NBC, NBC Sports, NBCU Networks No Longer Available via TV Everywhere Providers

To each their own, I didn't have to invest any of my own time to figure out how to set up Quadstream and be able to fast forward to the plays I deem worth watching at real time speed. TiVo gave that functionality to me out of the box (no special setup on my part) and that was valuable to me.

BTW, I was watching the multi-view live stream of the NCAA tournament for several hours and reverted back to the TiVo method where I could "look in" on one game at a time. In my case, seeing everything at once was not what I preferred over toggling back and forth one full screen game at a time, like NFL Red Zone.

A strong case for consolidation is profitability for the providers and convenience to the consumer. Let's give it a couple years and see where it goes.

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If you watch a lot of sports like I do, there's really no substitute for the cable (or IPTV equivalent) package. And losing NBC was a huge blow to Channels if you like racing, Sunday night football etc. I'm not watching any of that live, not with all these commercials. TiVo took care of all that for me on Comcast, but now I live in an area where I have U-verse so I'm kind of stuck with it right now.

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Tangentially, it is related. The over the air ATSC 3.0 streams can have DRM activated. The SF Bay Area market's NBC affiliate has activated DRM on their ATSC 3.0 stream (111.1). Channels DVR and HDHR are not able to decode the stream. Of course ATSC 1.0 which does not support DRM should remain available for years, but this offers a glimpse to the future of OTA and TVE DVR recording. Content producers have longed for this day since the introduction of consumer video recorders.

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There are bound to be bumps in the road but we'll have to see how it all plays out. If DRM is being used to protect monopolization that is against the public interest, I don't expect it to go unchallenged - at least if we ever get back to a justice system that protects individuals as much as it protects those who have captured it and us.

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This news seems noteworthy in this context. At least for FireTV users. More lost local NBCU channels to be able to link externally to?

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Aren't these just the NBC local news channels already available on services like XUMO?

Yes, these are just the local news streams and not full NBC programming.

NBCUniversal Local’s FAST portfolio includes 11 NBC station local news channels and four Telemundo station regional news channels (which are powered by multiple stations in each region). The local channels are available on other platforms including Peacock, Samsung TV Plus, the Roku Channel and Xumo Play (operated by a joint venture of Comcast and Charter).

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atsc 3.0 streams should be able to be decoded by hdhomerun in the near future - but i won't hold my breath

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Would it be possible to create a source with Amazon login?
And get back those nbc family channels? Would they possibly populate under Pluto?

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Universo wouldn't work because of this correct? It shows up on the guide but I'd figure it wouldn't work. This is what I get on my end,

2023/05/22 11:19:44.759521 [ERR] Failed to start stream for ch6332: TVE: Could not fetch playlist: tvecable-web-y.akamaized.net: get https://tvecable-web-y.akamaized.net/v1/master/8731b4a01f4c78c237c9c596da70a09cf1742ab7/PROD_ONEAPP_WEB_DAI/master.m3u8?aws.sessionId=d50e62db-e392-435b-a02a-4d275d1953cf&hdnts=exp=1684779703~acl=/v1/master/*!/Content/*~hmac=7ca0b5869d04bc184d6d88a3f009be32f3ff97b1546f4e5e4f16100068a294d6: 504 Gateway Time-out
2023/05/22 11:19:44.863245 [HLS] Couldn't generate stream playlist for ch6332-dANY-157e6eb95b6e: TVE: Could not fetch playlist: tvecable-web-y.akamaized.net: get https://tvecable-web-y.akamaized.net/v1/master/8731b4a01f4c78c237c9c596da70a09cf1742ab7/PROD_ONEAPP_WEB_DAI/master.m3u8?aws.sessionId=d50e62db-e392-435b-a02a-4d275d1953cf&hdnts=exp=1684779703~acl=/v1/master/*!/Content/*~hmac=7ca0b5869d04bc184d6d88a3f009be32f3ff97b1546f4e5e4f16100068a294d6: 504 Gateway Time-out
2023/05/22 11:19:44.863489 [HLS] Stopping transcoder session ch6332-dANY-157e6eb95b6e

Yeah...thats bad. It is unfortunate to see that out of touch big wigs are trying hard to prevent people from legally watching their stuff all under the guise of preventing piracy. They should take notes from the music industry. These tactics don't prevent piracy, it'll just promote it more...

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I just released a script that does exactly what you are asking.
You may want to give it a try:

That's funny... cos I just viewed the MSNBC livestream through Safari (June 11, 2023) on macOS and I know that doesn't use Widevine. Any idea why Safari can view using MSNBC Live: Stream the latest TV shows yet Channels' Chrome/Chromium cannot? @racameron

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The NBC streams use DRM.

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I was just able to view your link from Chrome using my Xfinity creds. So maybe MSNBC is not DRM or they have removed it just recently? I also checked to make sure HDHR prime was not being used to pull it which it wasn't.
However that's not a channel I watch.

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I have all of the NBC/Comcast family of stations back now with this workaround:

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I know this is late, but they have the nbc Universal app that has all the sister channels. It's just not channels dve compatible.

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Thank you for the information. :slight_smile: