Are your live local channels (incl major networks) on streaming TV service yet?

[Midpack]

Sure. But forcing me to go to each individual show's website devalues the PBS app and my Passport subscription. So who's in charge here? PBS or America's Test Kitchen? I would have thought PBS. But evidently not.

If you watch how Chris Kimball operates, it’s no surprise. He has always squeezed every dime from his sites, services and products - never gives anything away. His PBS show is advertising, that’s been his model all along..

 

[Katsmeow]

For those using a streaming service have you come up against problems with a data cap on your internet service?

 

[Cobra9777]

If you watch how Chris Kimball operates, it’s no surprise. He has always squeezed every dime from his sites, services and products - never gives anything away. His PBS show is advertising, that’s been his model all along..

That's fine. But he's not going to sell many recipe books if nobody can figure out how to watch the show.

See Lsbcal's comment:

Competition is good for us consumers. But too much can lead to a fractured piecemeal solution. I do not want to jump through too many hoops...

I suppose the number of cord-cutters is still small enough to ignore and maybe in general we're not the target audience anyway. I like the show, but not so much that's I'm going to jump through all the hoops necessary to put it on the big screen. I'd be far more likely to watch his "advertising" if it was on the PBS app.

I'm still hoping someone has a theory as to why PBS is nowhere to be found on all the new live streaming services.

 

[Midpack]

^^^ Some insights from a reddit answer. It appears the providers (e.g. Hulu, PS Vue) would have to negotiate with each local PBS affiliate for that area only. Not impossible, the same thing they’ve had to do to provide live local majors like ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, all rolling out slowly starting with major markets.

Why can't I get PBS streamed live?

Because they're a national network. They don't directly broadcast to anyone. They provide content to local affiliates, who then handle scheduling and intersperse it with local and syndicated programming. They don't directly broadcast a "pure" PBS national feed anywhere in the country because that's not their mission, so there is, of course, no national PBS feed. If you were to get a live feed it would have to be from a local affiliate.

The reason it's not available streaming is because you'd have to get your content from a local affiliate, who would need to make deals with PBS proper (who would, in turn, need to have deals with everyone producing content for them), and deals with anyone sending them syndicated content, and everyone producing content locally. That's a huge deal to set up. Potentially easier for PBS because they won't have to make the case about ad revenue online, but that's still a huge legal mess to get themselves into, because you better believe everyone will bring their lawyers to the table on this one.

 

[Midpack]

Just found out Hulu Live now offers all our local majors live and on demand, that makes two bondfide cable/satellite replacements in our area (with PS Vue). DirecTV Now (mostly on demand) and Sling do not for us, and YouTube only partially. YMMV

 

[MichaelB]

For those using a streaming service have you come up against problems with a data cap on your internet service?

No problems for us, using ISP Comcast with 1T data cap, streaming PS Vue, Netflix, Amazon, and also SiriusXM. Our max usage was 300 - 400 GB.

 

[bUU]

Sure. But forcing me to go to each individual show's website devalues the PBS app and my Passport subscription. So who's in charge here? PBS or America's Test Kitchen? I would have thought PBS. But evidently not.

Definitely not. PBS doesn't own the show. They purchase the rights to it. ATK has its own business model, the PBS broadcast being just one part of it.

That's fine. But he's not going to sell many recipe books if nobody can figure out how to watch the show.

Unremarkably, many people don't have any trouble watching the show.

 

[Cobra9777]

^^^ Some insights from a reddit answer. It appears the providers (e.g. Hulu, PS Vue) would have to negotiate with each local PBS affiliate for that area only. Not impossible, the same thing they’ve had to do to provide live local majors like ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, all rolling out slowly starting with major markets.

Thanks. I found that reddit thread and read the whole thing. It's 4 years old, so predates the likes of PS Vue and Sling. But still some interesting viewpoints.

As you said though, it's not really any different than the major networks. Each streaming service negotiates with each individual local affiliate, all of whom have syndicated and locally-produced content and ads. I'm sure it's complicated. But somehow PBS is willing and able to do this with all the traditional cable and satellite companies. But not the newer streaming cable substitutes like PS Vue. There's got to be something more to this story...

 

[Dawg52]

For those using a streaming service have you come up against problems with a data cap on your internet service?

About a year ago Comcast bumped data caps from 300 GB to 1 TB. When it was 300.... I had to keep an eye on it. I usually run in the 300-350gb range now. I'm buying a 4k tv soon so will be interesting to see how much more I use.

 

[Katsmeow]

About a year ago Comcast bumped data caps from 300 GB to 1 TB. When it was 300.... I had to keep an eye on it. I usually run in the 300-350gb range now. I'm buying a 4k tv soon so will be interesting to see how much more I use.

Yes, we have Comcast now. We have cable but often watch TV on our computers so that counts on the streaming. We usually were around 300gb but when our son was staying with us between college and grad school we got close to the 1 tb a few times.

But we hadn't totally cut the cord so wondered if doing that would make us risk the 1 tb.

 

[igsoy]

We use our over the air antenna into our Tablo recorder into our Roku. We select the Tablo channel on our Roku, and can watch live or recorded shows. Selecting the Tablo channel on the Roku screen to watch live is as easy as selecting the Netflix or HBO channels, nothing more to it. All we are paying right now is $5/month for the Tablo recorder service, $10.99 for Netflix plus we add in the $15 HBO when there's something we want to watch (Westworld/GOT). The only sport we watch is our local nfl team on CBS/Fox/NBC so we don't have to pay extra for sports channels. So we're spending either $16/month or it bumps up to $31/month a few months out of the year.

 

[Fishingmn]

We use our over the air antenna into our Tablo recorder into our Roku. We select the Tablo channel on our Roku, and can watch live or recorded shows. Selecting the Tablo channel on the Roku screen to watch live is as easy as selecting the Netflix or HBO channels, nothing more to it. All we are paying right now is $5/month for the Tablo recorder service, $10.99 for Netflix plus we add in the $15 HBO when there's something we want to watch (Westworld/GOT). The only sport we watch is our local nfl team on CBS/Fox/NBC so we don't have to pay extra for sports channels. So we're spending either $16/month or it bumps up to $31/month a few months out of the year.

We use a Tablo over the air DVR as well.

This lets us record local channels and access it through Roku as another source just like the Sling, Netflix and Amazon channel so there is no changing of inputs. Works well.

 

[Midpack]

About a year ago Comcast bumped data caps from 300 GB to 1 TB. When it was 300.... I had to keep an eye on it. I usually run in the 300-350gb range now. I'm buying a 4k tv soon so will be interesting to see how much more I use.

IME it’ll be hard to find enough 4K content to get in trouble soon. However, if/when 4K content becomes common/ubiquitous, if you stream 4K for 3-4 hours/day you could bump up against a 1 TB data cap - easily if your service is streaming in the background when you’re not watching.

I’m new to this subject, but I’ve read from several streaming users online who claim their (always powered up) streaming device was running 24/7 even though their TV was only on/being watched for a few hours a day. I am watching my data usage closely to figure out if background streaming is an issue with our setup/usage/practices.

According to Rayburn, the average Netflix video is 90 minutes long and eats up 1.6GB of data per hour (that's 2.4GB per 90-minute video). Netflix itself cites different numbers, estimating that standard-definition streams consume about 1GB per hour while high-def videos chew up 3GB per hour.

Using Rayburn's number, in a single month you'd have to stream 416 Netflix [HD] videos of 90 minutes each to hit a 1TB data cap. Got four people in your family? You'd each need to watch 104 videos per month, or more than five hours of Netflix every day. That's well above one analyst's estimate of typical usage, which has Netflix subscribers spending two hours each day using the service.

What About 4K Video?
The above numbers cover a typical household outfitted with HDTVs. Those of us with 4K TVs could burn up far more data, however, so Rayburn helped us do another calculation.

Streaming 4K content with high dynamic range can eat up 7GB to 10GB of data per hour. So, does that get us close to 1TB in a month?

Not really. Even using the more aggressive estimate of 10GB per hour, you'd still need to watch 100 hours of 4K movies and TVs shows each month, or roughly 3.33 hours a day. You could watch every episode from all four seasons of "House of Cards"—52 hours in all—in 4K resolution in one month and barely crack the halfway mark of your data cap.

https://www.consumerreports.org/telecom-services/how-easy-to-burn-through-1TB-data-cap/

 

[ivinsfan]

You tube tv, does not use a remote, it operates off of google chromecast and you must use a tablet or smartphone to control the channels, kind of a pain IMO...

Update on you tube tv it's now on streaming platforms including Roku and others IMO this makes it a front runner in streaming services...

 

[Dawg52]

Well after being a cord cutter for the last 4-5 years, I rehooked the cord. Couple of reasons. My sweet internet promo with Comcast was about to expire and more than double in price. The new internet price with PS Vue would be within $20/mo of a bundle deal(taxes,fees and all). Also I recently bought a 55" 4k tv and the resolution with Vue was not as good. Not horrible but a noticeable decline. And my internet speed increased from 25 to 100 mpbs in the bundle. My old speed was plenty but this was part of the package(2 years). Of course I picked up a lot more channels.....some I like but many I won't watch.

My picture is much better. Ymmv when comparing the two. This post could have gone in the 'Blow more dough' thread. Ha!

 

[Carpediem]

We finally cut the Dish cord after receiving notice of a price increase. They offered a $15 per month discount (HA!) that would have brought our monthly tv bill down to $125. We now have PSV, Netflix, and Prime. Still deciding what to do about the OTA DVR.

 

[Midpack]

Update on you tube tv it's now on streaming platforms including Roku and others IMO this makes it a front runner in streaming services...

Depends on exactly where you live, and what you want to watch. YouTube may be the best choice in some areas, but not others. Each of us has to look at exactly what live/on-demand channels you'll get where you live (local majors in particular), compare other features, and of course pricing. And I haven't looked at the YT Roku app, but the PSV Roku app wasn't nearly as good a year ago as it is today. The market space changes often...

 

[Lsbcal]

I have been testing a Roku streaming stick with our setup. I ran the Roku output into the receiver because that then runs HDMI to our older Panasonic plasma display. I used this Roku stick because it is suppose to have the best wifi of the Roku offerings and it works nicely for wifi reception through walls.

A few concerns:
1) A minority of viewings have an annoying echo like audio.
2) PBS does not seem to offer same day news. Perhaps PBS Passport does?
3) PBS does not seem to allow for stopping a recording and resuming at the same point in a separate viewing. Perhaps PBS Passport does?

If I can't resolve some of these questions I'll probably stick with Comcast ($132/month up for renewal March 8th). We would save around $57/month by going to Comcast internet only. Speed would drop somewhat too.

 

[Midpack]

I have been testing a Roku streaming stick with our setup. I ran the Roku output into the receiver because that then runs HDMI to our older Panasonic plasma display. I used this Roku stick because it is suppose to have the best wifi of the Roku offerings and it works nicely for wifi reception through walls.

A few concerns:
1) A minority of viewings have an annoying echo like audio.
2) PBS does not seem to offer same day news. Perhaps PBS Passport does?
3) PBS does not seem to allow for stopping a recording and resuming at the same point in a separate viewing. Perhaps PBS Passport does?

If I can't resolve some of these questions I'll probably stick with Comcast ($132/month up for renewal March 8th). We would save around $57/month by going to Comcast internet only. Speed would drop somewhat too.

I'm no expert, but losing PBS live/DVR was our only real regret when we cut the cord.

We're subscribed to Passport for $5/mo, and now we have on-demand access to almost everything we had live before, but some regional programming we used to have is gone (America's Test Kitchen was the only noticeable loss to us). PBS NewsHour has been available at 10pm every day (vs 6pm live), we haven't looked to see when exactly it appears. I haven't tried all programs, but we've use pause, FF and RW during NewsHour and Victoria no problem.

Maybe we'll have live PBS via streaming again one day, in the meantime it's not worth an additional $50+/mo to go back to Dish just for live PBS. Passport has been fine for us, and if something we must see live comes up, we can OTA anytime. YMMV

I don't know what content you were streaming but as for picture/audio quality, PSVue has been nearly perfect here. Every once in awhile we run into short buffering lapses, but it's rare. For some reason (traffic I assume), our picture resolution during the Super Bowl was downgraded for parts of the third quarter - but that's the only time it's happened so far. No issues with audio or echo here. There were occasional outages with cable and satellite too, and some compression resolution downgrades as well. Nothing has been perfect IME. And saving over $600/year will be nice.

 

[Lsbcal]

Thanks for the info Midpack. I'm still evaluating this setup. Might try a few things to remove the audio glitch.

DW has a low threshold of pain on this stuff and the extra $'s are not a consideration for her.

 

[pb4uski]

We finally cut the Dish cord after receiving notice of a price increase. They offered a $15 per month discount (HA!) that would have brought our monthly tv bill down to $125. We now have PSV, Netflix, and Prime. Still deciding what to do about the OTA DVR.

That's odd... our Dish bill is only $63... $20 for programming (Welcome Pack so we can get locals... No OTA where we live), $39 for equipment for 4 TVs ($15 Hopper, $10 Super Joey and 2 Joey's at $7 each) plus tax and fees.