Smart TVs and Boxes/cord cutting

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We’re writing to let you know that our agreement with New England Sports Network (NESN) has expired. Unfortunately, we were unable to reach a new agreement to continue offering you this network. Starting Saturday, October 31, 2020, NESN will no longer be available on YouTube TV, and you will no longer have access to any previous recordings from NESN.
We regret the inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your membership as we strive to make YouTube TV the best streaming experience.
Sincerely,
The YouTube TV team
 
Undertaker #59* said:
​
We’re writing to let you know that our agreement with New England Sports Network (NESN) has expired. Unfortunately, we were unable to reach a new agreement to continue offering you this network. Starting Saturday, October 31, 2020, NESN will no longer be available on YouTube TV, and you will no longer have access to any previous recordings from NESN.
We regret the inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your membership as we strive to make YouTube TV the best streaming experience.
Sincerely,
The YouTube TV team
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I was just making a note to investigate YTTV BECAUSE of Boston sports and and you post this. Ugh. Headed to my biddies tomorrow morning to watch my Sparty's get their ass handed to them by Michigan. He has recently switched to YTTV ($65). Loves it. If it is all he says it is, I may still cut a portion of the cord. We have WOW (Wowway Cable) and I get 1GB internet service as part of my package. I can cut the TV portion and keep the Internet for $69/month. I think a combo of these two will be sufficient. We get Apple TV+ for free for a while as the kids are sporting new iPhones....
 
Yeah $65 is way too much for what I use it for, and I will cancel as soon as the NFL season is done, but it's been the best quality live streamer for me.
 
Undertaker #59* said:
Yeah $65 is way too much for what I use it for, and I will cancel as soon as the NFL season is done, but it's been the best quality live streamer for me.
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He agrees that the picture is fantastic. I’m sure it’s depending upon a strong Internet signal as well. I have that.
 
aloyouis said:
He agrees that the picture is fantastic. I’m sure it’s depending upon a strong Internet signal as well. I have that.
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I think what makes them better is consistent 60fps when others are delivering 30fps. I only have bonded dsl and I do fine with it for the most part.

I had some degradation during the last game, but there wasn't much worth watching anyway. ;)

Sent from my Commodore VIC 20 using Tapatalk
 
I'm telling you all once again... Beast TV... thank me later See my previous post about it. 65 bucks a month for youtube TV? puhhhlease. I get NESN and NESN plus and ANY other regional sports channel NATIONWIDE
 
patsRmyboys said:
I'm telling you all once again... Beast TV... thank me later See my previous post about it. 65 bucks a month for youtube TV? puhhhlease. I get NESN and NESN plus and ANY other regional sports channel NATIONWIDE
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duck duck going it now...
 
I have pussed out for a few years now in terms of truly cutting the cord. I haven't made the leap to an OLED yet but I do have a 65" 4K true HDR LG and it's been awesome.

I still have Xfinity but have managed to shed all of the rental equipment (except the main box for the living room) and run a Roku stick on all of the other TV's as I can watch live through the Xfinity app. Bought a 3.1 DOCIS modem and invested in a TP-Link Deco mesh system for my router. Very happy with that switch as all devices are WiFi 6 capable. It's not that the download speed is noticeably better, it's that you can run a ton of devices on your network with virtually no degradation - we had 50 devices connected at one point. This has been big with 2 parents working from home and 2 kids at home, remote schooling.

I just feel like a lot of the streaming services that initially made cord-cutting appealing caved in to the ISP's a bit and the incentive is not as great as it once was. $150 a month for phone, internet and TV and I own all of the equipment (which should last me at least 10 years).

I am sure I could be doing better, but please school me, otherwise.
 
Okay, okay....

I am not above gray market services. For $15 a month, I will give it a try.

Installing now.
 
Hmm....had to sideload it, which isn't a big deal. Got it installed fine. It played a random channel fine right away, but failed to play CBS Boston which is the main reason I'd want it.

So jury is out. If that doesn't eventually work, it is nearly useless to me.

When the game is on on Sunday, with the integrated guide, I will see what channels are offered, but I hate dicking around with things right at game time.

Um, wow. There are a lot of porn channels. First time I've seen it on my 65" OLED, at 4:30AM :oops:

Have NFL Network on now and it looks fine. Found there are like 150 CBS channels, so it will be finding the one that has the game I want that works at the time.

I never got an IPTV like this before because they tend to get shutdown.

Finally got WBZ (CBS Boston) to work under the Canadian channels section....

(I have edited this post throughout my testing).

My conclusion after a couple of hours. Most channels appear instantly. Quality is not bad for the most part. I will try it for Live NFL on Sunday, but my impression right now is the bitrate does not match YTTV, but at a $50/month savings, I might be able to live with it.
 
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We have a Samsung smart TV, which is OK. 1080 resolution is great and good enough. It's a bit slow to boot up, but plays apps reasonably well. We have Netflix and Prime (two niche providers that you guys won't have heard of) plus various UK channels on demand.

I've not subscribed to Game Pass this year, as I find crowdless sport to be really hard to watch. It's a shame because I actually enjoy the unpredictable seasons more than the 16-0 blowouts. I know that's weird, but that's me all over.
 
Undertaker #59* said:
Hmm....had to sideload it, which isn't a big deal. Got it installed fine. It played a random channel fine right away, but failed to play CBS Boston which is the main reason I'd want it.

So jury is out. If that doesn't eventually work, it is nearly useless to me.

When the game is on on Sunday, with the integrated guide, I will see what channels are offered, but I hate dicking around with things right at game time.

Um, wow. There are a lot of porn channels. First time I've seen it on my 65" OLED, at 4:30AM :oops:

Have NFL Network on now and it looks fine. Found there are like 150 CBS channels, so it will be finding the one that has the game I want that works at the time.

I never got an IPTV like this before because they tend to get shutdown.

Finally got WBZ (CBS Boston) to work under the Canadian channels section....

(I have edited this post throughout my testing).

My conclusion after a couple of hours. Most channels appear instantly. Quality is not bad for the most part. I will try it for Live NFL on Sunday, but my impression right now is the bitrate does not match YTTV, but at a $50/month savings, I might be able to live with it.
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What do you load it on? Fire stick or something similar?

150 CBS channels alone? Something seems less than straight, LOL. Is it something to be concerned about?

I would love (LOVE!) to get all the Boston channels for obvious reasons.

Is something like this suitable as a replacement or straight up cable television or YouTube television? With this be easily usable by my family? And now that I ask that question, can channels be blocked?

can you give me just a high-level word diagram of what is needed?
 
It is definitely less than straight. That's what I alluded to when I said I hadn't installed an iptv service because they tend to get shut down.

That being said, the powers that be for the big companies usually go after the provider, not the end users. But let the buyer beware.

So, yes, every major network from every market in the US and Canada. All the premium movie channels. All the regular cable channels. But the $15 a month is not going to any of them.

I have multiple streaming devices, but my main one is an Nvidia Shield. It runs Android TV. Because of the nature of this app, it's not in the app store, so you have to download the APK from their website to install it. This is what sideloading is. It's not difficult, but it's not beginner level either.

FireTV runs a customized version of Android, so it can be done the same way.

You would not be able to load it on a Roku or Apple.

You can run it from a web page though, and perhaps cast it to one of those devices.

Sent from my Commodore VIC 20 using Tapatalk
 
You can set a password for the porn channels, but I am not sure about other individual channels. The interface is simple to use, but there are like 4,400 channels. Some are broken out by category.

If you are not technically inclined and want something the whole family can use easily, YTTV for $65 is probably a better choice to replace cable.

I've changed the way I watch TV. I only watch sports live. Everything else I use on demand services like Hulu, prime, Netflix, etc So a live service like this I get limited use out of. But if you like to watch a lot of live TV from any source, it's a very appealing app.


Sent from my Commodore VIC 20 using Tapatalk
 
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Undertaker #59* said:
​
We’re writing to let you know that our agreement with New England Sports Network (NESN) has expired. Unfortunately, we were unable to reach a new agreement to continue offering you this network. Starting Saturday, October 31, 2020, NESN will no longer be available on YouTube TV, and you will no longer have access to any previous recordings from NESN.
We regret the inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your membership as we strive to make YouTube TV the best streaming experience.
Sincerely,
The YouTube TV team
Click to expand...
Hulu here I come
 
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