Price going up again. Email I received today.......

I got it too.

Contemplating cancelling after the tournament until September when the Chiefs start.

It's been interesting for the last year. Google provides a Chromecast dongle for each TV now that they don't provide TV. We had two Amazon FireSticks, access to a Netflix account, the main TV has the "Samsung TV Plus" offering, and I have a digital antenna that I'm feeding through the house's coax plant for all the TVs; so our TV life has become a hodgepodge to say the least. MLB and Hockey are pretty-much non-existent, that SUPER sucks, my beloved Science channels have been reduced to "The Magellan" channel on the TV with Samsung TV Plus, but free offerings like Tubi and Pluto offer some B-level shows.

I never pulled the trigger on YTTV, Hulu, Sling, and any of those offerings that truly offer local TV channels, and I may never, but this a'la cart TV way of life sort of sucks, but it's how things are done now.

Huh. We get local channels on YouTubeTV...

Even with the price hike still way cheaper than what I was paying with Direct TV. I believe Hulu and Fubo also recently raised prices

I know, sorry if I made it sound like YTTV doesn't.

Agreed! :thumb:

Four screens at once is amazing

I also rely on YT-TV to reliably get my local ABC, CBC, NBC, PBS, and FOX. I have one TV where an antenna gets all the over the air channels, but ABC acts up occasionally. The other TVs in the house struggle to get one or two.

Just a week ago or so, I felt compelled to make a spreadsheet of all the streaming services, costs, and content. I concluded YouTube was the best deal for us.

It's following the same pathway as Cable did for us, gradually getting more and more expensive. :cuss:

Hope they do this for Sunday ticket. Or hell, make it an option always.

Man hate to say it but YouTubeTV is so convenient and better than every other option Id pay $150 for it.

YOU DELETE THAT POST RIGHT ****ING NOW

Dear lucky owners of NVidia 30XX or 40XX RTX cards, who are also YTTV subscribers. Please view this. NVidia has released a new set of drivers that will allow you to upconvert the normal 720p/1080p stream quality to "fake 4K" format. But don't be fooled, it actually looks really incredible for being upconverted. Just update to the latest driver and follow these instructions in the NVidia app:

If you own a NVidia 30X0 or 40X0, update to the latest drivers. Once done, open the NVidia Settings app in the Windows System tray. Navigate to Adjust video image settings at the bottom of the home menu.

Locate RTX video enhancement setting, and max that ****er out.

https://i.imgur.com/vsmY7lK.png

Depending on your NVidia hardware, it can provide an incredible improvement. I'm really surprised I hadn't found this sooner. YTTV looks so much better on my PC. The app says 720p or 1080p, but the quality still looks significantly better.

This only works with NVidia RTX cards that are capable.

Watch this before and after the RTX enhancement swtich for a good example:

<iframe width="2560" height="1440" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Jrh5idPduJA" title="Special 4K HDR 120FPS Dolby Vision Demo" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>

YouTube TV could probably go up to $100 before I'd cancel, anything before that I would start getting rid of Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, etc before YouTube TV. It's a good investment.

That us what I do, then pick up MLB TV and the Balleys app for the Royals.

Then sign back up in Sept. I really don't watch anything other than sports on TV anymore.

Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

ive had Youtube TV for over a year now, and along with fiber internet, it's fantastic.

Love the fact that I can add a premium network....then a week or so later drop it off, and it's charged pro-rata. You can do that with all the add-ons.

Combine that with unlimited cloud recording/library and great channel lineup - it's a no-brainer.

(FTR - I live in an area that won't work for OTA antennas)

I have a 3060TI, so I am gonna have to try this out. Thanks for the info!

I just use a Roku. Easy peasy. Is there any streaming stick this can work on? Im not going to run it from a computer

LOL, no.

I didn't know this. That's quite a game changer...

It's going to work on PS and XBox though and Roku already has a youtube app. I'm not sure why they wouldn't.

No, that would not work. This upscaling ability is only available via the NVidia driver and cards. PS5 and XBox do not have the hardware to be capable.

I started our YouTube TV trial last night and, as suspected, the lack of Bally Bally Sports might mean I end it before the 10 days are up. Minimally I'll give HULU + Live TV a try too, but we did our research, are already sickened by the $70 price tag (we'll be back in the same range we were before Google got out of the TV business), but I'm not sure the Royals are worth picking HULU over YouTube, at least not so far this year.

Decisions decisions...

YouTube rolls out Sunday Ticket, for full-season price as low as $249

Hulu has Bally?

Hmmmm.....gonna need to find someone with that. Because I'm pretty sure they wiped the Bally app (I can't get it to work anymore) and I can't use my work's satellite login to stream on my television because evidently the satellite account doesn't have a full streaming service.

I mean we should just switch it over to a streaming account but ain't anybody got time for that.

I'll need to find someone with Hulu and offer them a swap...

It has to be the Live TV version, right?

I thought they did (?), maybe they don't. Well if they don't, so be it. This isn't the year, at least not so far, to be worried about watching the Royals.

But the wife always liked having the game on, at least as background noise, while she was working.

And **** Bally Sports. Whatever they're paying the Royals for broadcast rights is both too much (right now).

And yes, this "find a streaming service" game sucks. It's where we are but it sucks.

Doesn't look like it.

Looks like Fubo and DirecTV are the places that have it.

MLB really screwed the pooch getting in bed with those guys and then watching Sinclair drive them into a goddamn mountain.

With Youtube up to $73/mo starting this month, I think I'm gonna switch to Fubo at $85/mo to get Bally and MLB Network. At least through baseball season.

Anyone have any experience with them?

Honestly, with one night of YouTube TV to judge from, it was nice to have pause, reverse, and fast forward again, we didn't play with the the DVR function, but like you say at $73 I'm not sure it's worth it. As for Bally Sports and the Royals, perhaps sports as a whole, I agree, **** all these assholes.

But simple numbers are that we were paying ~$180/month for Google Fiber when they offered TV, now were at ~$70/month for Google Fiber as just an Internet provider. We have Amazon Prime, we have access to Netflix, I've piped a digital antenna signal into the house-wide coax wiring to all TVs, and the main TV has the Samsung Plus offering. In total all those things add up to a lesser experience than any streaming service, but they're pretty-much free. It was a journey adjusting to the larger environment and its limitations after Google ****ed-over their customer base by deciding to quit TV, but it's not like any of these streaming services don't take some adaptation to get used to either.

We might just cancel YouTube TV on day-8 of the 10-day trial and just deal with with what we have now because $70 a month is bullshit for just having DVR and the ability to stop and catch up and a few channels that would be nice. By the time they milk you for all the a'la carte offerings you've saved your way into a bill that's twice as much as you had 5 years ago. Just because you like football, baseball, and hockey...

I know it's the future, but outfits like Bally Sports can go **** themselves. Especially when your team is ****ing terrible.

It's only the future if suckers keep paying for it. It never took any sort of ability to mystically see the future to know that this crap was going to go from free, to inexpensive, to as expensive as what you were already paying for.

Yep. It's basically now just like cable. The networks/content producers went from gouging customers for channels they don't want to get the good parts of their package to making customers sign up for services that basically accomplish the same thing - forcing you to pay for a boatload of content you don't want to get the few good things out there worth watching.

All of this is sooooo true. Yes we did watch the Chiefs, Royals, hockey and local news; I lived on the Science channel, NASA TV, History channel, and maybe a handful of others, if not those sports. That said, there was never a truer phrase coined than, "300 channels and nothing to watch"...

We shall see, but $70 had better offer more than what I've seen so far. Reruns of 70s shows ain't always awesome...

I can’t stand Bally or their app. It isn’t compatible with our version of Apple TV, so we get video with no audio if we run it straight from there. In order to get audio, we have to stream it through a phone and cast it to the Apple TV. It’s not difficult, but it’s annoying that they won’t fix the app to address a known issue.

I still wouldn't go back to cable. When I moved about a year ago they advertised a pretty good price so looked into it and forgot how many extra charges they add. Installation, fees per extra box, hell they added on something like $20 or $30 for local over-the-air channels.

And what's even on cable anymore? Comedy Central is 24/7 reruns of The Office, and most new content I see advertised is on Something+

For sure. I'll never go back to cable. But the way the streaming market has developed, I'm not sure I'm down for that long term, either.

I went ahead and signed up for the Fubo free preview. They charge $10 more than the listed rates for the regional sports packages so it's $85 for most of what Youtube.tv has plus the regionals.

If you pay quarterly, you get a few more channels such as MLB TV.

It's probably worthwhile if you need your sports fix. We shall see.

But honestly, I was paying $125/mo for DirecTV 5 years ago so I'm still WELL ahead of the game here.

Paying for cable's tiers isn't really any different than streamers having to pay for multiple streaming services, in terms of access issues. If you want ESPN, you get the sports package, etc...

Streaming was never going to be a long-term good for consumers. It was always going to lead to tighter controls by companies, and it was always destined to be that people would end up paying more money for less. The transition is still happening, and it will either work out that way, or it will collapse as a media method.

I have DirectTV Stream. It's $99 a month but I get the locals and all the sports channels. Royals, Blues and Cardinals are my main tv watching so its worth it.

I'd pay more for anyone else at this point.

DTV pissed me off something awful and when I tried to get any sort of improvement in pricing, etc... they just said "we'll miss you..." and that was that.

I had satellite and their streaming service wasn't very good yet so they were all but trying to wean people off the satellite service. The problem was that they were doing it BEFORE their streaming model was up to speed. And their response seemed to be "eh, you'll be back..."

**** 'em.

Welp, as a recent "let's play the streaming bullshit game", after I selected the $73 basic package for YouTube TV, the next screen was a ****ing LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG list of add-ons for other channels. Again, my $180/month is down to $70/month without Google TV, but there's no ****ing way I could "a'la carte" add-on the add-ons I need to add-on to get back to what Google and/or Time Warner (before Google) offered for $180/month.

As we were sitting here watching the YouTube TV page try to up-sell us to into a monthly bill that was way above what we used to pay for Google, we just laughed and saw the scam for what it is, a scam. In the end, these people are assholes.

We'll see..

Isn't that last point kind of what everyone wanted? The cry was never that people should get everything for free, but they want to be able to choose what they want so they aren't paying for stuff they don't want. Like you said, if you want ESPN you can pay for ESPN+ that costs under $10 instead of having to pay $100+ for cable :shrug:

And of course companies have come up with new ways to separate you from your dollar. Not really anything new.

People wanted to chose just what they want, rather than paying more, because they failed to understand that an a la carte system will eventually lead to higher cost combined with fewer viewing options.


And, if you wanted ONLY ESPN, that would be one thing. But who is buying ONLY ESPN, rather than ESPN + X + Y + so on?

why is it a scam? You dont have to select anything. And better than DirecTV and other providers, you're not tied into any contract when you do sign up or add on any of the premium channels. You can walk away at any time (and no equipment to return by 'x' date or a massive surcharge, etc. etc. etc.).

I'll never go back to cable or Satellite.......especially now that YouTubeTV has the NFL package.

Maybe the better word/phrase would have been it's "bullshit". Because, for me to get what cable offered (Chiefs, Royals, NHL, Science, local, NASA, bla bla bla) for $180/month, I have to a'la carte some shit together, maybe got to two different streamers, to get back to that.

I get it, this 57 different remotes is fine for some, but Apps layered on top of smart devices connected to my smart TV is hard to say is "better" because I can watch on my phone if I want to.

Perhaps JPB said it best, if you watch what going on you get this: "But who is buying ONLY ESPN, rather than ESPN + X + Y + so on?"

I bet we won't see any true a'la cart services offered that say "just the channels you want, $2 a month for each of the channels for each you want" deals. They know most of us could whittle that list down to ~10-15 channels and, well, that's not very profitable.

Very well said, less for more..

But with sports leagues are selling their rights to shitty assholes like Bally Sports, it's only going to get worse.

If it ain’t on OTA antenna, I don’t miss it. I’m back to baseball on the radio and I dig it as much as I did when I was a kid.

Fiber internet/Netflix/Hulu and Netflix is getting the boot soon.

:hmmm: Tell me more...

Which takes me back to what I posted a little bit earlier in the thread:

Well, in my defense, I've only paid $0 so far. LMAO Canceling on day-8 of my 10-day free trial assuming YouTube will try and find a way to **** me on the "cancel any time" claim.

Still have a big ol AM radio at home. Sunset on the patio and listening to the sounds of spring in the background while baseball serenades me as the sun drops in the sky.

After a month of no cable, I didn’t miss a damn beat. I read more for sure. And that was 10 years ago that I cut the cord.

Since family members share a few passwords, I can watch certain subscriptions on various apps. But it’s rare that I do that.

It’s almost summer. Outside is where you find me until the sun begins to blaze.

I like this. I like it a lot... :thumb:

Last night, we set up a free trial of FuboTV, and that’s the way to go if you like sports, and don’t plan on springing for Sunday Ticket. Bally works through their app on Apple TV where we wouldn’t have to pay for the separate app that has audio issues.

We have been hanging onto Dish for no reason for way too long, and this gives us a better alternative for less.

Gotta admit, the baseball on the radio idea is sounding pretty good too!

Ricky Horton sucks too hard to listen to for 150+ games.

Don’t disagree whatsoever, but he’s worlds ahead of Claiborne or Thompson when they’re on.

Honestly, for the Royals, I'm not sure who could announce the game and not be hated. It's like Rex Huddler, that dude is just a little to happy and forgiving for me. Like he was stoned and just happy to be alive because, well just because. Too forgiving.

Team announcers just aren't really ever going to be overly critical of their employer. When a team has been bad for so long and all they ever hear is rah rah stuff, the guy ends up being hated just because he's the mouth of the franchise.

There was a time in the late 90's/early2000's where I simply couldn't listen to Mitch anymore. It just felt like he was trying to blow smoke up our asses all the time.

When I first signed up to YTTV, I wanted the ESPN sports channels to watch college basketball and MNF.

I didn't want to mess around with illegal streams.

YT had that plus the local over the air channels and it cost $35 a month.

Now I have dozens and dozens of more channels I never watch, the costs has more than doubled to $75 or whatever it is...

And it doesn't even freaking have all the Kansas BB games because ESPN+ is a separate subscription.

It is certainly a scam compared to $35 I was paying even with some inflation.

And I know have a better TV, but if I want the 4K option, here is an option to stiff you again.

No, my $35 option didn't have 4K but the general nature of technology improvement is you pay about the same price for something and get more capabilities. I'm not buying $10,000 laptops or paying $400 for broadband compared to ten years ago.

But when there is a lack of real competition...

100% agree with this, but technically "scam" (and I used it first) isn't accurate.

That said I don't think there's a word that means:

"Paying more for less, having the interface be for more challenging than before, and being told that '"it's just the new way" doesn't mean it's not bullshit, not an improvement for most people, and "the industry" is really working hard to charge more than you used to pay and tell you that a'la carte means you only pay for what you want and trying (badly) to convince you that it's awesome compared to what you had before."

It surprises me every time i learn that people are paying 70+ for live tv services.

I just cant fathom paying that much for tv when you can get antenna and a couple of other subs and have almost everything at your fingertips any time.

Buddy Blatner Denny Matthews Denny Trease and Splits who could hate them?

Mike Shannon was ok but to short a time frame. The Bob Davis guy many hated I didn't

Hud I am suspicious no one is that nice. Skeletons?

I don't mind paying for youtube tv it has almost everything I get use out of. The Problem is the subs they hook you in with shows you want to see. Entice you with free or a low rate at first for so many days knowing that you will never finish the show in the trial phase and almost all have gone to a weekly format. They make it hard to find the cancel online. Its a lot like roping you into the old magazine subs where you by 6 or seven subs for a year for 19 bucks. By the time your sub runs out you cant find the company that sold you this sub and boom they have your card on file and charge it and 30 to 40 bucks a subscription. You're ****ed for another year and on and on till your card is reissued. If you used paypal even then you are you are hooked, its a scam.

You make a good point, "hate" was a poor choice of word on my part. "Can't appreciate their willingness to make excuses for the on-field play" would be better. But we get it, they've been hired to mostly focus on the positives and only touch, lightly, on the glairing issues.

We'll find out, but thanks for the heads-up. I will 100% document all I've done and let the CC company deal with them if they screw me.

There should be a streaming service that only bundles your local affiliates of ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, Fox, and offers add-ins of ESPN and FS1

News and Sports. That's all I need for Live TV.

These companies know what they're doing. They know what people were paying and use "that what the content providers charge so we can't do it for cheaper" thinking we'll fall for it. So they know what you paid, and sooner or later you'll pay that price and more, for probably less. Again, if they are what they say they are, they'd offer every subscriber the option to pick specific individual channels for some price for each, but that's not what $73 for the basic package, the add-ons is. Again, add up what having the Internet costs, plus the streamer's base package, and the add-ons to get close to what you have before and I'll bet in more cases then less, you'll be paying pretty-much the same, if not more. So they no longer charge you a dollar, the various parties get five quarters out of you for less. And they'll remind you that you got to pick what you want and a quarter is less than a dollar. All with a straight face...