STrib: Gophers football cable TV viewers could get cut out this fall

Solid choice, IMO. And I think a lot of people agree, and have some type of setup similar to this. With one major, major caveat: live sports. Unless you can live with waiting (and hoping) for someone to put the game you care about up on YouTube, or if the game happens to be on OTA (lucky Notre Dame fans), you're outta luck.

YouTubeTV gives you access to networks like Fox Sports, FS1 and BTN. It is not about waiting for someone to put the game on Youtube you stream the station yourself. Same with HuluTV (which I have) these are cord cutting deals with a package of stations, local networks and DVR.
 

Anyone know if charter is owned by comcast or if it might be affected by this?


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Living in Denver and finding out I could no longer get BTN on Comcast was the final straw to cut the cord last month. I ended up going with Vue streaming through a ps4 and fire sticks. I'm fortunate to get the local channels through Vue and BTN with 2 or 3 alternate channels of BTN. My wife is an Arizona grad and the pac 12 network is like a unicorn cuz I couldn't find a streaming service that did both. Since Vue is only a monthly subscription, it will be easy to switch if I find something better.
 


BTN’s 10-year contract with Comcast, the nation’s largest cable provider, expires Sept. 1

Did they just realize that this week?

It's contract posturing, and everyone fully expects it to be worked out before 9/1.

And reading through this thread, I was using CenturyLink and just switched to Comcast/XFinity. CenturyLink kept telling me that I was getting 40 down (and that was what I was paying for) but several independent speed tests showed me that I was getting between 3 and 4 down. Moved to Comcast and am now getting in excess of 97 down. Looked at all the cord cutting options, and between the sports packages that I DEMAND (yes...all caps), and the cooking and lifestyle channels my wife wanted, a traditional, cable package was the best solution...for now. Signed up as an annual package and will keep hoping for a truly workable cord cutting option soon.
 

Out of curiosity, what do you use to stream Vue?

I use an Amazon Fire Stick on the main television in the living room and a PS4 in the basement. Also stream on the iPad while doing work around the house or cooking. It's pretty incredible. Fire Stick gives you a cable-like guide and Vue also has DVR functionality. It also has all of the local networks (here in Minneapolis). Unless having a one-second lag in changing channels is a deal-breaker, there's honestly no reason I can think of that would cause me to choose Comcast/DirecTV/Dish over Vue.
 

Solid choice, IMO. And I think a lot of people agree, and have some type of setup similar to this. With one major, major caveat: live sports. Unless you can live with waiting (and hoping) for someone to put the game you care about up on YouTube, or if the game happens to be on OTA (lucky Notre Dame fans), you're outta luck.




In my opinion, DSL is usually not a great option in these days. It's a slower technology, that was competitive when cable modems first started coming out, but not so much anymore.

However, I know CenturyLink (and probably other local phone companies) have invested in trying to upgrade their networks to a fiber optic at least to the neighborhood. That can give you the 50-100 Mbit speeds.

With cable, some households really get jacked with a huge bill, and I think has a lot to do with "excessive" fees. There will be fees for HD, fees for DVR, fee for each cable box you have (which can be a lot). People get tired of that crap.

YouTubeTV IS live TV, totally separate from YouTube the website. All of the sports channels I paid for on DirecTV are available on YouTubeTV. The only minor issue is the 10 second or so delay when streaming live sports, which is a small price to pay. Considering my DirecTV bill was $175/month for 3 receivers, genie, DVR, HBO etc I'm saving over $1,200 per year now.

I've had 2 TV's in my living room for 10+ years, that was obviously a deal breaker.
 

CenturyLink is soooo slow where I live. Not an option. I've done the math and for the channels we watch, once you combine internet with all the streaming fees you really aren't saving much if anything by streaming.

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Yea I've heard that is an issue for some people, but my CenturyLink speed is excellent so I must've lucked out. My brother lives 3 miles from me and says he can't get decent CenturyLink speeds!
 



Question for you. If I get the Playstation Vue subscription, would I be able to record or "DVR" the NFL and/or College football games and watch them later?

I cut the cable after last years football season, and I am looking to stream rather than get my TV cable box back. Looks like Vue would be much cheaper.

I'm unfamiliar with Vue (although I do have a Playstation 4). But YouTubeTV has unlimited DVR.
 

Unless it has changed recently, the Chromecast can only take the stream from another device (phone, tablet, etc.) and display it on your TV. Where as Roku, Fire, Apple devices actually handle all of it within the device, so you don't need to source it from something else. To me that's a big advantage, and I actually don't understand why they (Google) did it that way ... but obviously some people like it.

Then once you have a devise, you can really select any service you want (whichever offers the best group of channels, for the cost, that you prefer): Sling, Vue, DirecTV Now, YouTube .... these are all just services that should all be able to run on any of the devices.





PS -- sorry I've posted so much in this thread! It's a topic I'm very interested in, and have lots to say about. But I'm going to shut up now and let others speak.

Correct- I experimented with both RoKu and Chromecast when cutting the cord a few months ago...much preferred the RoKu option.
 

Question for you. If I get the Playstation Vue subscription, would I be able to record or "DVR" the NFL and/or College football games and watch them later?

I cut the cable after last years football season, and I am looking to stream rather than get my TV cable box back. Looks like Vue would be much cheaper.

Yes. You can set it to record "college football" and "NFL", and it will record them all no matter which station they're on. It can become annoying at times because there's an absurd amount of college football games on TV (you'll have to sift through all of the Harvard vs. Brown, Augsburg vs. Hamline, etc., etc. to get to the Big Ten and other FBS games), but anything you record will be available to watch for 28 days after broadcast.
 

CenturyLink for internet, stream YouTubeTV, Netflix, HBO Now.

Exactly what I have. Not sure if you're an AT&T wireless customer, but if so you get HBO Now for free (have to access it through the DirecTV Now app).

Very pleased with this set-up thus far.
 



As the original Comcast "sucker" in this thread all I offered was that I had no problem with them myself.

Am I likely spending more $$ to have them as my overall content and BTN provider for my TV enjoyment?...the answer is "yes."

I'll just note that not everyone is looking for a $20 to $30 savings to stream or receive BTN or whatever is necessary to watch either a home or away game in person.

It has also been said or implied on GH by some that only "suckers" buy season tickets too. "Lions, tigers, watching cable, and buying season tickets oh my!"

I guess the one commonality in this thread is that we all have found ways to watch the Gophers one way or the other.

I do offer thanks for the folks who noted how they cut the cord and who they get their content from. The Strib has this article every 6 months so on this very topic. Still not sure why our household would change from what we have now...very easy to keep what we have but yes does cost more.

Like offered before I figure a deal between Comcast and BTN will be worked out. Too much money involved...including mine. If not, I'll come back to this thread for advice. Thanks to all with alternatives in advance.
 

I’m able to play the satellite companies, Fronier, Spectrum vs each other to negotiate costs down (love Directv quality, Genie wireless DVRs and Frontier Fios) to where streaming doesn’t make much sense considering what I’d give up. Ooma phone has been fine for VoIP.

A few questions as I do find this fascinating even though I’m not a cord cutter (I do use Amazon Prime, etc at times) and I think it might help the less tech savvy (code for old people) figure this out:

For diehard sports fans are there any streaming bundles that offer all the ESPNs, FS1, BTN BTN 2, BTN 3, CBS sports, Fox network? We’re not big time enough to get on ABC, yet, but that’s OTA with a $20 antenna for most.

I see that BTN is offered in many streaming bundles eg Vue, YoutuveTV, DirectvNow, but I’m not sure if that includes all the live games (overflow channels). I suppose BTN2Go is an option but for Apple aficionados would require either a Chrome cast dongle or Apple TV. Is this correct?
 

Vue has multiple BTN channels listed and all of the others you listed plus all of the local networks for pro sports.
 

I’m able to play the satellite companies, Fronier, Spectrum vs each other to negotiate costs down (love Directv quality, Genie wireless DVRs and Frontier Fios) to where streaming doesn’t make much sense considering what I’d give up. Ooma phone has been fine for VoIP.

A few questions as I do find this fascinating even though I’m not a cord cutter (I do use Amazon Prime, etc at times) and I think it might help the less tech savvy (code for old people) figure this out:

For diehard sports fans are there any streaming bundles that offer all the ESPNs, FS1, BTN BTN 2, BTN 3, CBS sports, Fox network? We’re not big time enough to get on ABC, yet, but that’s OTA with a $20 antenna for most.

I see that BTN is offered in many streaming bundles eg Vue, YoutuveTV, DirectvNow, but I’m not sure if that includes all the live games (overflow channels). I suppose BTN2Go is an option but for Apple aficionados would require either a Chrome cast dongle or Apple TV. Is this correct?

Actually, a surprising number of the services to date offer all of those sports channels, including BTN and FSN. Either in the basic tier or for $5-10/mo more for an upgrade or sports package.

The main ones to date are Sling, Vue, DirecTV Now, YouTubeTV, and HuluTV. (As other posters have mentioned, putting the “TV” at the end of the latter two distinguishes that service from the more mainstream offering)

Would not be surprised to see others attempt it as well. The so-called FAANG companies, only Google offers a service with YouTubeTV. Seems like they all could easily, if they wanted.


BTN2Go is available on Roku, I can say. But I have not found the app to work very reliably. I use the Fox Sports Go app instead, it works much better and offers the BTN channels if you sign in with your channel subscription account.
 

As an aside: I would pay $XX/month for a service for someone to "chop up" a certain number of college football games a month. It would be incredibly valuable, for me, to watch just the plays of games back-to-back, so I didn't have to spend hours of time just to watch one game.

I think BTN does that for some games.
 

We recently bought a fire TV for our living room and that works well. Amazon fire is built into the TV. We have to switch to antennae for the local channels. The fire TV makes it super easy, you just pull up the guide built in and you can easily scroll through channels through the antennae and Vue all in one place. There's TV's that have Roku built in as well I believe.
 

We recently bought a fire TV for our living room and that works well. Amazon fire is built into the TV. We have to switch to antennae for the local channels. The fire TV makes it super easy, you just pull up the guide built in and you can easily scroll through channels through the antennae and Vue all in one place. There's TV's that have Roku built in as well I believe.

I have this, and love it. I had Roku before that, though, so I may have been biased.

The TV brand is called TCL, which I think is a Chinese company. Anyhow, they were selling them at Costco (might still be, not sure), 55inch for about $400. So that's where we got ours. You can connected antenna to the TV (as you normally would), and the Roku interface will automatically pull in those channels and even offer a guide for you on the channels offered in your area! Very slick, IMO.
 

How many simultaneous streams? Let’s say a family has 3 or 4 TVs in use, can they all use at same time? Is the cloud DVR accessible from every Roku or other box? I suppose this depends on the service.
 

How many simultaneous streams? Let’s say a family has 3 or 4 TVs in use, can they all use at same time? Is the cloud DVR accessible from every Roku or other box? I suppose this depends on the service.

For PlayStation Vue, you can stream up to 5 devices simultaneously in-home and 3 out-of-home. And the DVR is accessible whenever and wherever you pull up the service.
 

Just keep in mind that the internet service that goes into your wireless router in your house, needs to be capable of supplying an appropriate amount of speed (Mbits) in order to "feed" those multiple (3,4,5...) TVs or devices that are simultaneously streaming content.

And the "DVR" offered by these services is still streaming. They don't download the shows you "record" to a local hard drive. It's really just a fancy way of doing on-demand streaming ...
 

It sounds like the main arguments, then, are the limited channel packages, the lag time, and possibly video and sound quality. Some people will put less of a premium on those things than others, and some others probably won’t ever know the difference. I’d imagine quality will steadily increase.
 

It sounds like the main arguments, then, are the limited channel packages, the lag time, and possibly video and sound quality. Some people will put less of a premium on those things than others, and some others probably won’t ever know the difference. I’d imagine quality will steadily increase.

The other thing that I think pisses people off is that cable TV and satellite TV play this game, that drives people crazy. The game is "we're going to offer you a promo price initially, and then hike up your price in 6-12 months ... and hope you're too busy/lazy to call us and complain about that". They've always done that.

These streaming services seem to be better on that end, and are always able to cancel at any time.
 

Yeah I can definitely see the pros to it, particularly if the package includes all the channels ones family needs/wants. I have to say if these packages do include all the main sports channels, and the frame rate and resolution is comparable then it makes for a compelling choice.

I think you guys are doing a public service giving options for those that may be either affected by the Comcast situation or are getting scalped by their current provider whomever it may be.
 

If you're skeptical, just give it a try. I know Vue has a free 10 day trial. I'm assuming the others have something similar as well.
 

If you're skeptical, just give it a try. I know Vue has a free 10 day trial. I'm assuming the others have something similar as well.

For a lot of people, it does require a bit of investment in hardware, if you want to watch on your TV (as opposed to streaming to phone or tablet).

But ... you can probably return that too, if you don't like it.
 

For a lot of people, it does require a bit of investment in hardware, if you want to watch on your TV (as opposed to streaming to phone or tablet).

But ... you can probably return that too, if you don't like it.

Good point. You can look for deals. The Fire Stick was just on sale for $20 during Amazon Prime Day.

Or another option is to borrow a device from a friend or family member.
 




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