Any Channels users have any insights as to using Philo vs YTTV and how well/stable the experience is?
My ex-tivo spouse is well trained now in YTTV and their DVR-like function. Considering saving $50+ a month moving to Philo replacing YTTV and moving ChannelsDVR as the main recording.
We don't have a lot of requirements for the differing channels, except possibly syfy, maybe there is some big lineup missing I didn't see.
I have used both Philo and YTTV with Channels. Philo was more reliable and I'd still be using it now if they had news channels.
With YTTV I'd periodically have trouble accessing a channel, never with Philo. It is a good service.
I'm now using DirecTV Stream, it is the most expensive service I've tried, but it includes LA Sportsnet for Dodgers games.
Philo is perfect if you don't need locals, cable news or sports. For four years now, it has been a must have for my wife. It works really well with Channels, but it has its own DVR function also. My wife uses the Philo interface mostly for her viewing, but I often watch live shows using the Channels interface. It has been nearly perfect with Channels, but TVE is always going to have the possibility of problems.
I'm using YTTV and Philo right now but getting rid of YTTV after this month. Philo is great and offers a lot of TVE channels. There are only a few channels that aren't available via TVE (AXS, Vice)
With Philo the lack of a really good news channel was a negative for me, however I found there is a relatively new service called LevelNews that has 10 news type channels for $5.99 a month. The most significant of them (for me) is NewsNation which has quickly become my favorite news channel over the past year. TVE isn't available, but there is a python/docker script that was put together by a generous user here that allows me to bring the LevelNews channels into Channels (same as the Frndly script).
So for me, OTA plus Philo plus LevelNews will give me all of my essentials for a great price and I can get rid of YTTV which isn't that great of a deal anymore at $72.99 plus taxes.
So here is a question I don't fully understand...
ChannelsDVR has the option of "Local Networks via TV Everywhere" which, as I thought, would mean that locals channels could come direct via TVE (not through YTTV).
But if I delete the YTTV provider, however, Philo doesn't have locals, so why isn't there Local Networks Philo notwithstanding?
It's up to each provider on which TVE channels they support. It's hit or miss. YTTV offers a lot of their channels via TVE, but not all so if there's a YTTV channel you want to watch that isn't supported by TVE then you have to watch via the YTTV app.
Philo doesn't offer any locals at all so locals aren't available in TVE. However, that's one of the reasons why Philo is priced lower. No locals, no sports networks and none of the top news channels (CNN, MSNBC, etc) are on Philo. These all add significanly to the price. You need to decide what you can live without and what you cannot.
If you want to go only with Philo but still need locals, then you'll need to pull them in via an antenna.
When I enable this option, I only get one ABC channel. Some areas apparently get more channels. For me Philo works great because I also use an OTA tuner that can pull in all my locals. But I do miss the cable news channels sometimes.
That was my point in the prior post - I was under the impression that "Local Networks via TVE" did not matter about the provider (i.e. YTTV) to get content, if the content was offered locally.
Some major metropolitan area offer access to NBC, ABC, CBS and FOX stations via TV Everywhere
is what it says, and YTTV doesn't seem to consistently supply local channels anyway. I had surmised Channels was obtaining the local Fox, NBC, and CBS affiliate directly and not through YTTV.
I am wondering why I don't have the 3 local networks I had before deleting YTTV and adding Philio the locals are suppling TVE directly.
Figuring out now that TVE local or otherwise, seems to depend on what the "provider" is.
All TVE comes from using your provider login.
If you go to nbc.com/live you can login with YTTV but not with Philo.
Hi there,
I have Philo, Frndly, plus some other dockers that make it possible to bring in channels.
Philo is great for entertainment shows, plus I get west coast feeds of TVLand and Logo.
I use Philo for all my discovery channels but get help from FRIENDLY to get Catchy Comedy and METV Plus GET TV and FE TV.
The Paramount feed is the east coast version which is excellent.
My CBS news is available The Pluto TV and TVE.
YTTV offers excellent stuff, but I see many duplicates and channels used for over-flow games and sports.
Most of the time I was watching TV, I found myself watching Philo, a FRIENDLY
, or Sports stuff through another service on channels.
I wish we could access the Philo streams to get channels, not on TVE, such as Tv 1 and ASX. I'm speaking of the network version with new shows.
The added feature might allow te to drop FRNDL
Y to use Philo to grab Great American Living, Family, and Up tv.
The option isn't available, so I use FRNDLY to take care of those channels.
PhiloTV might otherwise an option as I have an HDHR in the network for locals, but with no ESPN to pick up Formula 1 it is probably not going to work as a replacement for YTTV.
Philo is rock solid. I think I have only ever needed to add remove source 1 time to fix. Maybe rescan channels 1-2 times. Been using Philo since early 2020.
If you you dont need sports/locals through tve then Philo is the best. If you have HDHR + Philo. Your set. Toss in ESPN/Docker. Wham bam thank you ma'am. You got almost all possible content
Check out some of the docker projects out there.
They may help with missing channels.
My personal favorite is FRNDLY TV, along with ESPN+, including MLB tv.
I recently switched to Philo from FUBO. FUBO pricing was getting cable company (Comcast) ridiculous. When I got my latest FUBO bill it was over a $100 with the previous one about $70. Philo comes in at about $28. FUBO added the Regional Sports Fee (RSW) and some other BS fees, I contacted FUBO about trying to reduce my bill and asked if they could remove the RSW and they said no. Not very service oriented. So, Philo pretty much needs my needs. I would like to have FoxNews (really Tucker) but I watch NewsMax anyway. Philo seems to be the only option that is not so expensive. And I can't find a reasonable add on. I looked at Comcast for $60 but then they add on $20.65 Broadcast TV Fee and $15.35 plus RSW plus taxes, so the $60 plan ends up well over $100 a month. I think Philo is an excellent service and very reliable. I can live without FoxNews. I thought I was getting NewsMax from Philo but that is not the case. I will have look and see where I am getting it from. I was just looking at Sling Bule and Orange combined. $55 a month but I don't know about any fees or taxes.
I did put a ESPN+ docker up with a Channels collection and it works well enough, albeit weird how the simulation on linear works, and it seems guide data is about 2 days.
Since there is no F1 scheduled until eom, won't really know how it works to capture those events. At ~~$10/mo, sort of an an expensive patch to pick up those events, but sports junkies probably consume a lot more than I do.
T-mobile has a deal for PhiloTV for $15/mo for a year (IIRC), and YTTV will be around $75 this month. T-mobiles discount on YTTV is no more.
Funny how the old cable bill is now looking cheaper than the cord-cutter/streamer bills.
NewsMax is one of the free included with any tve provider channels. Anything above channel 6700 is part of the free to you channel’s dvr added free streams.
Careful with sling, they don’t have very good tve support. Check out
Sling and some of these options would be better with native integration with Channels DVR.
Which services offer that?
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