Cord cutting advice for heavy DVR user
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Not on YTTV itself, no.
The NFL game on FOX tonight will be available in quasi-4k. (1080p upscaled to 4k, which is still better than FOX 720p native), but to watch at that resolution you need to use the FOX Sports app itself authenticated with YTTV credentials.
720p60 content is passed through as native 720p60 for networks like FOX, ESPN, etc.
1080i content is processed with motion-adaptive de-interlacing to produce a 1080p60 feed for NBC, CBS, etc.
In either case, the ATV gets a progressive video feed to work with and it will scale it to whatever your output resolution is for the TV.
So for the people with YTTV and have had Dish in the past. How would you compare the picture quality between the two?
You should absolutely try it for yourself. Getting video from streaming providers is like commuting to work -- millions of people do it, but everyone has different experiences based on location.
I left DIRECTV for YTTV because of video quality. I posted these images months ago, but here's an example of the quality difference. It's an iPhone picture of a TV screen, so the quality itself is meh -- the thing to notice is the difference in compression artifacts around the game clock numbers. On the DIRECTV image you can't even read "NHL" in the middle of the shield logo.
DIRECTV: https://live.staticflickr.com/7874/33712441738_d30851f0f3_o.jpg
YTTV: https://live.staticflickr.com/7818/40623425183_2f4ae976a5_o.jpg
The solution is rock solid for me, but my configuration is somewhat atypical. I have a half rack of equipment in my basement, I'm using SuperMicro servers for NAS and pfSense firewall, Ubiquiti edge switch hardware for network, and I have Comcast Business service in an area that has been upgraded to Node+0. (no amplifiers, fiber directly to the node that feeds my house and 21 other neighbors which is an absurdly low house count)
How would that improve your experience of video picture quality over someone who has, for example, Cox Home Internet 150 Mbps, running a wired connection from a basic TP-Link AC1200 router? After eliminating potential problems resulting from WiFi signal interference, service drops, and insufficient speed, isn't picture quality determined more by one's device and display setup?
The streaming data only comes so fast, as long as internet bandwidth and speeds were sufficient at home someone with 30 Mbps would enjoy the same PQ as someone with gigabit service. I've noticed with YTTV there is quite the buffer buildup at least with my LG C8.
I can leave YTTV and even turn the TV off for a couple of hours and when I come back the stream has stored and picks up where I left off. Then I can skip commercials without having DVR'ed the program. This may be unique to the TV, however. It also means I'm using data even when not watching if that's a concern for those with data caps.
I can leave YTTV and even turn the TV off for a couple of hours and when I come back the stream has stored and picks up where I left off. Then I can skip commercials without having DVR'ed the program. This may be unique to the TV, however. It also means I'm using data even when not watching if that's a concern for those with data caps.
Short answer: it probably won't. If you're using whatever cheap gateway your ISP leased to you 5 years ago, and you're connecting via wireless, that's where things are more likely to have issue.
DASH / HLS streams present the video player with a handful of different resolutions at various bitrates, and the player selects which stream to fetch based on its network performance measurements. The players have certain thresholds to ensure video stays fluid, and that includes things like it should be able to download a window of {x} seconds of video in {x/3} seconds, as long as the next lowest resolution can be fetched in {x/2} seconds at the current observed throughput.
Anything that introduces jitter or congestion is going to start to negatively influence the player's ability to stay at the top bitrate, which is going to potentially affect video quality if resolution downgrades happen. As you pointed out, WiFi signal interference is probably the leading cause of issues, but after that you get into things like poorly performing home routers, congested / noisy cable or DSL segments that result in retransmissions, areas with insufficient peering capacity between the local ISP and the network hosting the CDN servers, and congestion on the CDN nodes themselves.
This will show up more in live streaming video providers because of the tighter buffering thresholds. For VOD content like Netflix, you can buffer anywhere from 30 seconds to a couple minutes and buy your player all kinds of time to maneuver around variable network speeds. For live TV, every second of buffering is a second the stream is behind the current live broadcast. Most providers are settling on something around 20 seconds of buffer now, so if you need to make that {x/3} threshold for buffering a 6mbps stream, that means the player needs to observe an effective throughput of 18mbps or it will start to drop to lower bitrates. Depending on all the factors from your local network all the way to the CDN server, that could affect your ability to consistently see >=18mbps average rates every 20 seconds for the duration of whatever content you're playing.
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- Nov 29, 2003
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When you have 4 people all streaming 4K on 4 different TVs at the same time, 30 Mbps just will not cut it, that is everyday in my house, luckily we do have gigabit so not a issue.
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pfSense running on a computer plus a business-class Ethernet switch will usually beat out a consumer router in terms of free flow of data. Xfinity's business Internet may or may not be better than non-business offerings from Cox in terms of latency and traffic problems.
Even if everything is right physically, there's still whatever magic that your ISP does to the data to fit everything into their pipes.
aside: I heard an ad for Straight Talk wireless this morning and their "Unlimited" plan includes 25GB of LTE followed by being chained down to 2G speeds for the rest of the service month.
From my experience, YouTube TV keeps a running buffer in the cloud of the current program on the last live channel you viewed. It's not using your data, unless you turn off the TV without exiting the app on whatever device you use. I've found you can only rewind to the beginning of the current show that you aren't otherwise recording. I discovered this regularly watching cable news during my lunch break on my home office PC, and then when I fire up my Roku in the living room and tune to the same cable news channel, I can rewind to the start of whatever the current news program was that I hadn't been recording. I've also noticed in the rare instances that the app and/or my Roku crashes, once I get it up and running again, I can rewind to see what I missed while it was totally offline.
That's basically my experience with the Tivo Bolt whenever I've watched one of my recordings while on travel.
As long as the wifi of the place I'm staying at is stable, it's pretty responsive and I can do the same things I can do at home with it.
Depends strictly on what you want.
For example, the only live service I use (beyond OTA) is ESPN.
The other services I use are Netflix, Hulu (Sprint gives it to me for free), and VRV. If I used a Cable/Sat DVR, I'd still need to subcribe to all of those, with the sole exception of ESPN. And when Disney Plus comes out, it will be the same.
Your needs are perhaps much more confined than most. I don't get as much kick out of ESPN as I do Bein Sports and CBS/NBC Sports.
I think you can agree that if the usage model is more like that presented in the OP (8-10 popular shows a night), a full featured DVR is probably very important.
I think I'd have a tough time without fairly comprehensive controls when watching football in particular; a sport where a such a large percentage of the time isn't live play. Slo-mo and frame stepping probably isn't all that critical in football but it can be a real boon on Soccer where the pauses don't regularly take the better part of a minute and replays are much less frequent.
Beyond Pause (bathroom break/interruptions) and rewind (interruptions), I don't think anyone really needs a "full feature" DVR. Those are probably the only 2 features 90%+ of the people even use.
My kids grew up with a DVR/Tivo in the house, and really the only thing they seem to use to the menu item to get to youtube.
My kids grew up with a DVR/Tivo in the house, and really the only thing they seem to use to the menu item to get to youtube.
Everyone has different use cases and preferences.
If they were watching live content, the needs would likely be a lot different.
I watch live content alot, so occasionally use pause and sometimes skip back. That's pretty much it. Most people need/want nothing more than those 2 features (along of course with recording shows in the first place).
Do you think it is sound logic to assume that you're needs and desires are representative of those of everyone else?
Needs are based on many things -- not the least of which is what is available with the services that you have.
Clearly, most people are willing to live with generic trickplay functionality for a live buffer, plus name-based recording as they are willing to suffer with crappy cable STBs. Beyond that, automatic commercial skip would probably be the most wanted feature, followed by slo-mo, frame-advance, fast mode, etc. I'd also expect sports fans in particular to want PIP, so they can switch between games easily.
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