Cutting the cord...

[cato]

Agreed on YouTubeTV. I had cycled between cable (hated the video quality but liked the channel lineup mostly) and DirecTV (needed Sunday Ticket to watch my Bears out of market and preferred the video quality when working, but didn't care for the product otherwise). Our neighbor clued us in to YouTubeTV, and it has been soooo much better. The only caveat would be if your internet connection isn't great, but that I suspect is becoming less and less of an issue.



We probably had more channels than we needed, but to get the number of boxes we needed and the niche channels the family needed our costs were pretty high. We've definitely gained more streaming content/control and more flexibility with YouTubeTV plus the various streaming services though. And we're no longer tethered to specific rooms or tiny phones to watch. And it's still a lot cheaper than what we were paying for TV before, in part because we weren't willing to play the "haggle with the cable provider" game to get lower monthly rates. We get more content (save for one channel I think we lost), more access, and better DVR storage.

I'm pretty disappointed we didn't do it sooner.

I love YouTubeTV — except for the fact that they dropped my Padres one year after I cut the chord. This was a source of constant annoyance for me for the first half of the baseball season.

Now it’s a silver lining.

[Gooch]

Just found out that YouTube TV will no longer carry NBCUniversal programming as of October 1st (i.e. this weekend). That means none of the NBC family of channels (local NBC, NBCSports, USA, CNBC, etc.) and no Premier League on YouTube TV. They are being really nice and reducing the cost of the service by $10 per month.

I already have Peacock Premium so I'll eventually get to see whichever games I want but the ability to DVR all the games and start watching them whenever I want is what I really like(d) YouTube TV for. Now I will have to wait up to 24 hours until it the replay of the Chelsea vs. Southampton game is posted on Peacock.

Anyone else have a streaming service that carries the NBCUniversal channels with an unlimited DVR that is between $50-$70 per month?

[Native]

Just found out that YouTube TV will no longer carry NBCUniversal programming as of October 1st (i.e. this weekend). That means none of the NBC family of channels (local NBC, NBCSports, USA, CNBC, etc.) and no Premier League on YouTube TV. They are being really nice and reducing the cost of the service by $10 per month.

I already have Peacock Premium so I'll eventually get to see whichever games I want but the ability to DVR all the games and start watching them whenever I want is what I really like(d) YouTube TV for. Now I will have to wait up to 24 hours until it the replay of the Chelsea vs. Southampton game is posted on Peacock.

Anyone else have a streaming service that carries the NBCUniversal channels with an unlimited DVR that is between $50-$70 per month?

Feels like a bluff on Google’s part to get NBC to agree to more favorable terms.

[duke79]

Just found out that YouTube TV will no longer carry NBCUniversal programming as of October 1st (i.e. this weekend). That means none of the NBC family of channels (local NBC, NBCSports, USA, CNBC, etc.) and no Premier League on YouTube TV. They are being really nice and reducing the cost of the service by $10 per month.

I already have Peacock Premium so I'll eventually get to see whichever games I want but the ability to DVR all the games and start watching them whenever I want is what I really like(d) YouTube TV for. Now I will have to wait up to 24 hours until it the replay of the Chelsea vs. Southampton game is posted on Peacock.

Anyone else have a streaming service that carries the NBCUniversal channels with an unlimited DVR that is between $50-$70 per month?

This is NOT good! We have YouTube TV as our main streaming service. I do not want to lose all the NBC channels (especially including The Golf Channel). If this really happens, I believe I can separately subscribe to NBC Peacock and get the NBC channels that way.

[Native]

Feels like a bluff on Google’s part to get NBC to agree to more favorable terms.

Surprise, surprise.

After a week of back and forth between NBCUniversal and YouTube TV, the two agreed to a short-term extension tonight and will continue negotiating.

An NBCUniversal spokesperson sent the following statement to Cord Cutters News: “NBCUniversal and YouTube TV have agreed to a short extension while parties continue talks. NBCUniversal will not go dark on YouTube TV at midnight eastern tonight.”

[Acymetric]

Does anyone else have terrible buffering issues when streaming live sports through Paramount+? I've been noticing it ever since football season started.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

Does anyone else have terrible buffering issues when streaming live sports through Paramount+? I've been noticing it ever since football season started.

Paramount+ is the single worst streaming app I have used. On phone, Smart TV, PS5 - all trash. Cancelled recently.

[OldPhiKap]

Paramount+ is the single worst streaming app I have used. On phone, Smart TV, PS5 - all trash. Cancelled recently.

But . . . Their Super Bowl ads were so mediocre!

[Acymetric]

Paramount+ is the single worst streaming app I have used. On phone, Smart TV, PS5 - all trash. Cancelled recently.

I get it for free twice (as a perk with another subscription, and via a cable login), but agree that it sucks. It is the only way to stream CBS games though AFAIK. Casting the website from my laptop works fine so looks like it is an issue with the app.

[diablesseblu]

Does anyone else have terrible buffering issues when streaming live sports through Paramount+? I've been noticing it ever since football season started.

They provide the worst streaming experience ever —- across all the devices and connections I’ve tried. It’s astonishing they expect people to keep paying for it. I didn’t make it past the free 7 day trial (and they wanted to extend that to 30 days). Don’t need the stress of trying to access programs that are only partially available.

[Acymetric]

They provide the worst streaming experience ever —- across all the devices and connections I’ve tried. It’s astonishing they expect people to keep paying for it. I didn’t make it past the free 7 day trial (and they wanted to extend that to 30 days). Don’t need the stress of trying to access programs that are only partially available.

As best I can tell, the only way to browse movies in the app is to search for the specific movie you want, or to browse the entire library alphabetically (you can filter by genre), which is probably thousands of movies. I made it to the B's and gave up.

[LasVegas]

YouTube and NBC came to an agreement. Shocker. I never give these disputes any time of day. I think I’ve been through about 1000 of them over the last 10 years and only once have I lost channels. And that was only for a few days if I remember correctly.

But YouTube tv is by far the best OTT service.

[cspan37421]

We cut the cord a couple years ago and have set up only limited streaming services - Netflix and PBS via Roku streaming stick. For a few months in early 2020 we used Hulu + Live TV on same device.

On short notice we had a Big Ten fan visitor request access to a game on the Big Ten Network. It had been longer than a year since we had Hulu + Live TV, so we were apparently eligible for a free trial again. H+ has BTN so I set up a new account. However, our Roku never provided us the icon/app through which we could access Hulu + Live TV. Just regular Hulu. I tried restarting the Roku, checking my billing info (turned out there was an error there - my full name ended up getting populated into the "first name" field for some reason ... I fixed that and restarted everything, but to no avail). Anyway it was confounding. (our streaming sticks ARE supported models, btw)

So I ended up trying Youtube TV free trial, which also had BTN. While that also worked, it was kind of clunky to set up as well. Some of it has to do with where you are. It was easy to pick up an SEC game or ACC game, but if you go out of region, their algorithms are very suspicious of you! So I had to jump through a few more hoops, shuttling between TV, desktop PC, a "mobile" device (laptop or phone ... former didn't work though). Still couldn't get an early B1G game on ABC, i.e., local channel, but got the desired BTN game that started later on.

Funny thing, once I finally got BTN going, early in the afternoon, I wasn't going to change anything lest the desired later game might prove unreachable! However after a couple hours, YTTV popped up a message "are you still watching?" - and my guest couldn't get to the remote in time. YTTV turned off the game! What the heck kind of feature is THAT? We did get it back after a short interruption, but that just seemed stupid.

Once our guests leave, YTTV is going bye-bye. I don't watch much, so it has little value to me, and these excessively-complicated setups, regional blocking and confirmations, playing poorly with Roku, it just eliminates the service from contention in the "cost/benefit" analysis.

[Acymetric]

Those kinds of sleep timers are common across all streaming services AFAIK, although for some there may be an option in the settings to turn it off. The period of inactivity to trigger it probably varies.

Are you sure the Hulu + Live TV requires a separate app? I thought it was all contained within the one app but could be mistaken.

[cspan37421]

Those kinds of sleep timers are common across all streaming services AFAIK, although for some there may be an option in the settings to turn it off. The period of inactivity to trigger it probably varies.

Are you sure the Hulu + Live TV requires a separate app? I thought it was all contained within the one app but could be mistaken.

During my troubleshooting, looking up the problem in online forums, I got the impression that there were 2 distinct Hulu apps (icons of channels) on Roku, one of which was just "Hulu" and the other "Hulu + Live TV". Never saw the latter channel or icon. We had the former all along, but upon starting it up, it did not pick up the fact that I had just subscribed. I could not find anything in the UI to trigger the recognition, nor did adding a new user ("who's watching?") find the "+ Live TV" element either. I found it a bit strange, since 18 months prior I had successfully done so. We had the service for maybe 3-4 months before realizing we just weren't using it much at all.

Thanks for the feedback about sleep timers. I guess they default to that to help manage network traffic loads.

[ArkieDukie]

During my troubleshooting, looking up the problem in online forums, I got the impression that there were 2 distinct Hulu apps (icons of channels) on Roku, one of which was just "Hulu" and the other "Hulu + Live TV". Never saw the latter channel or icon. We had the former all along, but upon starting it up, it did not pick up the fact that I had just subscribed. I could not find anything in the UI to trigger the recognition, nor did adding a new user ("who's watching?") find the "+ Live TV" element either. I found it a bit strange, since 18 months prior I had successfully done so. We had the service for maybe 3-4 months before realizing we just weren't using it much at all.

Thanks for the feedback about sleep timers. I guess they default to that to help manage network traffic loads.

Nope, all on the same app AFAIK. I never saw two apps.

[johnb]

Anybody care to outline a cost-effective approach to getting everything?

Okay, “everything” is unrealistic, though I do recall when I got everything for free (3 networks+PBS). Soon afterward, we got Pong, which felt miraculous. How did they get Pong on our tv? Amazing. Those tech magicians deserved to make some cash, maybe a few of them would eventually become millionaires.

That was a while back.

After a variety of incarnations, I scrubbed clean, got a new tv and recently got a google handheld, replacing our Roku, which kept getting chewed up by Toby, our dog. I can’t get the google thing to work, but that’s protected it from getting chewed up by the dog, so that’s a win,

That’s the background.

I mainly watch YouTube live tv, which has espn and ACC, and watch movies on Netflix, Criterion, and Amazon. I want to watch Dune and Billions, which means I need to sign up for HBO and Showtime. I sometimes feel I should just put video providers on my checking account.

Happy to be educated.

[LasVegas]

Anybody care to outline a cost-effective approach to getting everything?

Okay, “everything” is unrealistic, though I do recall when I got everything for free (3 networks+PBS). Soon afterward, we got Pong, which felt miraculous. How did they get Pong on our tv? Amazing. Those tech magicians deserved to make some cash, maybe a few of them would eventually become millionaires.

That was a while back.

After a variety of incarnations, I scrubbed clean, got a new tv and recently got a google handheld, replacing our Roku, which kept getting chewed up by Toby, our dog. I can’t get the google thing to work, but that’s protected it from getting chewed up by the dog, so that’s a win,

That’s the background.

I mainly watch YouTube live tv, which has espn and ACC, and watch movies on Netflix, Criterion, and Amazon. I want to watch Dune and Billions, which means I need to sign up for HBO and Showtime. I sometimes feel I should just put video providers on my checking account.

Happy to be educated.

Your last paragraph is correct.Welcome to the world of fragmentation. Everyone has their own service now and content is all over the place. The good thing is there are no contracts anymore.

[YmoBeThere]

Found my last all in TV bundle bill. It was dated July 2015. Total $177.54, this included my internet as well as all the cable TV channels ex-HBO, etc.

My current bill 6 years later is $141.40

Internet + HBO Plus = $77.95
Sling = $49.80
Disney + = $8.65
Prime = $5 (just trying to put a number on it, can easily be argued)


The one that has gone up is Sling. I recall it being $29.95 with the options I had when I first joined. Also, no Disney + at the time, so the switch for me was $65+ a month at the time.

[CameronBornAndBred]

Found my last all in TV bundle bill. It was dated July 2015. Total $177.54, this included my internet as well as all the cable TV channels ex-HBO, etc.

My current bill 6 years later is $141.40

Internet + HBO Plus = $77.95
Sling = $49.80
Disney + = $8.65
Prime = $5 (just trying to put a number on it, can easily be argued)


The one that has gone up is Sling. I recall it being $29.95 with the options I had when I first joined. Also, no Disney + at the time, so the switch for me was $65+ a month at the time.

I'd be curious to know what your old bill would be today.