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Domain: tvpredictions.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to tvpredictions.com.
Stories · 5
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AT&T's DirecTV Now Plagued With Outages and Sports Blackouts (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Barely two weeks after ATT launched DirecTV Now, the online streaming service's customers have already been hit by multiple outages, unexpected blackouts of live local sports games, and missing channels. There was an outage of about three hours last night and a two-hour outage Friday night, TVPredictions reported today. "DirecTV Now's customers said they couldn't log onto the streaming service, or they were suddenly met with a blank screen if already watching," the report said. The "Error Message 30" article tells customers that they may be suffering from "an intermittent or weak Internet connection," but in this case the problem was on DirecTV's end. "Tuesday evening we experienced an issue that prevented some customers from streaming on DirecTV Now," ATT told Ars today. "The issue has since been resolved and we're seeing normal streaming levels at this time. We thank our customers for their patience." Even when DirecTV Now works, availability of live sports games hasn't lived up to what the company promised. There appear to be technical problems affecting local games, but licensing restrictions may be limiting availability as well. This past Sunday, some DirecTV Now subscribers in cities such as San Francisco, Tampa Bay, and Atlanta could not watch NFL games on local Fox channels due to a technical problem, TVPredictions reported in another article. -
AT&T's DirecTV Now Plagued With Outages and Sports Blackouts (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Barely two weeks after ATT launched DirecTV Now, the online streaming service's customers have already been hit by multiple outages, unexpected blackouts of live local sports games, and missing channels. There was an outage of about three hours last night and a two-hour outage Friday night, TVPredictions reported today. "DirecTV Now's customers said they couldn't log onto the streaming service, or they were suddenly met with a blank screen if already watching," the report said. The "Error Message 30" article tells customers that they may be suffering from "an intermittent or weak Internet connection," but in this case the problem was on DirecTV's end. "Tuesday evening we experienced an issue that prevented some customers from streaming on DirecTV Now," ATT told Ars today. "The issue has since been resolved and we're seeing normal streaming levels at this time. We thank our customers for their patience." Even when DirecTV Now works, availability of live sports games hasn't lived up to what the company promised. There appear to be technical problems affecting local games, but licensing restrictions may be limiting availability as well. This past Sunday, some DirecTV Now subscribers in cities such as San Francisco, Tampa Bay, and Atlanta could not watch NFL games on local Fox channels due to a technical problem, TVPredictions reported in another article. -
Comcast Raises Controversial 'Broadcast TV' and 'Sports' Fees $48 Per Year (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Comcast's latest price hikes include a significant increase in the company's widely despised "Broadcast TV" and "Regional Sports Network" fees. The Broadcast TV fee is moving from $5 a month to $7 a month, while the Regional Sports Network fee is rising from $3 a month to $5 a month, according to notices sent to customers in several cities. Combined, that's a change from $8 to $12 a month, giving Comcast an extra $48 a year from each customer that has to pay the fees. Comcast began charging these fees a few years ago, which have risen quickly. Just over a year ago, Comcast raised the Broadcast TV fee from $3 to $5 and the Regional Sports fee from $1 to $3. The two fees have thus gone from $4 to $12, combined, in little more than a year. Comcast customers recently sued the company, saying that Comcast falsely advertises lower-than-actual prices and then raises rates by tacking on these two fees. Comcast falsely portrays these fees as being required by the government, the proposed class action lawsuit said. Charter is facing a similar lawsuit. Comcast says the fees recover a portion of the price it pays broadcast networks and regional sports networks to air their content. But paying for programming is simply part of the cost of doing business as a cable TV provider, and programming costs have always been passed on to consumers in their cable TV bills. By charging fees separately from basic rates, "Comcast has found a way to secretly and repeatedly increase the monthly price it charges for its channel packages" even when customers are supposed to be getting a flat rate during a contract term, the lawsuit said. The Broadcast TV fee was introduced in 2014, initially as $1.50 a month, and the Regional Sports fee was added in 2015 at $1 a month. Comcast charges the sports fee even though it owns many of the regional sports networks that broadcast sporting events in local markets. The price increases were reported by TVPredictions and DSLReports, and customers have been posting letters they received from Comcast detailing the price changes. -
The Rocky TiVo-DirecTV Relationship
Thomas Hawk writes "Phillip Swann's TV Predictions is out this morning alleging that before dumping their TiVo stock last year, Rupert Murdoch's DirecTV had made a pass at buying a controlling stake in TiVo. According to Swann, 'TiVo's top management did not like Murdoch's offer,' and Swann alleges that this is why you had a fallout between the two companies. As an interesting aside, Rob Pegoraro over at the Washington Post was out yesterday warning people to not buy an HDTV TiVo, as DirecTV will be changing their high-def signal later this year and that if you bought the HDTV TiVo that you might not be able to watch network TV in high def. As an owner of one of those expensive high-def DirecTV TiVos, I sure hope this isn't the case." -
Windows Media Center Edition vs. The World
sam_christ writes "An article in today's Investor's Business Daily (Google cache) and an article by TV industry pundit/predictions-huckster Philip Swann say the same thing: that Microsoft's Media Center Edition will be a big flop in 2005. Meanwhile, from what I can tell much more powerful alternatives to Microsoft's MCE bloatware are thriving: commercial products like Snapstream (see their 6-tuner Medusa PVR built for about $1200), Showshifter and open-source freeware like Mediaportal and MythTV. From what I've read about Microsoft MCE and all of its DRM and content restrictions, I have to agree with both of these articles."