Comcast to Drop BTN
OK, I am dropping Comcast
My thoughts exactly. The ONLY reason I have cable is to watch CFB. Now that I can't watch 3-4 games per year, there's no reason to keep paying 100+ bucks a month.
EDIT: For all you people who have already cut the cord - how do you watch football games now?
The only reason I maintain my cable subscription is because it has more sports option than non-cable options. If this happens, that will no longer be the case and will force my hand to get something else. At least one Michigan game is on there every single year.
I also have Comcast for internet, but I use AT&T's Direct TV Now online streaming service for Michigan football.
I pay Comcast to get extra high speed internet, yet I still have problems with the streaming TV. It is often too blury when zoomed in, but perfect HD when zoomed out. It also often freezes and buffers causing me to miss 3 plays a game on average.
I highly doubt it is my internet, because I can have 4 people all watching youtube without an issue and then I can be home alone without anyone using my internet and my TV streaming will still struggle.
Do you have issues like this with Hulu? I am thinking about switching over to satellite TV.
and have hulu. it definitely cuts and rebuffers which is annoying. the espn channels seem to do this more. i don't think it's an internet issue, but more likely a hulu issue. i'm guesing it cuts out more with higher traffic which would seem likely if there is a good game on espn.
btn rarely cuts out and rebuffs unless there is a good live game on.
April 12th, 2018 at 10:48 PM ^
Yeah, if I watch a normal channel or even the news it is pretty good. If I watch a live football or basketball game the quality is constantly changing between HD and blurry. There were times it was so bad, I couldn't tell if the basketball went through the hoop or where the ball was when our QB passed it. It also then buffers causing me to miss a few plays.
Not a fan. I hate Comcast though, so I will probably go to a Satellite service.
I'm enjoying my youtube. Even my wife and daughter can figure out how to use it.
YouTube TV is great.
Been on YouTube TV for about 4 months now. BTN in HD. NBCBayArea (Giants, Warriors) in HD. Unfortunately, Draymond is on HD too.
Also, surround sound, when it's broadcast that way.
Great service for $35/month.
Switched today when I found out.
I have been on the edge for a long time and this was just the final straw, didn't realize other options had Big Ten Network in HD.
What is weird as I kind of expected the HD picture to be slightly inferior on the streaming services, but I'm looking at it and all the channels are better, much better. Totally.
April 12th, 2018 at 10:45 PM ^
I looked at youtube tv the other day and noticed that it has ABC listed. With the playstation tv thing abc wasn't live so you couldn't get the Michigan games that aired.
So, do you know if YTTV has abc as live? Or, at least the sports?
“Hi after further research I'm showing if you are in a BIG 10 state you will still have access to the Big 10 network. I apologize about any confusion this may have caused. -BT”
Sling. I pay $50 a month roughly and get all the sports I want except for the BTN. Combined with a over the air antenna for local channels and I'm very happy with my decision to drop DirecTV.
You tube TV has BTN, ESPN and FS1.
Last I checked, Youtube TV isn't available everywhere.
I have it here in Ann Arbor. It's amazing. Has every channel Michigna woudl ever be on (ABC/FOX/ESPN/ESPN2/BTN/FS1), has an unlimited DVR, and allows you to have multiple accounts. For $35/ month, it's a steal compared to what I was getting with DirecTV
What are you using for internet connectivity?
F Comcast -- this is the final straw for me -- I hate them.
I've had YouTube TV since the World series and in that time I've had a video flat out drop on me twice. I mainly watch sports on it (Premier League right now, some MLB) and it's been really good.
Before YouYube TV I had DirecTVNow and I cannot say the same for stream quality. The app ease of use swings significantly in Youtube's favor as well.
You also get live streaming for local channels in some markets too. I live in Grand Rapids and get live stream CBS, ABC, Fox but no NBC. That is a problem as my wife is (gasp) a Notre Dame fan and will be problematic next year when Michigan plays at ND.
My wife is overseas and loves UM sports. We had been using Comcast's Cloud DVR with a VPN but it recently stopped working for some reason (not due to the VPN, Comcast says). She had been using their Stream app.
How do you connect at home -- Chromecast?
What is the speed of your Internet connection with Comcast? How much do they charge? Seems like they always wanna F us when we choose anything a la carte.
Quality is OK. Not awesome. I've had some artifact on puck movement watching live hockey. I believe top resolution is only 720. But even its $38 after taxes and Wow's $45 after taxes, I'm paying $60/mo less than I was with Spectrum.
It's my understanding that YouTube TV adjusts on the fly to the available bandwidth in your network.
I changed ISPs, getting higher bandwith (I think it's 200Mbps) in the process. Then I prioritized YouTube streams on my home router.
Have had no stalls or drops in 4 months.
And they send you a free chromecast with your first paid month.
Signup for it logged into a city which has it. Then stop using the VPN all the time.
Annnd this is pretty much what I was looking for. Thanks!
I'm in for YT TV for the last four months of this year.
I do find it interesting that you dropped DTV for Sling though. Sling is owned by DirectTV/AT&T. So you are still using the same basic company just maybe at a cheaper rate and different service. Also Comcast owns a fairly large stake in Hulu. A majority of PSVue ad services are handled by AT&T and Comcast.
I never have had cable. Have saved a big chunk of money over the last 25 years!
Here's what I do for football games:
- Watch at home, those that are broadcast on ABC (or a major network channel.) That's usually a good number of games.
- Watch 2 - 3 at a friend's house (who has Dish, which I guess is basically cable.)
- Watch 1 - 2 games a year at the bar. For the cost of a burger and several beers, it is fine.
- Miss a couple games, because they are stinkers or I have other commitments at the same time.
It works pretty well. I have also gone to the bar to watch some basketball and some hockey games.
The NCAA tourney was a pain. I watched the first couple games over the internet at home. One I went to the bar. And I watched the last three at a friend's house. Frankly, I was surprised that none of Michigan's games, if I remember correctly, were on CBS.
If it's over the air, I'll watch on the internet at one of the sites. If it's on B1G only, I won't watch because I don't think it's right to take (darn conscience) and usually one or two is on ESPN free at the beginning of the season. If nothing else I can follow online, listen to play by play and ESPN and google have highlights soon after. An hour after the game, the entire thing is usually available on YT at which point I iwatch more closely the parts i want to see and skip over crap and tv time outs.
Youtube TV is good for sports. $35/month. Has BTN and much more. DVR in the cloud.
I have done Sling, PS Vue, and now Youtube TV. Sling was my least favorite, the way it was packaged. PS Vue was great for sports and general TV but they upped their prices. Now I'm on YouTube TV, which is great for sports. Just about every sports channel you'd want.
If you have good internet, the quality of the streaming is really no worse than cable at this point, and the interfaces are comparable.
Transmitting a signal from an internet signal will never get the same smoothness and consistency as cable/satelitte. It doesn't matter if you can download a gig a second, you are at the mercy of the uploader. I've had to stream stuff in the past, and then flipped back over to the satelitte, and the difference is night and day.
You are always at the mercy at buffering, which happens no matter what. Avoiding it is damn near impossible. I've had maybe 4-5 drops with satelitte in a couple years.
I will never fault anyone for cutting the cord for money saving purposes. But the quality can't compare. If you ever put a cable/satellite connected TV next to a TV streaming the internet, you will be stunned at how different it looks.
I agree with you here. I have gigabit internet and still get bottlenecked on Vue. It seemed the best for my needs, though I hate that they limit your home location to one network, as I have two separate networks in my house. Overall I'm pleased but the biggest thing I miss from cable (which is pretty much the only thing I miss) is seeing something truly live. That 45-60 second delay on Vue means I have to keep the phone turned over so I don't ruin the endings of games for myself.
It's absolutely true. It's how I can stream 4K HDR on Netflix. The benefit of Sony and YouTube TV putting serious effort into their platforms means you get a cable-like experience.
Even cable TV is compressed compared to antenna. I can switch between CBS on my antenna and CBS on YouTube TV on my Shield and there's practically no difference in quality. It's very stable just maybe delayed 10-20 seconds behind my antenna feed, which for me doesn't matter.
If you're watching sports, the cameras the crews have with them are going to have much more impact on your viewing experience, and keep in mind that none of the broadcasters are putting out more than 720p/1080i.
I suggest you give it another shot because your claims are incorrect.
Multiple attempts. I have crystal clear streams. And when I switch over to my DirecTV, my eyes struggle with how much more fluid it is.
I don't really know what else to say about it. I'm talking about satellite for my purposes. There's no reliance on a company's upload. There's never any fear, other than hurricanes that my signal will drop. Buffering cannot be stopped, and it doesn't matter if you have the world's best internet.
I got Hulu TV and dropped it because of issues with the stream--I got too many buffering hitches and this even happened over my T1 line at work. To watch at home, I'd have to hook my laptop up to the T.V. since my Playstation doesn't support Hulu live and I don't have a smart television. I switched back to cable since I wasn't saving enough money for all that to be worth it. We also have a community owned cable company here, which means I do not have to--and, thus, don't--deal with the fuckheads at Comcast.
I switched to DirectTV NOW, which is also streaming and have had terrible problems at times.
I am thinking about switching to satellite, but hate to spend all of that extra money just for sports.
Hulu sucks though in comparison to PS Vue or YouTube TV.
Streaming has definitely improved over the years. When I used Sling a few years back, I thought the quality was worse and less stable.
In addition to internet quality, I think the hardware and software matters as well. BTN works better on YouTube TV than through the B10 app for example. And when I had PS Vue, I was using a PS4 Pro. Now I have YouTube TV on a Shield TV, a powerful piece of hardware made for streaming with an Android platform.
Another factor I just thought of is that I hardwire directly to my router. Wi-Fi, especially 2.4 GHz, is going to lead to sub-optimal performance.
I agree with what you are saying. I had cable and the HD quality was great and there was a small lag to the radio, but not huge. I switched to a streaming TV service, which often went blurry or had buffering/connection issues and had a bigger lag in spite of me paying extra for better internet service.
During the Air Force game I went on a jog at halftime and took a personal radio with me to listen to the halftime report. My halftime jog took a little too long and just as I got back into my yard I heard DPJ's punt return for a TD over the radio and the crowd and broadcast crew going nuts. I raced inside and my TV streaming service hadn't even had Air Force snap the 3rd down play yet before the punt.
and, if you're using one of their X1 boxes, you are on a private IP streaming network.
There is nothing magical about IP: throw enough server capacity and bandwidth at it and it works fine. The advantage Comcast has over ther streaming services is they own their own netwok so the traffic hits fewer routers as it is a dedicated network. Having said that, though, I assue you Google buys mega-capacity from Comcast and their traffic would never go through a peering point which could be a potential source of bottlenecks (however, those are not as problematic as they once were).