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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.
It seems few people remember that antennas still work! You do not even need a special digital..... that antenna that has been on the roof for 20+ years will work just fine. Heck I watch the games with the antenna because of the better picture.
> Sports Blackouts
So nothing of value was lost.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Out of the 3 current big services -- Dish Sling TV, Playstation Vue, DirecTV Now -- I feel Playstation Vue was the most feature complete at the best price. Losing the Viacom channels sort of cut off the best price option, as did the intro pricing on the $60 plan from DirecTV Now.
Dish Sling, at the time I tested, only allow streaming to one device at a time. They later came out with an option to do two devices, but that was at an additional cost. The UI wasn't bad, and feature set was about what you'd expect to see from a "TV service" with some sort of DVR capability.
Playstation Vue absolutely was the best value for my house. With 2 kids and 3 TVs, the service allows streaming on up to 5 devices simultaneously for no extra fee. Even the cheapest package option has what I'd consider some of the better channels vs what you'd find in say a base package from Comcast, Dish, or DirecTV. It also has a DVR and OnDemand features, although depending on the channel and if you use the DVR or OnDemand option, you may not be able to FF/RW. Overall I think it has one of the better UIs
DirecTV Now has a long way to go. The UI is cludgy and seems to put more focus on the OnDemand stuff rather than Live content. You can't "DVR" anything (yet?), and while you can *pause* a live feed, you can't then fast foward nor can you rewind. The streaming issues I understand as Vue and Sling both had issues early on, but the whole lack of features and honestly one not close to polished UI (at least on the fire stick/tv) is a huge 'ugh'. I believe you can also only stream on two devices at one time, so maybe not a great option for a larger family that watches TV around the same time, although the $35 for 100+ channels if you sign up during the promo and keep service is worth it.
Overall, I still think Playstation Vue has the best UI and bang for the buck when you factor in the channels, price, 5 device streaming, etc. Odd how I read Sling has 500,000+ subscribers while Vue has 100,000.. I wonder if the name plays into that more than anything
I got a pop up saying that "the simpsons" was blacked out in Chicago due to "regional blackout rules" while teh Packers game right before The Simpsons worked fine...
I plugged back in the cable box and havnt looked back.
Somehow this indicates that yet another merger is going to improve (not crater) value to customer?? fail. fail fail fail. government fail. business fail.
you people should all be fired, starting at the top, and including at least the board.
My downstairs neighbor still stop blasting sports 24/7?
I signed up and canceled within half an hour because it's so terrible. They refuse to refund my money despite the 7 day "cancel anytime" free trial.
The chat representative refused to connect me to a supervisor and instead promised a supervisor would contact me within 24 hours. 5 days later and no response. I filed a charge back.
Stay far, far away from this shit, people.
(N/T)
Another problem with Comcast - the 49ers WEREN'T blacked out.
They need to have the law see them as cable / sat systems so they can get the real local feeds and not the watch feeds
I've had the service since it initially rolled out. I can say it's been completely horrible to deal with - App issues, freezing, etc... (I don't think I've been able to watch it once this week during prime time.) I signed up for the three month deal to get the Apple TV at a discount so I'm not terribly upset about the service, but I sure as hell won't keep the service past what I paid for to get the Apple TV. It's unfortunate too... I was really hoping this would be a great service. Unfortunately, rather than admitting they're having issues they like to point to it being device/my internet issues which is complete bull.