AT&T to Buy DirecTV for $48.5 Billion • Hacker News Board

Re: AT&T to Buy DirecTV for $48.5 Billion

#111

Post by orbitur » Mon, May 19, 2014, 3:09 AM UTC

kevincrane wrote: post #85

wkdown wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MLB At Bat NHL Gamecenter NBA League Pass NFL Sunday Ticket (currently DirecTV exclusive via contract) * I am assuming you are American and/or care only about the four major sports in the US. Not sure about futball, rugby, cricket, tennis, cycling, etc

MLB.tv only works for out of market games, and worked amazingly when I was in school across the country, but useless when I moved back, and I got a free subscription to stream NFL Sunday ticket for the season and directv had basically no competency in streaming so it almost never worked. Honestly, I bought a TV antennae from best buy and a long HDMI cord for my laptop and that's satisfied all of my sports needs throu…

I, too, use questionable streaming sites (well, just one since it's been reliable for the last year or two), but the picture quality is often worse than standard def, and the sound is apparently funnelled through a tin can.

It's almost bad enough to make me want to pay for cable. Almost.

Unfortunately for me, I live in Canada, where OTA stations do not care about the NBA. And I refuse to buy the League Pass since any games broadcast on cable would be blacked out.

Re: AT&T to Buy DirecTV for $48.5 Billion

#112

Post by cc439 » Mon, May 19, 2014, 3:09 AM UTC

skizm wrote: post #52

brewdad wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most sports? Hardly. Sure you can, in theory, watch American Football, Rest of the World Football, basketball, and baseball on ESPN3, but if you want to see these sports played by teams that matter then you need regular ESPN or a cable subscription to view them. All the games that matter were removed from the ESPN3 lineup at least a couple of years ago.

ESPN3 access gives you access to all espn channels including regular espn. I use it every day for sports center and baseball.

I'm unable to access ESPN's live feeds without a login provided by my cable company. That login flags what ESPN channels I pay for so, for example, I can't watch ESPN U without paying for an upgraded "sports" package filled with garbage channels.

I do have access to some live and recorded events, but the selection is limited to filler content like college volleyball and minor league soccer. Another plus is the ability to use my neighbor's login without restrictions since our cable provider's flagging system is piss poor. As long as I know somebody paying for cable I can cheat the system.

Re: AT&T to Buy DirecTV for $48.5 Billion

#113

Post by antimatter » Mon, May 19, 2014, 3:19 AM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #78

wkdown wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MLB At Bat NHL Gamecenter NBA League Pass NFL Sunday Ticket (currently DirecTV exclusive via contract) * I am assuming you are American and/or care only about the four major sports in the US. Not sure about futball, rugby, cricket, tennis, cycling, etc

NBA League Pass is a horrific abomination. I was debating it, and came across articles that showed that depending on your location and nominated team(s) it could be nearly impossible to get more than 25 games for your favorite team (out of an 82 game season). 30% of the season showed on a "Season Pass" costing approximately $200? No thanks.

Check out ballstreams.com

Re: AT&T to Buy DirecTV for $48.5 Billion

#114

Post by patrickyeon » Mon, May 19, 2014, 3:24 AM UTC

mrschwabe wrote: post #95

wkdown wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MLB At Bat NHL Gamecenter NBA League Pass NFL Sunday Ticket (currently DirecTV exclusive via contract) * I am assuming you are American and/or care only about the four major sports in the US. Not sure about futball, rugby, cricket, tennis, cycling, etc

For NHL, I've heard Gamecenter has poor quality feeds. Ironically, there's a one man show who runs a better service - albeit unlicensed - at hockeystreams.com $20 per month, all games streamed in HD plus your choice of broadcast options (ie- home / away feed on NBC or TSN, etc).

FWIW, Gamecenter has had decent feeds for me; it annoys me that the browser viewer won't play the best quality (it only does 3Kbit, 30fps I think), but the ipad app will play 60fps HD streams. Missing blackout and playoff games is the worst though.

Re: AT&T to Buy DirecTV for $48.5 Billion

#115

Post by alttab » Mon, May 19, 2014, 3:51 AM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #98

alttab wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I do is call them and outright refuse to pay more for just internet. I tell them to lower my bill to below that each year my "promotion" expires. They forward me to the "Loyalty" department and somehow find a new promotion for me each time. Fuckers.

> Fuckers. Interesting, do you have another provider in the area? I think a lot of the negotiating power comes from the ability to threaten to switch to . If they know there is nobody else (and in many places in US there isn't), they can often say "yeah sorry to see you leave", knowing that you can't really go anywhere. I have for example been oscillating between two local providers. Both have equipment on "premises"…

Not really.cthere are competitors but they suck too. I use reason with them most of the time. Once You Are transfered to the loyalty department it doesn't even matter. In some cases, just ask yo be transfered to loyalty. Losing $30 a month per customer isn't worth losing the customer or the negative social media.

Re: AT&T to Buy DirecTV for $48.5 Billion

#116

Post by programminggeek » Mon, May 19, 2014, 4:07 AM UTC

jusben1369 wrote: post #31

krschultz wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sports. ESPN + NFL Redzone + TNT + Local channels in HD have no good alternative on the internet. If they did I wouldn't pay for TV.

Yes! Cable = Sports. If they somehow decouple those two then I'm all Internet.

Why else do you think the WWE Network is such a huge deal. It's the first huge step for sports entertainment.

Re: AT&T to Buy DirecTV for $48.5 Billion

#117

Post by dba7dba » Mon, May 19, 2014, 4:16 AM UTC

jusben1369 wrote: post #31

krschultz wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sports. ESPN + NFL Redzone + TNT + Local channels in HD have no good alternative on the internet. If they did I wouldn't pay for TV.

Yes! Cable = Sports. If they somehow decouple those two then I'm all Internet.

Cable = Sports is why I am not watching ANY sports other than little snippets I can grab on youtube or mlb.com. Seriously. Have not watched a full game (definitely not MLB, NFL, NBA) of anything in a LONG time.

And none in family (yes little kids too) are watching much sports on TV either. Definitely not enough to grow up to be a fan of a particular pro sports league or a team, other than soccer via AYSO.

IMHO pro sports commissioners should start thinking about how less and less young kids are exposed to sports via TV (because not much to watch on non-cable TV) and what that means for potentially smaller fan base in the future. Just my 2 little cents...

Re: AT&T to Buy DirecTV for $48.5 Billion

#118

Post by jonknee » Mon, May 19, 2014, 4:21 AM UTC

blantonl wrote: post #55

You have to wonder how much the NFL Sunday Ticket was worth as part of this transaction.

Not very much considering it's up for renewal at the end of this year. There have been some fun rumors about who is in the bidding, including Google.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-12/directv-said-near-r...

Re: AT&T to Buy DirecTV for $48.5 Billion

#119

Post by periferral » Mon, May 19, 2014, 4:54 AM UTC

georgemcbay wrote: post #73

suprgeek wrote: post #14

The race is officially on! Can the Telecoms retain their terrible monopolies by becoming streaming providers Faster than the Streaming providers (Netflix, Youtube, Amazon Prime et al) trying to become Content creators? AT&T is running out of customers to squeeze in the cell phone plans market. This is the next frontier for terrible service, exorbitant prices and regulated monopolies...

This race is rigged. Even if the streaming providers win the telecoms will just jack up the prices on their bandwidth when net neutrality is killed completely, which I don't think is an avoidable situation at this point.

I disagree. If that happens, a new solution will emerge to replace the telecoms. To name a few, decentralized DNS, open wifi, google fiber etc.

Re: AT&T to Buy DirecTV for $48.5 Billion

#120

Post by dsl » Mon, May 19, 2014, 5:31 AM UTC

periferral wrote: post #119

georgemcbay wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This race is rigged. Even if the streaming providers win the telecoms will just jack up the prices on their bandwidth when net neutrality is killed completely, which I don't think is an avoidable situation at this point.

I disagree. If that happens, a new solution will emerge to replace the telecoms. To name a few, decentralized DNS, open wifi, google fiber etc.

The United States is too big (in terms of population density) for a replacement solution to gain traction outside major metros without massive government subsidies.

It's cool to think as techies we could come up with some massive disruption technology, but short of a super blue sky type project, our best bet to leave a better internet to our children is to throw money into tech lobbying.