AT&T Told to Sell DirecTV by Hedge Fund Investor
- Thread starter osu1991
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I think AT&T TV says 8 Mbps per HD stream. I also don't think the video you're referring to is actually AT&T TV because every time you change the channel on that service, you initially see a "loading screen" with the name of the channel and the current show playing. You don't see anything like that in his video. It may turn out that AT&T TV is a joke but I don't think we can conclude anything about it from that video.
I don't think he changes channels, it's a Applebee's commercial from beginning to almost the end and the start of another commercial at the very end.
When I had Sling TV service in the past I could watch anything including sports with no buffering or break up and the most it would take was 2.6 Mbps.
Hmm, maybe. It looks like he has picture-in-picture running at the start of the video, and that's where the Applebee's ad starts, and then it goes full screen. So it's difficult to know exactly what's going on. But I've never read anything about AT&T TV or AT&T TV Now offering native picture-in-picture. That said, Uverse TV does. Combine that with the fact that AT&T TV is currently available to only a very small percentage of the public and it's likely that the guy who posted this video is actually on AT&T Uverse TV, which he simply refers to as "Garbage ATT TV" in the title of the video. The average consumer isn't super-exact when it comes to citing brand names. All this guy knows is that he gets his TV service from AT&T.
Also, it doesn't surprise me that Sling's bitrate is well below that of AT&T TV. I had AT&T TV Now last year (when it was called DirecTV Now) and the live channels had great HD picture quality, definitely better than Sling. But that comes at a trade-off: higher bitrates. Of course, if you have a slow or congested internet connection, AT&T will decrease the bitrate and picture quality in order to prevent your picture from breaking up or repeatedly pausing to buffer.
I had Uverse TV several years back. Generally speaking, it was fine. The DVR had a nice enough UI and the service was reliable with fast channel changes. But it did have the overall worst HD picture quality of any service I've ever had. The macroblocking on complex scenes, like splashing water, strobing lights, explosions, etc. was just awful. (From best to worst HD PQ, I'd rank them: DirecTV Now, DirecTV satellite, DISH satellite, Comcast cable, Uverse TV.)
I see services like this in just about *everyone's* future if they wish to stick with channel-based pay TV (except for folks without broadband access, who will just have to stick with satellite).
And that's why AT&T has to make AT&T TV (and AT&T TV Now) price-competitive with services like YouTube TV, PS Vue, and Hulu with Live TV. Each of them will have their pluses and minuses when you look at the content and features you get versus the price you pay, but if a service isn't in the ballpark value-wise, it won't matter how big the parent company is or hard how they advertise it, it will slowly lose ground to the competition.
The same holds true for the other 800 lb. gorilla in the pay TV business, Comcast. They're currently restructuring their TV packages and pricing and moving away from traditional QAM TV distribution over to IPTV. They'll have to price a combination of their internet + TV + equipment for both so that customers won't save anything significant by keeping them for just broadband and using a different streaming cable TV provider like YouTube TV.
Well the big wheel says DIRECTV not for sale!
AT&T Operating Chief Defends Media Strategy Built Around Streaming, DirecTV
AT&T Operating Chief Defends Media Strategy Built Around Streaming, DirecTV
