Want to cut the cord?
Sure you do.
Everyone thinks they pay too much for TV bundles full of channels they don’t watch.
I’m not particularly happy about paying more than $100 per month for TV programming for the one set we have in our home, but are the alternatives good enough to replicate our viewing habits with minimal hassle?
Yes, and no.
The basics
Most people who are researching cord cutting have come across streaming services such as Sling TV and Playstation Vue, which offer bundles of live TV channels that stream over the internet to whatever device you’d like.
AT&T has introduced its own streaming service called DirecTV Now.
Like the others, DirecTV Now has several tiers of service with bundles of channels.
The bundles run from $35 for more than 60 channels to $70 for more than 100 channels.
Right now, the only other options are to add HBO or Cinemax, each for $5 per month, which is the cheapest I’ve seen for HBO access.
Here’s a tip: the Go Big package (the third largest package of more than 100 channels, normally $60 per month) is available for $35 per month.
AT&T says the $35 price will be in place as long as you keep an active subscription, but the company does say the offer is only available for a “limited time.” So act fast if you want to save.
The $35/month base package, called Live a Little, includes most of the channels you’d expect plus ESPN, Fox Sports 1 and the Disney channel.
Local channels are available in select markets where the networks own the local stations.
Also note, there is no PBS programming at this time.
If you’re more of a local sports fan, the $50/month “Just Right” package includes NBC Sports, MLB and several more ESPN channels.
Where you can watch
DirecTV Now is available almost everywhere.
If you’d like to watch on your TV, you can use an Apple TV or an Amazon Fire TV device or a Google Chromecast. Roku support will come next year.
Mobile users can watch on iPad and iPhone running iOS 9 and higher or Android version 4.4 and higher.
You can also watch on your computer with Internet Explorer 11 or Edge on Windows 8 or higher and on Chrome or Safari (Windows or Mac).
Oh, there’s a two simultaneous stream limit, so if you want to watch on more than two screens at a time, you’ll need another subscription.
Free hardware offers
To entice people to sign up, AT&T is offering a free Apple TV if you prepay for three months of service. If you sign up for the $35/month tier, you’d be giving up $105 for the service and walk away with an Apple TV that sells for $149.
If you don’t want to prepay for three months, anyone signing up for one month can get a free Amazon Fire TV stick.
AT&T says you can walk into one of their stores, sign up and walk out with the device.
There is no contract commitment, so you’re free to sign up and leave as you like.
Anyone can sign up for a seven-day free trial.
How it works
I think streaming TV is going to be the future of video delivery.
AT&T is actively pushing new TV subscribers to its DirecTV satellite service instead of the wired U-Verse service. Delivering video via satellite is much easier than digging trenches or stringing wires to your house from utility poles.
With DirecTV Now, you are responsible for the internet connection and the streaming box, if any. AT&T’s service calls will be way less and they don’t have to roll a truck to fix things.
As the internet gets faster, especially wirelessly, I see all of our TV service being delivered this way. 5G LTE will be fast enough to stream a service like DirecTV Now with no wires.
Easy to use
DirecTV Now had a few hiccups during the first week of service. I got more than a few error messages about too many connections or trouble with the stream. I knew enough to give AT&T a few days to work out the kinks.
Indeed, the last few days of my testing with an Apple TV, Chrome on the Mac and on my iPhone have been trouble free.
There are apps to download for Apple TV and iOS. If you’re on a web browser, just go to directvnow.com.
Once you log in, you’re dumped directly into a stream. The channels are listed alphabetically in the guide grid. On my Apple TV remote, there’s a small touchpad on top. Swipe down on the touchpad to bring up a link to the guide. Flicking my thumb up or down on the trackpad scrolled through the list, which at more than 100 channels is really long.
Luckily you can create a smaller subset of channels as your favorites.
One minor annoyance — the way the guide defaults to drop you into the column of channel icons instead of the current live show was annoying. It adds extra clicks each time you enter the guide to get your show streaming.
I’m quite sure the app designers will change it. (If they need a better explanation, they can call me).
When you’re watching a channel, swiping left or right moves to the next channel on your list. Changing channels was really fast, and the video quality was better than I expected.
I’ve been using Sling TV since it was launched, and I have to say after watching the same channels on each service, DirecTV Now has better picture quality through the Apple TV.
On the Apple TV, you can use Siri to search for shows. Just hold down the microphone button on the remote and say “Modern Family” and you’ll be presented with the list of available videos. If it’s on live, you’ll see that and one click will get you watching.
If “Modern Family” is available from any station on demand, you’ll be able to watch those as well.
Speaking of on demand content, AT&T says DirecTV Now will have an on-demand library of up to 14,000 titles. I don’t think they’re all ready to watch yet.
They also say network shows from ABC, Fox and NBC should be available the day after air for on demand viewing, but the latest shows I found were from a month ago. I’m sure they’ll get things straight before too long.
About that data
If you’re an AT&T wireless customer, you’ll be able to subscribe to DirecTV Now and watch all you want without it counting against your monthly data cap. This practice is called zero-rating.
It’s great if you’re an AT&T customer, but what if you’re using another carrier?
Zero-rating has gotten the attention of the FCC because it may violate net neutrality laws. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with the next administration.
What’s missing
DirecTV Now is a good start to a potentially great service.
It doesn’t yet have DVR capabilities.
Sony’s Playstation Vue has a 28-day DVR in the cloud and Sling TV just announced a cloud DVR beta program.
AT&T says they’ll add DVR in 2017. Let’s hope it’s earlier in the year.
You also can’t set up notifications of upcoming shows. There’s a lot of guide data for future shows, but if I can’t set popup reminders (or set a DVR to record) when my shows are coming on, it’s pretty useless to me.
You can’t pause live TV for more than a few seconds. Any longer and when you resume playback the stream will just jump to live.
You can pause, fast forward and rewind on-demand programming.
There’s also no NFL Sunday Ticket, even though this is a DirecTV-branded product.
Conclusion
It’s interesting to see all these streaming services adding features and competing for customers.
AT&T has priced DirecTV Now aggressively, and the free device offers are really tempting for a lot of my friends.
The interface (at least on the Apple TV) is the best of the bunch. Picture quality is great, and channel changes are lightning fast.
If they can deliver on the DVR, this will be the service to beat.
