Best Provider for TVE

Channels DVR Server TV Everywhere
#21

Maybe for some, who chase promo pricing and such with cable companies, which my household used to do.
We have had Comcast CATV for 30yrs at hour home.
But have seen the price go up and up ...despite never changing our pacakge.
Used to be about $50 a month, then 70, 80, 90.....at least $10 per year.
Comcast's package that has the channels i want, Digital Preferred it is currently called, after BS fees, taxes, is about $180 a month, $220 not on promo, for cable only.
(I refuse to get their crap internet, as it can not touch my 500megs up and down fiber i get from local isp for half the cost)
Fr my household, on a low fixed income, cable tv became impossible to afford, even calling every few months to get on some promo. Buy food and pay rent, or have tv?? what to do.

Now we pay $20 a month for Philo, and $80 a year for Channels DVR, and use a secondary account from my grandpartents Comcast account since they still and can only have cabletv, and get 97% of the channels we want, and find far more convenient, i really enjoy "saving" shows in a cloud dvr on philo, and have vod and dvr acces to past aired eps, and the ability to start at beginning live show.
TVE abilty makes things very unified for Channels, as all save a couple channels that are not TVE, show up in one app. I was the only one that even had a DVR abilty thanks to Emby and a Prime tuner i had for my use, but rest of household had only Comcast cable and DTA box with no dvr. Now, have streamboxes on all tvs, and with Channels DVR, its great.

Very glad i made the switch over to steaming and got the Shields and CHannels dvr sub when i had the money to do so, and dropped cable. Did that a few months before the pandemic hit and that greatly eased the financial burden that people all over the world now find them selves in, unemployed etc. Would have been forced to drop cable anyways come April this year thanks to that.

TVE is reliable, imo. HAd a few hickups, but over the many years, we have had PLENTY of cable outages and long term issues with certain channels, that no matter how often i complained to comcast to look into and fix, they took months, even over a year for one issue, to fix.

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#22

Initially it was for Slimmer packages. When Vue Slim Core came out it brought me back to live tv. $35 a month, no locals unlimited Dvr. It was better a perfect compliment to my Hdhomerun. Unfortunately streaming services are trying to be like cable and carry every channel. They can’t compete with cable that way.

#23

I did try to go streaming 2yrs ago..tried out a few of the big name ones...
I even made a huge doc and spreadsheet that was my re-search and compare of each service, what channels were on what, vs my cable tv pacakge...took me liek 2 weeks to do.
PS VUE was my top pick. Really liked the app and had near all the channels i wanted.
Also seemed to be a "cord cutter" top pick and everyone i chatted with praised VUE
But....later found out PS VUE was to be shut down...so...yea. RIP. Killed my interest in moving to streaming for a year or so.

#24

Philo for me since all of the Viacom channels are on TV Everywhere

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#25

I saw upthread that Locast can be used instead of an antenna. I can get Locast on my main PC. Using the HDHomerun how do I merge that with YTTV? How do I get it to the TV? I'm using a Shield. Even when my antenna gets fixed I like the idea of keeping Locast so that I have a different choice of sports teams...at some point. As you can see, I'm a little confused.

#26

Locast is geo-restricted to your location and broadcast market area; if anything, Locast may give you less channels than with an antenna. Also, I fail to see how Locast for your broadcast market area would give you channels in addition to or different from what you would receive OTA.

Multiple input sources are tried in this order:

  1. Favorites, by priority – Each input is sequentially searched for a favorite that matches the requested channel.
  2. Other channels, by priority – If no matching favorite was found that matched the requested channel, then each source containing that channel is tried in order.

A few things to note:

  • Live TV and recording DVR have separate priority lists – The client has its own tuner priority list to use when requesting a live channel; the DVR has its own priority list which is used to record. The lists are separate, even though they may have the same order. (Tuner sharing will mitigate this, as an already tuned live stream for a client can be used for a later recording without sacrificing an extra tuner.)
  • Live channel requests selected from the On Now or Guide Favorites don't use the priority list – Favorites are a per-tuner setting, so when selecting a favorite directly from the Favorites category in the On Now or Guide, it corresponds to a specific input source; no searching through priority lists needed.
  • HDHomeRun tuners have a finite/limited number of tuners; TVE/Locast streams do not – A physical device only has 2–4 tuners that can be used at a single time. However, there is no such limit to internet streams; as long as your inbound internet bandwidth permits, Channels places no limit on the number of Locast and/or TVE streams you can have going at the same time. (Internet streams from TVE and Locast streams always exhibit tuner sharing; physical tuners must have this enabled in the clients manually, for each client.)
TVE Recording priority and number of "tuners"
#27

I'm in place X, I have Locast from 500 miles away. My local area doesn't have Locast.

#28

Ah, so you're using some sort of service to spoof your location to circumvent geo-restrictions.

Sorry, you're on your own for that; I can't support circumventing protections that are helping a non-profit remain legal in a controversial space.

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#29

Yes, I pay them. If they were local, I'd use the local Locast. My area will probably never get Locast service. I see nothing wrong since I'm not trying to avoid my local providers. And that really wasn't what I needed help with.

#30

I'm not sure what you're asking, but once you install the DVR server you can click Add Source > Locast.

#31

Yes, I would love this! anything you can put together would be great.

#32

I hate to say it, but an actual cable / satellite subscription may still be best for TV Everywhere, if one wants the maximum amount of channels. For me, the single most important channel is TCM. No streaming provider seems to provide it (for TVE).

Currently, I use DirecTV (the satellite not the streaming service) and receive 170 channels according to Channels DVR using TVE.

and like @racameron just because the channel is TVE does not mean it has a live stream available to use in Channels.

For those looking for very specific channels, Spectrum has Spectrum Choice which allows a person to choose 10 channels for I think for maybe about 33 dollars a month. I know it says 25 on the website, but they neglect to mention a broadcast fee (which seems to be determined by area????).

I tried Spectrum Choice out with a HDHomeRun Prime. Unfortunately, other than some local channels, all channels have DRM, including the most important TCM one.

As for me, I hate that DVR from streaming services seem to all have time limits. My parents have a Directv TiVo with recordings older than 1 year. I greatly value Channel DVR's ability to keep recordings permanently.

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#33

TCM has a web stream and it asks for login credentials to access it.

It is a TVE station 6039, and i see it under my Xfnity list, however, since my folks don't have the Premium channels add on package, or whatever, it shows as not in Subscription. (they have the 220+ channel "Preferred" package.

I think Comcast (and most CATV companies) charge u extra for certain movie channels....never used to. I used to have TCM for very long time, and I only had the "digital Starter" then they moved many things to the "Preferred" package, there are 2 higher ones now, and some channels moved up there. well over $250+ a month. no thanks.

for those odd ball channels, at least u can use the streaming providers app to watch it, TCM is offered with Hulu Live TV and Sling, so says the website I use to show what channels are on streaming.

#34

I should clarify. No major cut-the-cord streaming provider provides tv everywhere (TVE) login access to TCM. That is one reason I have kept DirecTV even though there are theoretically cheaper alternatives with channel access. But you are right. Some of the streaming providers do offer the channel in their lineup (without TVE) including AT&T TV NOW, Hulu Live, Sling, and Youtube TV.

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I am shocked that Comcast even has a 250 a month package. I am in agreement; the price is obscene

#35

Why can’t you use Spectrum choice and TVE for TCM?

#36

Tech

Technically, I am. That is what I am testing (which is also how I know of the broadcast fee that was neglected to be mentioned). I am in the in-between month period of switching/canceling services. It seems to fit the needs (at least mine).

I am the guinea pig in the family. I have been trying to get my parents off of DirecTV due to costs. If I had any reason to not move to Spectrum Choice, it would be two reasons:

  1. Speaking to Spectrum, they said the service is only available to internet subscribers. Not sure if that is true or not, but something to keep in mind. I may move.

  2. Although spiteful response, I really, really loathe the fact they seem to be the only provider I know that DRMs every nonlocal channel, not just the premium ones when one uses their cable-card service with the HDHomeRun Prime. Spectrum has caused an unending supply of pain over many years as, even back when they were Road Runner internet.

#37

Agree with you on these two points. I have Spectrum and AT&T available. I am happy with AT&T gigabit fiber. I work from home and need the high upstream speeds too. I'd happily try Spectrum choice if it was available. My guess is they may not be making much money on it, depending on the package choice so they need to keep it an add on to their Spectrum internet.

As for DRM, back in the Tivo days prior to Tivo Minis where things were streamed from a whole house DVR, it was maddening that Time Warner blocked all the channels from working. It actually caused me to drop MLB extra innings and go to MLB.tv (which was way better on every measure). They actually applied DRM to a recorded baseball game so that you couldn't play it back after the game ended.

#38

Choice is also available as a cable-based selection. I just signed up for it yesterday.
I'm, thankfully, on a non-DRM-crazy system though, so the cablecard route will hopefully work for me.

#39

Classic/legacy Charter locations seem to have fewer DRM channels, while Time Warner and Brighthouse (and other acquired cable company) areas tend to lean heavier towards DRM on everything.

#40

Time Warner historically DRM'd every thing they could legally get away with, even if it made no common sense... like a baseball game that had zero copying value after a couple of days.