ESPN and The Mouse vs. YouTube TV

[Hozz 1017]

So my 'Disney' channels came back minus local ABC affiliate but at some point yesterday they are all gone from the Live guide again.  What a cluster fuck this is. I wonder if anyone will be fired over this and I would to see their subscribers before this versus one month later.

On a related note, I use the Samsung app for YouTubeTV on two different TVs, same model, different sizes.  At some point I started having this issue where the feed would just stop.  Not from buffering as is indicated by the spinning circle in the center of the screen.  Just stop entirely, audio and video.  It picks back up exactly where it left off about 2-3 seconds later this happens most often when you flip around, as you might do on a Saturday during college football season, as I do.  Does this happen to anyone else?

[CooterBrown 18021]

YouTube TV sucked for a while, the red flag was when they raised the price $15 to add VH1 and Mtv.
Hulu TV is pretty good and somehow Roku channels built into my TV for free has a ton of channels as well. Still no longhorn Network of course

Who watches VH1 and MTV? I’m not sure there’s any sizable demographic there. At least, luckily, not one I socialize with.

[Vito Andolini 9127]

3 hours ago, Hozz said:

So my 'Disney' channels came back minus local ABC affiliate but at some point yesterday they are all gone from the Live guide again.  What a cluster fuck this is. I wonder if anyone will be fired over this and I would to see their subscribers before this versus one month later.

On a related note, I use the Samsung app for YouTubeTV on two different TVs, same model, different sizes.  At some point I started having this issue where the feed would just stop.  Not from buffering as is indicated by the spinning circle in the center of the screen.  Just stop entirely, audio and video.  It picks back up exactly where it left off about 2-3 seconds later this happens most often when you flip around, as you might do on a Saturday during college football season, as I do.  Does this happen to anyone else?

The commercial breaks when they go to black with “Your Channel is in a Commercial Break” grx and the music plays have been fucking up way too much lately. They will sometimes not resume when the program returns. If you’re not paying attention, several minutes can go by. I’m a huge YTTV fan, but that’s a flaw.

[Zeus 6108]

3 hours ago, CooterBrown said:

Who watches VH1 and MTV? I’m not sure there’s any sizable demographic there. At least, luckily, not one I socialize with.

Yeah nobody.

They increased the base cost $15 and said hey you are getting Mtv and VH1 now!!

So I went with hulu

[Horn Dogg 3934]

On 12/19/2021 at 12:57 PM, immamac said:

Why not just plug in an antenna

Doesn’t work in SF Bay Area, the hills mess up the reception.  Honestly, I don’t know hoe the fuck people watched TV out here before cable.  

That being said, fuck YouTube TV!  I cancelled by subscription the second I got the email.  Decided not to renew, looking for another alternative.

[ousux 5601]

Doesn’t work in SF Bay Area, the hills mess up the reception.  Honestly, I don’t know hoe the fuck people watched TV out here before cable.  
That being said, fuck YouTube TV!  I cancelled by subscription the second I got the email.  Decided not to renew, looking for another alternative.

In spite of the frustration some here experienced in the brief switch to Hulu+, it truly is the best alternative to YTTV, and not bad at all once you get used to the interface. At least you'll have all the sports channels (except LHN for some reason) plus a good selection of the same live tv channels you had with YT...and starting next month will include Disney+ and ESPN+. It's not cheap though..you wont save much versus a comparable cable package unless your wifi internet is dirt cheap.

[HornOnTheBayou 8942]

6 hours ago, ousux said:

6 hours ago, Horn Dogg said:

Doesn’t work in SF Bay Area, the hills mess up the reception.  Honestly, I don’t know hoe the fuck people watched TV out here before cable.  
That being said, fuck YouTube TV!  I cancelled by subscription the second I got the email.  Decided not to renew, looking for another alternative.

In spite of the frustration some here experienced in the brief switch to Hulu+, it truly is the best alternative to YTTV, and not bad at all once you get used to the interface. At least you'll have all the sports channels (except LHN for some reason) plus a good selection of the same live tv channels you had with YT...and starting next month will include Disney+ and ESPN+. It's not cheap though..you wont save much versus a comparable cable package unless your wifi internet is dirt cheap.

I used Hulu over the weekend and I did like how Disney and ESPN were integrated into the app. Although it was a little frustrating when I was looking for a bowl game and had to scroll through all of the sports that are on ESPN+. I'm sure that once I used Hulu for a while, it would figure out that I would rather watch the Boca Raton bowl than third division Sri Lankan women's cricket.

[ImissWallyPryor 9046]

I’ve tried HuluTv, PlayStation-whatever, Sling, and another one (the name escapes me).

PlayStation was by far the best, but they stopped the service because no one consulted with me. I would’ve told them to name it SonyTV because half the population probably assumed they needed a PlayStation in order to stream.

Hulu was the worst because of the crappy cloud DVR and the cumbersome navigation required to use it.  We had it for one month.

We have had Sling for going on 2 years. The DVR can be a bit wonky, but it is very easy to change the program package between Blue and Orange and the add-ons. If we want to watch a game on LHN, we switch to Orange with the Sports package. We can switch back the same day and only pay for that one day. There are other add-ons besides Sports that we can add just to watch a particular channel.

But, those of you who are 50+ and think you’re hip because you don’t use Dish or DirectTV like your parents, the joke’s on you unless you can’t afford it. Other than the cost, those are superior in every way to the glitchy streaming services (admittedly, I don’t know much about YTTV because I’ve never tried it).

We have Dish Outdoors at our cabin, and we always activate that when we have family gatherings because it’s the one service that everyone likes and knows how to use. No bitching about the shortcomings of different streaming services. For those of you who aren’t aware of Dish Outdoors, it’s designed for seasonal use, RV use, etc., you only pay for the days you have it activated. 

[David Dennison 18940]

I'm 50 and have no plans on cutting the DirecTV cord because sports.

[Vic Mackey 47095]

19 hours ago, CooterBrown said:

Who watches VH1 and MTV? I’m not sure there’s any sizable demographic there. At least, luckily, not one I socialize with.

Exactly. I am pretty sure these stations do almost nothing music related any longer and it's just reality tv type bullshit. To raise the price they did for those channels was pretty bullshit. 

But I have come to grips that streaming will slowly climb to satellite/cable prices over time. It will be a slow burn. I can deal with that (for now). I do not want to play the roulette game of switching around at the drop of the dime. As long as YTTV has all the sports channels it has right now and the ability to store all my recordings and unlimited space, they have my business. I have seen Hulu's interface and it is much worsre than YTTV. The only other service I know of is Fubo. I know nothing about them and their setup.

[Brothahorn 10087]

I'm 50 and have no plans on cutting the DirecTV cord because sports.

I cut the cord and ended up going back, LOL.

[MrBig 5424]

We all need to collectively pay some kid to code IPTV for Surly and sell the service privately on a Fire Stick to provide the channels we want. I have a service that’s providing all sports channels + Premium movie channels + PPV streams, but it’s month to month and unknown if it can continue, even though the stream quality is excellent. All the templates for this type of IPTV are the same, so we should find a wiz kid to duplicate something like this and keep it privately in house on a VPN server to make sure it doesn’t get shut down.

[Bigjohns97 125]

1 hour ago, David Dennison said:

I'm 50 and have no plans on cutting the DirecTV cord because sports.

In my 40's here and have tried all of them and none of them compare to DTV in picture quality, surround sound, 4k live events.

Plus it doesn't interfere with bandwidth etc, and if you just set reminders to call when your deal is up its not much more expensive (like 20 last time i checked) and you get 4k college football which is legit.

[Bigjohns97 125]

Oh shit it looks like YTTV got that 4k now.

[Hozz 1017]

44 minutes ago, Bigjohns97 said:

Oh shit it looks like YTTV got that 4k now.

On like 6 channels for another $20/month.  What the fuck.

How is there not a true ala carte option yet?  I was going through the YouTube tv channel guide adding my ESPN and ABC back until the subscription runs out and I was stunned at all the fucking literal bullshit I am paying for and would never watch in a million years.  Like I knew it was bad just based on what I had on my guide versus what we ever watch but there was like 20-25 more channels not showing up on the guide that were all complete trash.

[Bigjohns97 125]

It looks like they even have actual surround sound now but I still wouldn't be able to watch Astros and Rockets games if I made the switch.

[Fudge Nuggets 19209]

22 hours ago, Vito Andolini said:

The commercial breaks when they go to black with “Your Channel is in a Commercial Break” grx and the music plays have been fucking up way too much lately. They will sometimes not resume when the program returns. If you’re not paying attention, several minutes can go by. I’m a huge YTTV fan, but that’s a flaw.

That happened with the Bally Sports app when I was watching the high school playoffs last weekend.  Every time they went to commercial I had to restart the feed (and sit through the intro ads all over) before getting back to the live feed.

[Vito Andolini 9127]

Yeah, if I cared about watching anything on Bally, YTTV would probably be a non-starter for me. But I don’t care. 

Just let me rewatch things I’ve recorded unfettered, and we’ll be good. YTTV lets me watch recordings as if I had an old school DVR, no forced commercials as long as I watch before it reverts to On Demand… and that is usually several weeks in my experience. I’m a broken record, but fuck HuluLive TV with the commercial tabs (yes, it’s great they now offer a premium service that eliminates the forced ads, but still not for me). 

I had DirecTV for several years, and paid extra for the Genie and slaves in every room, and that shit never worked. Now, I have a smart TV or Roku or FireStick in every room and watch YTTV wherever I want, even on my iPad or phone. Shit works in the rain, too. For more than $100 a month less.

None of these services are perfect, people have clamored for a la carte forever, but it obviously ain’t happening.  

[Blotto 23560]

11 minutes ago, Vito Andolini said:

Yeah, if I cared about watching anything on Bally, YTTV would probably be a non-starter for me. But I don’t care. 

Just let me rewatch things I’ve recorded unfettered, and we’ll be good. YTTV lets me watch recordings as if I had an old school DVR, no forced commercials as long as I watch before it reverts to On Demand… and that is usually several weeks in my experience. I’m a broken record, but fuck HuluLive TV with the commercial tabs (yes, it’s great they now offer a premium service that eliminates the forced ads, but still not for me). 

I had DirecTV for several years, and paid extra for the Genie and slaves in every room, and that shit never worked. Now, I have a smart TV or Roku or FireStick in every room and watch YTTV wherever I want, even on my iPad or phone. Shit works in the rain, too. For more than $100 a month less.

None of these services are perfect, people have clamored for a la carte forever, but it obviously ain’t happening.  

Pisses me off, but its pretty obvious if they let people go a la carte for what they wanted to watch, about 95% of these fucktarded channels would go tits up in a month. I would estimate about 95% of my YTTV viewing is sports, maybe higher. 

[HtownHorn 14755]

On 12/21/2021 at 1:38 PM, Hozz said:

So my 'Disney' channels came back minus local ABC affiliate but at some point yesterday they are all gone from the Live guide again.  What a cluster fuck this is. I wonder if anyone will be fired over this and I would to see their subscribers before this versus one month later.

On a related note, I use the Samsung app for YouTubeTV on two different TVs, same model, different sizes.  At some point I started having this issue where the feed would just stop.  Not from buffering as is indicated by the spinning circle in the center of the screen.  Just stop entirely, audio and video.  It picks back up exactly where it left off about 2-3 seconds later this happens most often when you flip around, as you might do on a Saturday during college football season, as I do.  Does this happen to anyone else?

Yes.

[HtownHorn 14755]

4 hours ago, Vic Mackey said:

Exactly. I am pretty sure these stations do almost nothing music related any longer and it's just reality tv type bullshit. To raise the price they did for those channels was pretty bullshit. 

But I have come to grips that streaming will slowly climb to satellite/cable prices over time. It will be a slow burn. I can deal with that (for now). I do not want to play the roulette game of switching around at the drop of the dime. As long as YTTV has all the sports channels it has right now and the ability to store all my recordings and unlimited space, they have my business. I have seen Hulu's interface and it is much worsre than YTTV. The only other service I know of is Fubo. I know nothing about them and their setup.

I think MTV, actually has a MTV classic station that might do MVs, I'm not sure though. The one thing I really like about YTTV is the ability to turn on/off stations from the Guide, and be able to order them so the ones I watch the most are at the top of my guide. Needless to say, MTV and VH1 are turned off.

[ImissWallyPryor 9046]

7 hours ago, Bigjohns97 said:

In my 40's here and have tried all of them and none of them compare to DTV in picture quality, surround sound, 4k live events.

Plus it doesn't interfere with bandwidth etc, and if you just set reminders to call when your deal is up its not much more expensive (like 20 last time i checked) and you get 4k college football which is legit.

Not to mention that the DVR is vastly superior in terms of slow motion replay (forward and backward). If the broadcast doesn’t show the slow motion replay, you’re shit outta luck with streaming services. 

[tbone_ 14136]

I think MTV, actually has a MTV classic station that might do MVs, I'm not sure though. The one thing I really like about YTTV is the ability to turn on/off stations from the Guide, and be able to order them so the ones I watch the most are at the top of my guide. Needless to say, MTV and VH1 are turned off.

CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC are 86’d from mine.

[GhostOfTomChairman 43]

Oh shit it looks like YTTV got that 4k now.

Not really.

[BluTechsan 393]

I have the Disney bundle as well as a cable sub so when I say I’m asking for a friend, I really an asking for a friend who’s current cable/wifi sub is gonna drop all ESPN networks at midnight tonight - pretty shitty timing if you ask me but that’s another matter.

So, now that Youtube has kissed and made up with the mouse, is it the best streaming service for sports?

[Beau Vine 54328]

4 minutes ago, BluTechsan said:

So, now that Youtube has kissed and made up with the mouse, is it the best streaming service for sports?

I'm sticking with FuboTV.  Its interface/DVR are very similar to YTTV, plus it has FSSW (or whatever it's called), NHL Network, and Pac12 Network.

[HiggyBaby 2544]

I'm 50 and have no plans on cutting the DirecTV cord because sports.

Same. Everytime I start tossing around cutting the cord I read a thread like this.

[tbone_ 14136]

This had a 24 hour impact. I’m 53, shitcanned directv 20 months ago for YTTV. Never looked back. Haven’t missed it an instant.

[ChickenSandwich 9844]

4 minutes ago, tbone_ said:

This had a 24 hour impact. I’m 53, shitcanned directv 20 months ago for YTTV. Never looked back. Haven’t missed it an instant.

Back home after the holidays with Direct TV tells me I miss nothing. Having to remember to record games. 100000 useless channels on a convoluted guide. 
 

They fucked the “list”up long ago and on demand is 50/50. Besides picture quality and missing a few channels YTTV is an overwhelmingly superior product and that’s before you add the app and online  viewing that actually work. 

[Beau Vine 54328]

This had a 24 hour impact. I’m 53, shitcanned directv 20 months ago for YTTV. Never looked back. Haven’t missed it an instant.

Me too. I had DTV for 20 years, so I really hung on to it. But it's fucking terrible compared to YTTV.

[DCLonghorn 244]

Me too. I had DTV for 20 years, so I really hung on to it. But it's fucking terrible compared to YTTV.

Exactly this

[totallynotabuttpirate 5400]

Direct TV Stream (as it's called now) overall has the best streaming picture quality and sound. I've had it for about 3 years and the app used to be hot garbage, but it's pretty good now. I also prefer the guide 100% over YTTV. 

Got a "Go Big" grandfathered plan with just about all the sports channels. 

 

Edited December 31, 2021 by totallynotabuttpirate

[BluTechsan 393]

Thanks again for all the replies. 

[4th&Five 41571]

My shit has been buffering since the 2nd half of the LA/TB game. Also buffering a lot on KC game. Non football channels are fine. Wtf?! Too many people watching or what?

[ousux 5601]

My shit has been buffering since the 2nd half of the LA/TB game. Also buffering a lot on KC game. Non football channels are fine. Wtf?! Too many people watching or what?

I'm going to assume you get your wifi through a cable modem like most people, and it does slow down if everyone in your neighborhood is streaming shit at the same time..which often happens Sunday afternoon/evening.

Something you can try is power cycling all your devices...that means pulling the power cord on your modem, wifi router and whatever device you use for streaming (Roku, Appletv, Firestick, Smart tv etc..) then plugging your cable modem back in and wait for a few minutes, then power up your wifi router and everything else. Should be much faster after everything reconnects. I do this once a month and rarely have issues.