Directv Now or Hulu Live or ?

[ivinsfan]

Wow, that appears to be a very useful tool. Thanks for sharing. Seems to cover all the basics and nuances... location, number of simultaneous streams, cloud DVR availability and capacity, ad skipping, device compatibility, and of course channel availability, pricing, and special offers.

I put in the 4 major networks and clicked the heart (must have). I then selected about 15 channels and put them in rough priority order. My top 3 providers include DTVN "Live a little" ($35), Hulu "Live TV" ($40), and PSV "Access" ($40), which is what we currently have. None of them are a perfect fit; we gain a few channels and lose a few channels, so I'll need to study the choices more carefully.

Not sure how accurate this is. Says it's in beta. The PSV "Access" seems to be accurate, but that's the only one I can validate. Very nice tool.

Good but not perfect, Hulu has a massive amount of VOD, which would be hard to put in the mix. In fact they just added "Deadpool" on Friday...Hulu has enough VOD content that we dropped Netflix...

 

[MBSC]

One question. I know that DTVN allows only 2 streams at a time. For those using it:

I've read they are going to increase this to 3 streams for an extra $5 a month. Is that something that you can get now or is that something for the future? If future, any idea when it will go live?

It's one of the new features mentioned in an email dated 5/15/18.

"We’d like to introduce you to our new app. It’s got a new look and feel, along with a bunch of new features. And, it’s rolling out today on Apple devices, select Chromecast devices and supported web browsers. Then, over the next few weeks, we’ll be introducing it on Android, Fire TV and Roku (of course, we’ll keep you updated)."

However Hulu is missing a lot of channels. None of them are deal breaker channels but some I like to watch at least occasionally. (Comedy Central, Cooking, OWN, Weather, CSpan).

This says the Hulu TV credentials access the Cooking Channel app and some others: https://help.hulu.com/en-us/use-hulu-live-tv-subscription-with-tve

 

[Cobra9777]

Good but not perfect, Hulu has a massive amount of VOD, which would be hard to put in the mix. In fact they just added "Deadpool" on Friday...Hulu has enough VOD content that we dropped Netflix...

The notes at the bottom say, "Includes Hulu's on-demand library." But fair point, there's not much information about the relative quantity or quality of VOD content.

From my perspective, the big downside to Hulu is no ad-skipping, even on DVR content, unless you pay an extra $15/mo. PSV allows ad-skipping on recorded content and some on-demand... plus 5 simultaneous streams, including 3 out-of-home.

At first glance, DTVN looks like the best combo of channels and price, but the DVR looks sketchy (20 hours) and I can't tell if there's any on-demand, plus only 2 streams. I think I'll stick with PSV "Access" based on this information, which again, I'm not too sure about the accuracy or completeness of this web tool just yet.

 

[Katsmeow]

Just to post what we ended up doing. We prepaid for 3 months of Directv Now to get the 4k Apple TV. I thought about doing the one month for the Roku Streaming Stick but I am not that enthused with the sticks. I have read good reviews for the Apple TV. We have iPhones so that will be fine. We will probably use it on our to be purchased living room TV.

I've used Directv Now only for about an hour or so last night and it was fine. We got the $60 a month option + HBO and + 3rd stream so total is $70 a month. That plus our Frontier Fios 100/100 interent at $40 a month (plus tas) is still far less expensive than cable TV would have been.

 

[Katsmeow]

And a further follow up on this. We had Directv Now for 3 months (getting the free Apple TV). It was largely fine, but DH had several episodes of just not being able to get it to work. It just wouldn't "start" on his computer where he usually watches. He could watch on the TV or sometimes his phone. This problem was intermittent for about 6 weeks then went away.

But we decided at the end of the 3 months to try someone else, also Directv Now was about to increase its rates by I think $5 a month.

So -- we ended up switching to Playstation Vue. I sort of liked the options of Hulu live the most but it was most expensive once you paid for them.

We found that we could get everything we wanted with the Core subscription $49.99 + tax). Now Playstation has all 3 of the local network affiliates which it hadn't had originally. HBO is $15 a month so we elected not to get it. We can always add it on later if there is something we really want to watch.

We haven't had any problems with Playstation. I've found it hard on the DVR to figure out how to delete a particular recorded episode without deleting all of them for that show. I am sure there is a way to do it but I haven't figured it out yet...need to go research it...

 

[Cobra9777]

...We haven't had any problems with Playstation. I've found it hard on the DVR to figure out how to delete a particular recorded episode without deleting all of them for that show. I am sure there is a way to do it but I haven't figured it out yet...need to go research it...

There is no way to delete an individual episode. Then again, there's really no need as it's all stored in the cloud and you have unlimited space. It will be automatically deleted after 28 days.

 

[hesperus]

Have been with DirecTV Now since it's inception. Got the free AppleTV box along with the lifetime discount, and for some reason we get free HBO too. At first, we were very close to dropping it, lots of snafus, ie: buffering, freezes. But we stuck with it and they seem to have found their groove. It's much better, very few issues at all now. I think using AppleTV box helps avoid the buffering issues, since with Roku it was much more prevalent.
With Tax, we're paying $41.20 per month for the GoBig package (free HBO)

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Have been with DirecTV Now since it's inception. Got the free AppleTV box along with the lifetime discount, and for some reason we get free HBO too. At first, we were very close to dropping it, lots of snafus, ie: buffering, freezes. But we stuck with it and they seem to have found their groove. It's much better, very few issues at all now. I think using AppleTV box helps avoid the buffering issues, since with Roku it was much more prevalent.
With Tax, we're paying $41.20 per month for the GoBig package (free HBO)

I agree that it is working much better these days (Directv Now). We also have a "joint" Sling account with SIL and it works well too...although there are no local affiliates available. The on demand feature with Sling works well, too.

 

[Rustic23]

For those in New York, Houston, Boston, Denver, Chicago and Philadelphia, there is Locast.
No dvr, but it's free local stations.

https://www.locast.org/

I run it on Roku and on my PC. Not sure what else it runs on.

 

[Cobra9777]

For those in New York, Houston, Boston, Denver, Chicago and Philadelphia, there is Locast.
No dvr, but it's free local stations.

https://www.locast.org/

I run it on Roku and on my PC. Not sure what else it runs on.

I also use locast for the Dallas broadcast stations. It runs fine on my PC and Android phone. I have Kodi running on my Fire TV box and there's a 3rd party locast add-on for Kodi. Everything works fine except the ONE station I can't get on PS Vue, which is PBS. That one station buffers horribly. Completely unwatchable. I emailed the locast support team and they assured me that an official app for Fire TV was forthcoming, which would solve the problem with the Kodi add-on. I also tried sideloading the Android app onto the Fire TV. It runs fine but I can't navigate with the remote (it's made for a touch screen). So that was useless as well.

I'll wait for the Fire TV app. But realistically, I don't expect locast to survive the inevitable legal challenges, same as Aereo and FilmOn. Although they seem to have found some "not-for-profit" exception to the prohibition on rebroadcasting. But still, it's pretty obvious they are not a bona fide not-for-profit.

 

[Katsmeow]

There is no way to delete an individual episode. Then again, there's really no need as it's all stored in the cloud and you have unlimited space. It will be automatically deleted after 28 days.

Thank you. I had actually wondered if that was the case.