Cord cutting revisited

[muwarrior69]

I see Youtube has exclusive rights to Sunday Ticket. It could be the demise of DirecTV's satellite service as they switch to streaming.

[Pakuni]

YouTube TV raising its monthly fee $8.
Ouch.

[dgies9156]

Ditched cable last fall and love it.

We have five TVs in the house, only one of which is a "smart" TV, so Roku sticks work well. And, the best part is, no wiring needs.

Have YouTube TV and love it. Miss out on almost nothing. Watched every Warriors game this year,

Also get the NBC5 Chicago news at 5/6 and 10 p.m., so I can stay close to Chicago.

[MUfan12]

YouTube TV raising its monthly fee $8.
Ouch.

Not terribly surprising. I'm honestly more surprised it stayed flat for three years.

[TSmith34, Inc.]

YouTube TV raising its monthly fee $8.
Ouch.

They seem to be going down the path of cable bloat thinking they need to offer 100's of channels.

[shoothoops]

I remember when YTTV was about $35, 6 years ago. Those were the days.

[#UnleashSean]

I remember when YTTV was about $35, 6 years ago. Those were the days.

6 years ago $35 dollars was like 55 in today's money.

[jutaw22mu]

If they go over $80, it was fun while it lasted. I only really watch sports (EPL mostly and MU bball mostly), South Park, Sister Wives, and 1000 Pound Sisters.

[21Jumpstreet]

Selfishly resurrecting this. Anyone have current thoughts on YouTube TV vs Hulu + Live? I’m dumping Spectrum, and I also subscribe to Hulu/Disney+/ESPN+, among others. Anything new and exciting? Any new drawbacks? Seems like price and product are very similar.

[Jay Bee]

Price not as appealing as it once was, but YTTV still works for me pretty well

four- BOX on games is cool too

[21Jumpstreet]

Price not as appealing as it once was, but YTTV still works for me pretty well

four- BOX on games is cool too

How do you handle the internet side of your YTTV? Local company like a Spectrum?

[Jay Bee]

How do you handle the internet side of your YTTV? Local company like a Spectrum?

Yeah. (MediaCom, plus eero wireless mesh.)

[shoothoops]

Selfishly resurrecting this. Anyone have current thoughts on YouTube TV vs Hulu + Live? I’m dumping Spectrum, and I also subscribe to Hulu/Disney+/ESPN+, among others. Anything new and exciting? Any new drawbacks? Seems like price and product are very similar.

YTTV is great for layout, ease of use, etc…unlimited recording. (Most of what I watch is recorded).

The negative. Costs have gone from $35 a month to $82 a month in less than 5 years. (It’s shared among multiple locations which gives it more value).

No Ballys Sports Regionals. No MLB Network. No Tennis Channel. (they do have something called T2. I have TC Plus) They will have many of the others.

They had the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket, and apparently sales were better than expected of that.

YTTV is the closest thing to the former DirecTV/Dish/Cable consumer. Tons of channels. Many you will never watch. Some you might. Something for everyone in your family or group.

Customer service used to be fantastic. Then it was terrible. Now it has improved again but it isn’t like the old days.

Once they decide to stop carrying a sports channel for example, that channel is removed,  never to return.

So for me separate deals with regional sports networks for certain pro teams are needed. Or national packages like MLB Dot TV types of things. But I get some of these things included with my cell phone carrier. (T-Mobile) Free Apple sports for MLS. Free MLB Dot TV, etc…also included. You’ll need a separate sports regional app for NHL etc…most of which are bad. I have ESPN plus as well.

I fortunately have a very unique separate deal with cable for internet.

[Securitizer]

No Ballys Sports Regionals. No MLB Network. No Tennis Channel. (they do have something called T2. I have TC Plus) They will have many of the others.
I fortunately have a very unique separate deal with cable for internet.

YTTV did get the Tennis Channel back -- it is in the sports add-on.  Do you like TC Plus?  I have heard horror stories.

One warning about Hulu + Live TV: You cannot FF through commercials on a program that is still airing. 

So, if you are recording the Marquette game and planning to start watching 20 minutes after tip-off and FF through commercials until you catch up -- nope, not gonna work.  You can FF through the game action, but not the commercials. 

This is true even if you have the "no ads" version of Hulu + Live TV.  This is making us switch to YTTV.

[shoothoops]

YTTV did get the Tennis Channel back -- it is in the sports add-on.  Do you like TC Plus?  I have heard horror stories.

One warning about Hulu + Live TV: You cannot FF through commercials on a program that is still airing. 

So, if you are recording the Marquette game and planning to start watching 20 minutes after tip-off and FF through commercials until you catch up -- nope, not gonna work.  You can FF through the game action, but not the commercials. 

This is true even if you have the "no ads" version of Hulu + Live TV.  This is making us switch to YTTV.

Previously Tennis Channel was included in the main YTTV package. Why would anyone pay $11 month for Tennis Channel, when they can pay $9 a month for TC Plus and have access to all tour events, every court, every match, first ball last ball 12 months a year? And it can often be obtained for much less money than that, 40% to 50% less.

Getting it back but paying $11 a month for it is not getting it back.

Full disclosure: I sometimes get TC Plus for free because I know some of the people there. If they forget to give it to me for free I just pay it on my own some years. And I’ve always gotten a deep discount when doing so. It’s pretty easy to find.

TC Plus has improved their past technical difficulties. It used to be very frustrating and tech support was bad. There is a Senior VP EP there that I don’t like at all. Not a nice person The other nice people are aware of this. Whenever I have a problem I am lucky that I can contact someone there that has a lot of pull and 100% of the time he passes on feedback. Gem of a dude.

Sinclair owns Tennis Channel which is the problem.

I should watch T2 or whatever it is more often on YTTV, but I just go straight to the TC plus app instead. Make sure you check for software updates periodically. But I can honestly say tech issues are rare (knock on wood) and have been rare for at least a year or more.

Some of the TC Plus broadcast analysts are good, like Laura Robson, Lindsay Davenport etc….some less so. But it’s all about the tennis and the ongoing match which I like. It could be two random players and those two players are the focus much of the time. I’m a bit unique in that I can watch sports on mute if I don’t like the broadcasters. I know that isn’t for everyone.

TC has lots of shows and features and has more of a celebrity component to it. Some like that. And in small doses it’s fine. TC Plus is mostly just matches. And all matches are very quickly available on replay and you can fast forward and rewind replay. You can’t live.

Brisbane, United Cup, Auckland etc have all had zero technical issues so far in 2024.

With the 4 majors on ESPN, ESPN plus also uses the world feed so it’s the same broadcasters as TC Plus often. (I’m a big ESPN Plus user.)

I am someone that needs to pick and choose the match I want to watch and I can switch at any time or watch a replay etc…

I record a gazillion things on YTTV, anything I want without hesitation since there are no recording limits. Some I never get to watch some I eventually do. I often won’t watch something live, I’ll just record it so I don’t have to sit through commercials etc…

With YTTV if you record something ahead of time, and you wait an hour to watch a two hour game or program, you can just zip through those commercials. You can pause etc…just make sure it’s set up to record. If you forget to record something and you watch it live but miss the first 20 minutes you can’t go back until it’s over. You can click record 20 minutes into it and go back after the completion of the event or recording and watch the entire event.

In my opinion Tennis Channel needs to have distribution similar to Golf Channel. Not worth an extra tier. Just get TC Plus. Wait for a discount offer. Just watch T2 which is included, until you get the deal or just pay the $109/yr. And yes it’s 12 months newer month to month which I don’t like.

If you have Roku you can set up TC Plus through Roku as an add on. And one year I was having tech issues with TC Plus, I called Roku and they quickly gave me a year of TC Plus free without much discussion. So that is a customer service work around by going through Roku. But I think the price discount offers are direct through TC Plus only.

Hulu: I have T-Mobile and they sent me a recent text saying I can receive Hulu included with my phone plan soon. I’ve never had Hulu. T-Mobile also includes MLB Dot TV (local team blackouts) but every other team/game. They include Netflix, MLS Soccer and some other things to with my plan.

YTTV picked up access to the NFL Sunday Ticket this season and it’s been a big $$$ add on success for them.

YTTV doesn’t negotiate at all with channels like Ballys. They also dropped MLB Network last season and I didn’t realize how many games I watched/missed on there. But again I have the MLB Dot TV. If MLB dropped blackouts on various outlets it would be great. It’s been discussed recently to work towards that.

YTTV is the closest thing to Satellite/Cable in my opinion. (and I had all of them) Been with YTTV for about 6 years. Streaming for 8. It was partial packages like Sling and those types of things until YTTV.

I have also tried Fubo, and D-Stream. (to watch MU I have also had FloSports and occasionally I will add/drop something like a Big 10 plus which is terrible for a game.) Prefer YTTV to all of them but as previously mentioned, cost has gone up a lot and a few channels have been missing. Customer Service is no longer great as it was when they started. It went from 10 out 10 to minimal with pandemic and it’s never come back at a high level since.








 

[shoothoops]

YTTV did get the Tennis Channel back -- it is in the sports add-on.  Do you like TC Plus?  I have heard horror stories.

One warning about Hulu + Live TV: You cannot FF through commercials on a program that is still airing. 

So, if you are recording the Marquette game and planning to start watching 20 minutes after tip-off and FF through commercials until you catch up -- nope, not gonna work.  You can FF through the game action, but not the commercials. 

This is true even if you have the "no ads" version of Hulu + Live TV.  This is making us switch to YTTV.

One more thing I don’t know if it’s the same on other outlets but you can click record all Marquette events or whatever it may be and you never have to hit record again as long as it’s under that category. So it’s not as though you have to frequently remember to record a re-occurring event like that.

[Jay Bee]

Damn it. YTTV doesn’t have Lifetime. I’m trying to watch that gypsy rose stuff. This is crap!!

[Mr. Nielsen]

This could be a gamechanger for sports only fans.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/06/espn-fox-and-warner-bros-discovery-to-launch-joint-sports-streaming-platform-this-year.html

[#UnleashSean]

This could be a gamechanger for sports only fans.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/06/espn-fox-and-warner-bros-enco-to-launch-joint-sports-streaming-platform-this-year.html

If it encompasses a majority of all major college and pro sports, plus the basic comedy central, nickelodeon, Disney deal... minus all the awful channels. Then I'm sold.

[Jockey]

Anyone here have ATT fiber? Now in my area - looks to be a lot cheaper than current ATT service.

[MUfan12]

Anyone here have ATT fiber? Now in my area - looks to be a lot cheaper than current ATT service.

Yep, love it. Got it in 2020 when it came to my area. We had a promo for the 1 GB service that was way cheaper than Spectrum's 200 MB service. Once that expired I dropped to 500 MB. Have had no real service interruptions in 3.5 years.

[mu_hilltopper]

Yep, love it. Got it in 2020 when it came to my area. We had a promo for the 1 GB service that was way cheaper than Spectrum's 200 MB service. Once that expired I dropped to 500 MB. Have had no real service interruptions in 3.5 years.

I did the exact same thing.   Promo of 1000/1000 service, then a year later, dropped to 500/500 service, which is WAY more than any household really needs anyhow.

Never had a single internet dropout with AT&T Fiber.  Currently paying $60/month.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

Anyone here have ATT fiber? Now in my area - looks to be a lot cheaper than current ATT service.

Made the switch last October.  Have had zero complaints

[Jay Bee]

Capitalist pigs!

[JamilJaeJamailJrJuan]

Random question - has anyone here attempted to stream US sporting events in Jamaica?  My buddy decided to get married in Jamaica, which will be a nice little getaway, but I will be there S16/E8 weekend.  Unfortunately its more of a bed/breakfast type place - not a large all inclusive.  Seems like the viewing options within the "resort" might be non-existent, so I might be down to having to attempt to stream the games on a laptop. 

I have a silly amount of anxiety that I won't be able to watch the NCAA tournament games, especially if MU is still alive (hope to have this problem!).  I've never been to Jamaica - has anyone on Scoop been and attempted to stream US sporting events without a VPN?

Would love any info so I am not in a mad scramble next Thursday (we land early afternoon).  Thanks in advance!