Quote:

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Maybe QVC OTA will help reduce our usage as that is a heavily used channel in the household.

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T&P to your wallet and sanity.

I have a question about the DNS service. Right now I get all of the local channels through my streaming service, which is Hulu. I use Roku as my streaming device, so in order to do the MLB workaround, the DNS websites require me to change the DNS settings on my router. Will changing the DNS settings on my router prevent me from now getting the local channels through Hulu or can I still just specifically adjust the location settings for the MLB app to the UK but keep the Hulu app local?

rosco511 said:

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I have a question about the DNS service. Right now I get all of the local channels through my streaming service, which is Hulu. I use Roku as my streaming device, so in order to do the MLB workaround, the DNS websites require me to change the DNS settings on my router. Will changing the DNS settings on my router prevent me from now getting the local channels through Hulu or can I still just specifically adjust the location settings for the MLB app to the UK but keep the Hulu app local?

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Changing your DNS won't help get MLB.

SIAP

MLB App

MLB's blackout policy is ludicrous.

San Antonio is blacked out for both away and home games for the ASTROS and RANGERS.

I had a question about overplay.net and the SmartDNS service. I have friends that have been successful in using this service to stream live, in market games. In fact, I spoke to him earlier tonight and he was watching the Astros. I signed up for overplay and purchased the Astros package for MLB.TV. I configured both my PC and my XBox according to overplay's instructions and I am still getting blacked-out.

The only difference I have in terms of hardware is that I am using Xfinity's router right now. Could that be the hang up? I don't really want to accept that answer as even with a different router, I wouldn't necessarily change the DNS (which the internet tells me I can't do on my Xfinity router).

I think that the MLB service uses the billing address ZIP code and the geolocated IP address of the requesting computer to enforce blackouts. The geolocated address can be gotten around, but the billing ZIP code would require something else. Perhaps purchase the package with a pre-paid card registered to a different state or something?

nwspmp said:

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I think that the MLB service uses the billing address ZIP code and the geolocated IP address of the requesting computer to enforce blackouts. The geolocated address can be gotten around, but the billing ZIP code would require something else. Perhaps purchase the package with a pre-paid card registered to a different state or something?

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I don't think the billing ZIP affects the service. My issue was with IPv4 vs IPv6 (I think). I have to wait to until game time today to perform final test.

MLB is only geolocated ip. Billing address has nothing to do with it. I signed up for expressvpn.com, loaded their firmware onto my router, turn on VPN for games with literally one click. I do use a US server and the speeds are good. One click to turn off.

Good to hear. Had it a few years ago and it did the ZIP code then! Time for a VPN for me then.

I use AT&T wireless, gigabit internet, and DirecTV Now.

With unified billing for the internet and wireless service, I get the internet for $70/month. I'm grandfathered into DirecTV Now for $35/month, but get free HBO and $15 off with my wireless plan. My wireless plan is the unlimited choice enhanced and I pay $153/month for 4 lines.

So, I pay $243/month for 4 lines of unlimited cell service, gigabit internet, DirecTV Now Go Big Plan, and HBO.

Additionally, we pay for Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime (for shipping, not for the tv).

I currently have Uverse, which is crazy expensive. I can get a good deal on DirecTV and go back to satellite, but I'm considering just going with DirecTV NOW...i have three reservations and want to get thoughts:

1) No DVR....they are supposed to be addressing this soon from what I've read

2) No ATT SportsNet for Astros, although I've read that's coming soon as well

3) Here's the big one....only TWO streams at once? We have 5 televisions in our house. Usually we don't watch all at once, but I know we watch 3 at a time fairly regularly. From what I've seen, in order to get more than 2 streams I'd have to double the price and get another account....isn't this nuts? Am I not understanding?

Thoughts?

The two streams would just be for the direct tv now. Any of those streams doing Netflix or Amazon Prime?

I was planning on cutting the cable. Got the Apple tv/3 mos direct tv now a month ago. Cleared my DVR, packed it up, and had my wife call Comcast/xfinity. After 30 min of retention trying to sell her more stuff, he relented and attempted to take the tv portion off, but the computer wouldn't let him. It's not a bundle, but I have a grandfathered internet (no contract, no throddling, no data limits, 75M down for $45). He said all he could do was cancel all of it, and contract us to one of the slower but more expensive internet plans. They also offered to do a bundle of tv and 250M for $89 (I assume for a year contract, plus cablebox, HD fee, all those other fees, but the usual data limits, price bump after a year, on contract, etc). I guess I am stuck with what I have.

HomeFinderCody said:

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I currently have Uverse, which is crazy expensive. I can get a good deal on DirecTV and go back to satellite, but I'm considering just going with DirecTV NOW...i have three reservations and want to get thoughts:

1) No DVR....they are supposed to be addressing this soon from what I've read

2) No ATT SportsNet for Astros, although I've read that's coming soon as well

3) Here's the big one....only TWO streams at once? We have 5 televisions in our house. Usually we don't watch all at once, but I know we watch 3 at a time fairly regularly. From what I've seen, in order to get more than 2 streams I'd have to double the price and get another account....isn't this nuts? Am I not understanding?

Thoughts?

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1. If you have HULU, you honestly don't need a DVR very often. And HULU will help with #3 on your list as well.
2. Can't help you there, but you do get CBS and SEC Network for football season.
3. You do only get 2 streams, but if you have Netflix, HULU, etc. those afford more options. However, you should also look into PS Vue. I had it before switching to DirecTV Now and really liked it a lot. I main reason I am with DirecTV Now is because I get the Go Big package for $20/month and get free HBO. PS Vue, however, offers digital DVR and up to 5 devices streaming at once.

Can anyone confirm that I can get the Astros games through ATT internet using the following below?

"MLB
This is tricky. I don't think Rangers fans have an issue with this because Rangers games are on FSSW. That channel is available on some of the streaming services -- like Vue. But, people in Houston need to use a workaround to get the Astros. ATTSW is not on the streaming services as of now. So, if you don't have a friend's login to use their app, you'll have to do the workaround.

First, I suggest subscribing to a SMART DNS service. It will cost you $5/mo. I use overplay.net."

2ndChanceAg96 said:

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Can anyone confirm that I can get the Astros games through ATT internet using the following below?

"MLB
This is tricky. I don't think Rangers fans have an issue with this because Rangers games are on FSSW. That channel is available on some of the streaming services -- like Vue. But, people in Houston need to use a workaround to get the Astros. ATTSW is not on the streaming services as of now. So, if you don't have a friend's login to use their app, you'll have to do the workaround.

First, I suggest subscribing to a SMART DNS service. It will cost you $5/mo. I use overplay.net."

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I'd double check with the guys on the Baseball Forum.

I don't know if SmartDNS will work with AT&T, though it should. I had to make tweaks on my owned router to get the Smart DNS to work properly. The website walks you through it.

VPN is an option where you won't have to change things on your router.

I currently use Hulu Live for about $40 a month. I love it. There are upgrades for premium and additional streams. Pretty much every sport channel.

I have a full MLB.tv subscription from TMobile. I use that coupled with IPVanish on my firestick and I get around all the blackouts.

Cut the cord about a month ago (previous Direct TV customer for 20 years).

I bought 2 of the Roku Streaming Stick Pluses (+). Remote is quick and easy to set up. It takes seconds. Stream with YouTube TV and I MUCH prefer this style of watching. YoutubeTV's cloud DVR is flawless, get all the local channels, all the sports channels plus SEC network/WatchESPN. And about 70 other channels to browse.

I've been waiting for the technology to catch up with Satellite. It has, without question.

AggieBarstool said:

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rosco511 said:

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I have a question about the DNS service. Right now I get all of the local channels through my streaming service, which is Hulu. I use Roku as my streaming device, so in order to do the MLB workaround, the DNS websites require me to change the DNS settings on my router. Will changing the DNS settings on my router prevent me from now getting the local channels through Hulu or can I still just specifically adjust the location settings for the MLB app to the UK but keep the Hulu app local?

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Changing your DNS won't help get MLB.

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Yes, it will.

OneNightW said:

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Cut the cord about a month ago (previous Direct TV customer for 20 years).

I bought 2 of the Roku Streaming Stick Pluses (+). Remote is quick and easy to set up. It takes seconds. Stream with YouTube TV and I MUCH prefer this style of watching. YoutubeTV's cloud DVR is flawless, get all the local channels, all the sports channels plus SEC network/WatchESPN. And about 70 other channels to browse.

I've been waiting for the technology to catch up with Satellite. It has, without question.

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Does YTV really have that many channels now? I thought they only had about 40.

HomeFinderCody said:

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I currently have Uverse, which is crazy expensive. I can get a good deal on DirecTV and go back to satellite, but I'm considering just going with DirecTV NOW...i have three reservations and want to get thoughts:

1) No DVR....they are supposed to be addressing this soon from what I've read

2) No ATT SportsNet for Astros, although I've read that's coming soon as well

3) Here's the big one....only TWO streams at once? We have 5 televisions in our house. Usually we don't watch all at once, but I know we watch 3 at a time fairly regularly. From what I've seen, in order to get more than 2 streams I'd have to double the price and get another account....isn't this nuts? Am I not understanding?

Thoughts?

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SlingTV offers up to 5 streams I believe DVR. One difference from DTVNow is Sling does not have Discovery

I've tried Sling and YouTubeTV and feel like both are crap. I hate Youtube's interface where if I bring up the guide I have to scroll through and reselect the show I'm currently watching instead of just exiting the guide. With Sling the buffer circle will show up every few minutes even though playback continues without quality drop-off.

Both don't have 5.1 audio, which sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who cares about it anyway. And both services have poor video quality. It looks immensely worse than cable. Color range is pretty poor and the picture is always fuzzy, even after giving the stream time to buffer. Sometimes looks worse than 720p. My internet speeds are around 100 mb/s. Antenna, Netflix and Hulu look great. But watching sports (the only reason I have Sling) is almost unbearable sometimes and has me close to going back to cable.

OldShadeOfBlue said:

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Both don't have 5.1 audio, which sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who cares about it anyway. And both services have poor video quality. It looks immensely worse than cable. Color range is pretty poor and the picture is always fuzzy, even after giving the stream time to buffer. Sometimes looks worse than 720p. My internet speeds are around 100 mb/s. Antenna, Netflix and Hulu look great. But watching sports (the only reason I have Sling) is almost unbearable sometimes and has me close to going back to cable.

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I don't think any of the streaming services stream live TV in 5.1. One demand content on some shows/providers, but not live TV.

Quote:

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I hate Youtube's interface where if I bring up the guide I have to scroll through and reselect the show I'm currently watching instead of just exiting the guide.

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That's not the way it works on the YouTubeTV app on Roku. If I'm tuned into a channel, I can bring up the guide and scroll around. The whole time, the program that I was tuned into is still tuned in (still get audio from that program while I scroll around and a dim view of that program that's sort of behind the guide). Then, If I want to exit the guide, I just hit the return arrow and press the up-arrow button once to return to the program that I was originally watching.

I don't know if that's different when viewing on a computer or phone.

Here are the 59 YTTV channels that I get (in Austin), in the order they're in the Guide. $35/month.
YTTV allows me to use WatchESPN as well, so, I suppose you could consider that a 60th channel.

• Fox7 (local)
• KVUE (ABC)
• KEYE (CBS)
• NBC is on-demand only
• TBS
• TNT
• ESPN
• ESPN2
• SEC Network
• ESPNU
• ESPN News
• FS1
• FS2
• FoxSports Southwest
• FoxSports Southwest+
• NBCSN
• NBATV
• MLB
• Big10Network
• Golf Channel
• Olympic Channel
• Tennis Channel
• Disney Channel
• Disney Junior
• Disney XD
• Universal Kids
• Cartoon Network
• AMC
• BBC America
• FreeForm
• FX
• FXX
• FXMovies
• IFC
• Pop
• Sundance
• TCM (Turner Classic Movies)
• TruTV
• USA
• National Geographic
• NatGeoWild
• Smithsonian Channel
• SYFY
• Bravo
• E
• Oxygen
• WE
• BBC World News Now
• Cheddar (whatever that is)
• BigNews (whatever that is)
• CNN
• FoxNews
• HLN
• MSNBC
• Newsy
• CNBC
• FoxBusiness
• Universo (don't know what this is)
• Decades (don't know what this is)
• Comet (don't know what this is)

I also signed up for Philo for $16/month to get the following 37 channels (via a Philo app on the Roku):

• AMC
• HGTV
• TVLand
• A&E
• AnimalPlanet
• AXS-TV
• BBC America
• BBC World News
• BET
• Cheddar
• CMT
• Comedy Channel
• Discovery Channel
• DIY
• Food Network
• FYI
• GSN
• History Channel
• IFC
• ID Channel
• Lifetime
• Lifetime Movies
• MTV
• MTV2
• NickJr
• NIck
• OWN
• Paramount Ntwork
• Science Channel
• Sundance
• TeenNick
• TLC
• Travel Channel
• Velocity
• VH1
• Viceland
• WE

So, I now pay $51/month for TV. Which is approx $60 less than what I was paying with Spectrum (Time Warner Cable). YTTV and Philo both have cloud DVR so I can stream from any device/room, and both work great.

Also, with YTTV, one of my kids that's in another state for grad school is able to use it. Not that he simply *can* use it. I actually called YTTV and confirmed that he is allowed to use it (that it doesn't violate any policy). Further, YTTV provides some kind of family accounts tied to our sole paying account so that each user can have their own recordings, favorites, etc.

I also cancelled digital phone from Spectrum and use Ooma. Ooma's much better than Spectrum too; for some reason we get much fewer spam phone calls with Ooma. So, switching to Ooma was another cost savings, but I don't remember how much that savings is/was.

HomeFinderCody said:

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I currently have Uverse, which is crazy expensive. I can get a good deal on DirecTV and go back to satellite, but I'm considering just going with DirecTV NOW...i have three reservations and want to get thoughts:

1) No DVR....they are supposed to be addressing this soon from what I've read

2) No ATT SportsNet for Astros, although I've read that's coming soon as well

3) Here's the big one....only TWO streams at once? We have 5 televisions in our house. Usually we don't watch all at once, but I know we watch 3 at a time fairly regularly. From what I've seen, in order to get more than 2 streams I'd have to double the price and get another account....isn't this nuts? Am I not understanding?

Thoughts?

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YTTV allows 3 simultaneous streams.

How come i cannot find YTTV on my Roku or my Amazon Fire??

2ndChanceAg96 said:

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How come i cannot find YTTV on my Roku or my Amazon Fire??

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Hmmm, you should just be able to navigate on the Roku to Streaming Channels and search for YouTube. You should find two channels: 1. just plain old regular YouTube, and 2. YouTube TV.

https://channelstore.roku.com/details/195316/youtube-tv

Thanks for the Overplay rec. Solved my "DNS unblocker clashing with Netflix"problem and I can watch the Astros and Netflix easily now!

Moved to a new house and directv installer told me the only place for the dish was on the front of the house.
He was a real jerk about it, and told me he wasn't allowed to get on the roof to install it where I wanted it. This was after he told me he didn't have a ladder to reach the second floor of my 2 story house!
So, i'm Canceling directv tomorrow.
Had considered cutting cord before, but didn't know what to get.
Wife & I watch everything from DVR because we can't catch it live.
Also, Don't want to miss Aggie sports.

PS Vue and YouTube TV have the most reliable DVRs. I know Vue has SEC network, not sure if YouTube does.

[Edit: so I tried it again this evening after installimg an update on my TV, and sling appears to be working fine now. Even have the HBO and Showtime channels]

Anyone have issues with Sling video loading? I'm new to streaming, just setup my new LG OLED B7 last night and signed up for Sling trial today. Went home to test it, and none of the channels would load video except for one. The others just had the spinning wheel as if it was loading but the stream never came up.

Also, I signed up for HBO and Showtime with this free week trial, but it appeared I didn't have the ability to watch them live.

Lookin at what Hulu offers, I think I'll be going with them. Going to do their free trial after this sling trial.

It's really about what channels you want to watch - I need DVR, locals, ESPN, ESPN2, Fox Sports, and NBCSports. My wife needs locals, HGTV, Food Network, TLC. We had to pay Dish Network ~$80-90 per month after promos expired to get all those channels. I switched to PS Vue, lost a lot of channels we didn't watch, and cut my bill to $40. If you're still going to pay for HBO, Showtime, all the ESPNs, SEC network, and more sports networks, etc then cord cutting might not be that beneficial. The convenience of not having to switch apps/devices and having it all under Direct/Dish could be worth that $15 in that case, too.

OldShadeOfBlue said:

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I've tried Sling and YouTubeTV and feel like both are crap. I hate Youtube's interface where if I bring up the guide I have to scroll through and reselect the show I'm currently watching instead of just exiting the guide. With Sling the buffer circle will show up every few minutes even though playback continues without quality drop-off.

Both don't have 5.1 audio, which sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who cares about it anyway. And both services have poor video quality. It looks immensely worse than cable. Color range is pretty poor and the picture is always fuzzy, even after giving the stream time to buffer. Sometimes looks worse than 720p. My internet speeds are around 100 mb/s. Antenna, Netflix and Hulu look great. But watching sports (the only reason I have Sling) is almost unbearable sometimes and has me close to going back to cable.

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If you go to "Home" on the guide and go up to the very top of the screen, you can click back on your currently watched show (exiting the guide).

Is a DVR even needed with streaming?
Isn't it all "on demand" anyway?

If you're going OTA not really, unless you end up finding out about a show on season 2 for example, and season 1 isn't available online. But in that situation you wouldn't have recorded it to begin with.

I guess live sports might be about the only situation where you'd need one.