vpn, or do they check your location by the billing address on your credit card?

Right now I mostly want cable news networks that will stream over cell without stuttering or buffering when there is good signal. Actually I only want the audio, but they always throw the video into the mix.

It would be even more cool if I could minimize the app and have it keep playing the audio.

@f00l I haven’t tried youtube live tv or hulu live tv yet (youtube tv is select markets only right now).

When you say google tv do you mean the streaming boxes? They are almost all dead now… they are switching to “Android TV” as the brand and there are only a couple of modern versions out there. I have no experience with them. If you mean youtube live tv… I haven’t tried it yet. Everyone I know that has used it (youtube tv) says the quality is great (which is expected from them)… same for hulu… the only complaints from them are the same complaints about ps vue… lack of channels they want.

sling worked fine for me, but ps vue with its better visual quality (and it being the only one with dvr at the time) won me over… I am currently on directvnow due to a promotional price that is hard to beat.

@thismyusername Huh, this appears to indicate Play Station Vue does not include ESPN3. Can someone with Vue confirm that? That would be a deal breaker for me.

@jqubed PlayStation Vue is listed on the ESPN site.
https://espn.go.com/espn3/affList

@jqubed and the ps vue faq says in the list of tv everywhere authentications it says:

WatchESPN (includes ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPNews, SEC Network, SEC Network +, ESPN Bases Loaded, ESPN Goal Line, and ESPN Buzzer Beater)

As far as espn 3 as a channel in the main streaming service, none of the OTT’s seem to list it.

@thismyusername
Directv now has no DVR?

Gotta have that.

@f00l that is correct, at this point in time it has no dvr and the “72 hour rewind” on select channels is broken. The on demand is also pretty behind constantly… but they do have a lot of network logins. They claim dvr sometime this year, but if they can’t even get 72 hour rewind to work I am not holding out much hope.

@f00l it is Youtube TV.

the service that does live tv is YoutubeTV

the locations are listed here.

the streaming boxes from the old days are GoogleTV (no longer made)

the new streaming boxes are AndroidTV

@f00l My biggest complaint about sling is that it doesn’t load the next episode of a series when watching from the library. You have to reselect the series, the season and the episode every time. It’s really aggravating when I’m watching a show while working on art and I have to stop what I’m doing every 45 minutes to start the next episode.

@moondrake
Good point. I haven’t used it to binge watch yet.

It buffers so much that binge-watching might be painful. If the buffering isn’t bothering you, I’m going to have to experiment with it in more places to try to figure out what’s up with my streams.

@thismyusername

Thanks for clarification. My ability to remember names has gone to hell or something. And yesterday was no day for me to be looking anything up.

I will prob try the Youtube thing as soon as it lauches in this market.

Have you tried messing with snapchat video? I had no internet in snapchat until I heard an entertainment industry analyst say that snapchat might own portions of the big media streaming future.

@thismyusername
Re Youtube TV and limited launch areas

It looks to me like it’s a bad idea to try to use a vpn or a temporary visit or other tricks to sign up to Youtube TV in a launched area if you don’t live there. Their language implies that if they catch you doing that, they may cut off your account/accounts. And they want to track your location at all times, both for the reasons of the services they choose to provide at this time, and also to honor re-broadcast legal restrictions involving location.

I suppose it would be technically possible to spoof gps data and use a vpn connection google didn’t know about (surely not one of the big commercial vpn’s) But if one didn’t want to get cut off in the future, it would have to be on an otherwise clean device, with little else installed or running, on a clean account that never got correlated or linked to anything else in one’s life. Sounds like a lot of work, and given the many ways in which data can be correlated, also sounds possible to get caught even while being careful.

So I suppose, I won’t bother trying to play games with them and likely getting caught (about location spoofing). Obviously, they should have launched first in a way that pleases me. What other priorities could possibly matter? ; )

I imagine that many of the restrictions have to do with the service being an integrated “pay channels” and “local market” offering and all the legal blather that comes with re the content.

I wish they would just go ahead and offer a completely non-local “tier” so that they rest of us could grab the regular pay channel stuff.

I’ll just have to wait. : (

@f00l Nope, since you asked I’ve noticed it buffering a couple of times when it starts, maybe 5 seconds before the show starts maybe 1 show in 20. It’s crashed the show in progress very rarely, maybe 1 show in 200, and had to be restarted. It’s never buffered once a show started. I have 60mbps through Time Warner/Spectrum.

It’s interesting that I don’t have more problems as my tablet and especially my laptop have all kinds of trouble staying connected. I’m constantly getting “connected, no internet” from them. WTF is that supposed to mean? FWIW I got my new tablet in the mail yesterday, hooray.

@moondrake

If you are not having connections probs while streaming, but are having probs while not streaming, sometimes has to do with issues about the connection briefly dropping while it is momentarily inactive. Sometimes this is a prob w a particular chip or driver software.

You might make sure all your machines and drivers are up to date.

That’s just a wild guess; I don’t have much networking knowledge at all.

Fit, when I update drivers on a win machine, i always use a utility that allows idiots to rollback the driver software easily. Sometimes new drivers are garbage. This is a particular problem on sound and audio device drivers.

I don’t know if win 10’s automatic updates includes also all the drivers, or whether win 10 machines tend to have these problems.