Ye Olde Green Wave Forum

1. Unless someone has found an add-on package I haven't found, then the answer is no. But you can buy a little flat plastic antenna (looks more like a mouse pad) that you tape to a window that will get you the local networks. I believe those antenna run 20-30

2. Depends on the plan and the service. Our current DirectTVNow plan only lets us stream on one device (tv or computer) at a time. It's a bummer, but I think if we cared enough we could pay more to get it to 2

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“We will expect success in all endeavors and be prepared to assess and hold ourselves accountable when we aren't successful. Tulane is a top 40 academic institution and it should expect nothing less from its athletic department.” --Troy Dannen 11.5.16

Your answer to my second question is a deal killer for us at this time.

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A magic dwells in each beginning- H.H.

1) I'm sure we aren't in a market that they are going to pick up over the air channels any time soon. In the markets where play station does, the up the price by 10 a month or so though.

2) don't know how many streams we can have at once with play station but have done 3 at a time. One on the fire TV box, one on the bedroom TV via my wife's phone and chromecast, and one on the iPad.

Matt Vue makes it pretty clear that you're only getting one feed. And if you run it on more than one tv you could get locked out. Although I don't see how they could find out.

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A magic dwells in each beginning- H.H.

From their FAQ:



You get one 'home' location.

There's another answer that you need 10mbps bandwith plus 5 more for each additional stream.

Interesting so you get up to 5 tv's. so how do you find out how much internet capacity you have?

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A magic dwells in each beginning- H.H.

1. Local channels are available via antenna most places (definitely in New Orleans).
2. Multiple boxes or move the box

Sorry, didn't read through to page 2!

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#stopbunting
#nomorekicking - ESPECIALLY PUNTING!!!
#freewindy

Called and cut the cable today. Doing DirectTVNow for 3 months (to get the free Apple TV 4), then cutting off for summer (when we aren't here), then probably doing Playstation Vue (unless we love DirectTVNow) in the fall.

Of interest to GB...... When we went to cancel he mentioned a Cox Cable app you can get for 7.50 a month if you keep Cox internet, that gets you "40 local channels". What those channels are I know not, because we were cutting altogether anyway (we rarely watch local). But might be worth investigating.

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“We will expect success in all endeavors and be prepared to assess and hold ourselves accountable when we aren't successful. Tulane is a top 40 academic institution and it should expect nothing less from its athletic department.” --Troy Dannen 11.5.16

Be careful out there

AT&T's DirecTV Now Streaming Service Suffers Another Outage

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ATTs ... age-138727

AT&T's DirecTV Now forums are packed to the brim with frustration.

“DirecTV Now is NOT ready for prime time," one forum user wrote, citing "constant buffering, freezing, and lockups." A different user complains that with all of the buffering, stuttering, and other issues, "I feel I'm back in 1996 with dial-up."

prof, more and more I'm convinced that if we cut the cable, Vue is the way to go. ESPECIALLY if Cox Cable has an app that you can get for $7.50/month to get the local channels (we have Cox Cable). Between Vue at $35/month and this app for $7.50/month which comes to $42.50 in lieu of the close to $90/month I'm paying now its looking very appealing to make the move.

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A magic dwells in each beginning- H.H.

GB--- we were convinced Vue was the better option before we bought DirectTVNow for 3 months. This latest fiasco only offers more evidence. We only did DirectTVNow because Spring is when TV matters the least to us, and with 3 months of DirectTVNow (total 105) we got a AppleTV4 for free (retail value 150). The AppleTV4 is vastly superior to the 3, and is the reason that our internet-on-tv looks so much better now than it did last fall when we tried to watch Tulane on ESPN3. At the end of the 3 months we plan to cut DirectTVNow, leave everything dead for summer (when, if all goes to plan, we won't be here anyway), and the go with Playstation Vue upon our return.

It isn't a bad option if you need/want an Apple TV4, want to save money on buying it, and don't watch enough tv to really care if you have the subpar option for 3 months..... But if you don't fit that description, then I'd go straight to Vue. And I totally agree that from everything I've read, experienced, and heard from people I've talked to, I'd go with Vue over DirectTVNow

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“We will expect success in all endeavors and be prepared to assess and hold ourselves accountable when we aren't successful. Tulane is a top 40 academic institution and it should expect nothing less from its athletic department.” --Troy Dannen 11.5.16

prof, my only reaming unknown remains what to "play" Vue on. I know Vue has an app in Chromecast and I could use that to play Vue- it wouldn't require anything else ($$$) but I've heard that its not the best way to see Vue. I'm not ready to try DirectTV and get their free Apple TV plus I'm just not ready to commit to Apple's ecosystem so that's out. I'm slowly coming around to using Amazon's Fire Stick. Not too much cost (since I would want to have more than one) and I'm somewhat comfortable with Amazon's ecosystem.

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A magic dwells in each beginning- H.H.

GB, I'm curious as to your insistence on the local package from Cox. Have you tried an antenna? I had no issues with reception in New Orleans. I guess you would have to buy an antenna, which may be more than $90 value per year?

_________________
#stopbunting
#nomorekicking - ESPECIALLY PUNTING!!!
#freewindy

GB,

The DirectTV Now option also offers an Amazon Fire TV, but again, that locks you into 3 months. The Fire Stick has good reviews (including from Matt and Gretna). The Actual Fire is $80 and the stick is $30 (not too bad). You can probably find a used version on ebay for less.

We opted for the Apple TV because we are, largely, an Apple house. I only bought the last Apple TV because of Tulane football and got the new one to cut the cord.

What's annoying about all of these is that Amazon and Apple (the big players in this game) basically make you pick a team--Apple has no app to watch Amazon content (Amazon won't develop one), and Amazon won't let you watch iTunes stuff on their device. That may change. We watch our Amazon content via the AirPlay feature (but the quality is not always great). So far, I'm streaming through the Apple TV via our Wifi (router in next room), and the quality has been great. We have the "Basic" internet package.

Netflix matters less to us cause we still do DVD

BTW this is waveprofessora writing this message, so if it sounds more technical in terminology than waveprof is capable of, you know why

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“We will expect success in all endeavors and be prepared to assess and hold ourselves accountable when we aren't successful. Tulane is a top 40 academic institution and it should expect nothing less from its athletic department.” --Troy Dannen 11.5.16

gerry, we're a modernist minimalist household that basically keeps things like TV's and wires (whenever possible) out of sight. I've looked at HD antennas but that requires an unsightly antenna and wires exposed somewhere. Which is why the Cox app is appealing to us. Silly I know.

prof, it really is frustrating that Apple, Amazon and to a lesser extent, Google all want you to choose an ecosystem. Ecosystems that don't talk to each other. We have Apple iphones (love them) an ipad air2 and that's about it for Apple. And they all work together and select peripherals just great. I buy a whole lot at Amazon, own an Alexa and bought Amazon Music (at $3.99/month!) for it and we're seriously considering Prime membership. Thus I lean toward the Amazon ecosystem but I hesitate to make the complete commitment.

My problem with the Stick is that I've heard reviews that say it doesn't work with Vue as well as the more expensive Fire which they say is the way to go, but seems too expensive to me if you want to have more than one (for multiple tv's)

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A magic dwells in each beginning- H.H.

Gotcha. You could go with the fire stick and if you have the computer savvy, install KODI on it. Basically this"unlocks" the Amazon restrictions and allows you to install your own apps. From there the possibilities are endless (and of dubious legality) but my brother swears by it.

_________________
#stopbunting
#nomorekicking - ESPECIALLY PUNTING!!!
#freewindy

gerry I'm no longer a youngster and some of this stuff makes my head hurt. But I did hear rave reviews of KODI (I lurk on a site full of much younger members that's heavy on the computer/technology talk) I'm not sure yet that I could pull that off.

although I did figure out how to buy a Kindle E-Book, strip all the DRM out of it, convert it to EPUB and read it on my Nook. So its not completely out of the question.

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A magic dwells in each beginning- H.H.

KODI is not hard to manage and opens up all kinds of content (some illegal, but you don't have to use those parts if you don't want to). If you buy a lot off of amazon, the free two day shipping is a very substantial perk to Prime, as is the regular free programming.

I went with the Fire tv for our living room and the fire stick for my bedroom. Just got the fire stick yesterday and it was a pain in the ass to get set up because it wouldn't authenticate any apps for about an hour or 2.

It's slower to load than the more expensive box. and I'm still trying to figure out wireless in my house, but it was working fine with all of the doors open (other than the slower loading when you changed programs/channels). once we closed doors between the router and the bedroom, it had connectivity issues.

I finally got around to setting up Kodi. Very simple step by step instructions available online. The trick is really finding the sources that work for what you want to do. Still working through the different apps, but it is a very simple tool.

_________________
#stopbunting
#nomorekicking - ESPECIALLY PUNTING!!!
#freewindy

Gretna, it looks like the days of FireSticks broken with KODI are coming to an end

Five arrests in 'fully loaded' Kodi streaming box raids

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38906561

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A magic dwells in each beginning- H.H.

Look into PlayOn. www.playon.tv
Only issue is it requires you to have a fairly stout PC (processor, RAM) operating 24/7 that runs as your server. But it gets you crazy content by default, plus everything you could want via user-defined plugins. Streams to lots of DNLA gadgets, or just use a phone/tablet to stream and then cast to your TV with another device. Has built-in DVR ability where you can set shows to download as soon as an episode is posted by the network.

If you hate monthly fees, wait until they offer a flat lifetime license, several times per year, it's typically like $50. Once.

It DOES have legal applications, too....

Yep. And these raids are targeted at the guys selling the boxes with a bunch of illegal apps on them, not the end users. A lot like how the Napster/Limewire/etc prosecutions targeted the creators of the software and the hosts of the content more than the actual downloaders. Target the dealer, not the user.

_________________
#stopbunting
#nomorekicking - ESPECIALLY PUNTING!!!
#freewindy

prof I was wondering if you could give us an update on your cord cutting experiment. Are you on VUE now or still with DirectTV?

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A magic dwells in each beginning- H.H.

We are on DirectTVNow for three months (locked in in order to get the AppleTV4). DirectTVNow is "fine" I suppose, but it doesn't have a DVR, so it isn't a long term option for us. But the signal, connection, speed all work fine, and that's without having the highest quality of internet. We aren't even using our power line adapters. Just our old router and and the set up we had before (only through the new Apple TV) makes it all work great. A thousand times better than when we streamed ESPN3 tulane games last fall.

At the end of the 3 months we'll probably go cold turkey for summer (we are going to be working/living away from NOLA for most of summer) and then when we come back likely get PlayStation Vue for fall.

That said, honestly, I'll only get Vue if it carries enough Tulane games. For regular TV we are finding it even cheaper to just buy the seasons of shows we watch (Top Chef and Anthony Bourdain) from iTunes, watch SNL through the NBC app. And maybe get Hulu (8 or 11 dollars a month depending on if you want commercials). We have a free trial of Hulu now and wavetot gets a lot of programing through that (we haven't used it much because we don't watch much tv, but it has a lot if we wanted it).

Honestly, the only thing left for us on "live TV" is Tulane football (hence why we'll get Vue in fall probably). DirectTVNow this spring is just a comfort blanket because we were scared to go cold turkey, and meanwhile for 105 dollars (3 months) we got a free apple tv 4 (worth 150).

If anyone is curious, the new apple tv is really, really good. A lot better than the old. It keeps track of shows you are watching, where you left off, between apps....so that you are not having to remember what app for what show, etc. Its all on the same interface. I know you (Greenbacker) don't want Apple, but thought this was relevant info in general.

~Waveprof written, but waveproessora approved for technical accuracy :)

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“We will expect success in all endeavors and be prepared to assess and hold ourselves accountable when we aren't successful. Tulane is a top 40 academic institution and it should expect nothing less from its athletic department.” --Troy Dannen 11.5.16