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Discussion Starter · #182 · (Edited)
when your losing around 10% of your subscribers every year you don’t invest another 2-4 billion
Especially when the business is pivoting to streaming, TV watching is changing (and many younger folks don't even bother with any type of linear subscription) AND DirecTV (and DISH) have viable options which they are pushing, which are most likely cheaper to support and maintain and don't include having to put new birds in the sky at a cost of a billion dollars or more. It's not dead yet, but if it's not dying, it's certainly going to be a secondary business for DirecTV at which some point they might determine it's not worth investing in. There still needs to be improvements in their streaming service, but as someone who's been a DirecTV sub, then a DirecTV Stream sub and went back, they are fairly close. I fully expect when my contract with DirecTV sat expires to wind up back with streaming because it will be THAT much better.
 

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I have actually read articles both online & in newspapers where some people who have went to streaming are actually coming back to Cable & Satellite because not all streaming services offer everything everyone in a household desires to watch. One service like Hulu might offer one kind of programming where another service like an Amazon offers a different set if programming where Cable or Satellite offers it all at one place. So here we are back to square 1. I don’t think Cable or Satellite is going away anytime soon. 20 years from now it will still be around. Even 30 & 40 years it will be. DIRECTV in my opinion has led the way in offering all types of programming all in one convenient package & that is what I like about DIRECTV. And as for me….well I will be on of the very last people to ever give up my DIRECTV service. I have been with the company as my television provider ever since 1997, I have not changed to any other provider since and don’t ever see myself calling them to cancel my service.
same here. We will have basic cable paid for as part of our HOA in a new home but DirectTV will still be in at least the living room of the new house.
 

· Beware the Attack Basset
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Directv's FIRST satellite failure is unlikely to hit until after 2030.
That depends on whether DIRECTV 8 (17 years, 119W) and DIRECTV 9S (almost 16 years, 101W) hold out until they finally close the door on Ku-only receivers. There are well upwards of 700 SD LIL channels currently being carried by DIRECTV 8 and DIRECTV 9S.

DIRECTV 16 surely can't handle the entirety of 101W by itself.
 

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lol the last birds life expectancy die out around 2030. Best case you got 7 years worst before if Directv pulls the plug earlier.
The numbers for DTV satellite-based subscribership are dropping. At the point that it is no longer profitable to operate the satellites, the service will fold into streaming only.

https://www.nexttv.com/news/directv... two quarters,1.9 million customers last year.

This does not spell the end of the TV service, just the mode in which the service is delivered. Streaming customers are steadily growing:

DirecTV: no of video subscribers in the U.S. 2021 | Statista.

But make no mistake of it, as you said, DBS service is going away in the near future. It is very unlikely to be profitable to fly additional birds and with a lifetime of only 15 years, the current birds' time is coming.

Dish Network, DirecTV satellites are dying. Neither company is replacing them fast enough.

This is why DTV and Dish need to be sweet-talking Starlink so they can salvage their customers that are in locations not served with alternatives. This way they can shift all of their costs and risks for building and launching satellites and therefore stabilize their operating costs. The problem is that with the loss of every satellite subscriber, the costs that have to be borne by the rest of the subscribers goes up. There is simply no way to get around it and that is why even the most basic subscribers are having to pay for their equipment upgrades, additional montly fees, and are doling out well over $100/month for DBS service when streaming competitors are offering the same service for 1/2 the cost or less.

If DTV or Dish doesn't, someone else will strike an exclusive deal with Starlink and the rest will be shutout (Hey YouTubeTV and Hulu, are you listening?). I would consider returning to DTV in our primary residence if I could get a reasonably priced bundle for TV and Internet combined, but if the cost of Starlink plus streaming service subscriptions is less, well I'm not willing to pay a premium to DTV to get the same service. Neither are most other people.

My wife and I own rentals and we have a remote mountain cabin that is wildly profitable, but today's guest demands having a full TV package and really good internet. I'm paying $200/month for DTV and just under $300/month for Viasat unlimited service. That's $6,000/year out of the pocket just to have TV and internet. My Starlink unit is due to ship by the end of the month and will run $110/month plus some taxes, so let's call it $121. YouTubeTV plus a few premium channels will run around $100/month. Let's just round it up to $250/month for service. Sure, I'll be coughing up $600 for the Starlink equipment and another $800 for streaming boxes for the 8 TVs, but I will be saving $3,000 a year in service and break even on the new equipment in less than 6 months.

There is simply no reasonable choice here. DTV is losing yet another premium subscriber.
 

· Beware the Attack Basset
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same here. We will have basic cable paid for as part of our HOA in a new home but DirectTV will still be in at least the living room of the new house.
Have you formally verified that the HOA will allow you to have DIRECTV installed?

HOAs can be very fussy about such things and while they're rarely in The Right with respect to OTARD, they can drag it out.
 

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That is true. I flip back and forth, sometimes dvr as well. Wonder how that will work with streaming. Never streamed a game before.
I think you'll hate it or be dissatisfied. You're going to lose the DVR functionality. I don't mean just the recording. You'll lose the pretty precise fast forward and rewind, 30 seconds skip, frame by frame replay. The experience is going to be less. The customer gets screwed and the NFL gets rich.
 

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I think you'll hate it or be dissatisfied. You're going to lose the DVR functionality. I don't mean just the recording. You'll lose the pretty precise fast forward and rewind, 30 seconds skip, frame by frame replay. The experience is going to be less. The customer gets screwed and the NFL gets rich.
You are making some huge assumptions about losing DVR functionality or precise control. YouTubeTV and SlingTV both offer DVR capability and neither are limited to the amount of storage in your local device. Whoever ends up with NST will be highly motivated to deliver a very good viewing experience to those paying for this premium service.
 

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Directv's FIRST satellite failure is unlikely to hit until after 2030.
2030 may be when they start losing enough of the birds to start losing capacity to reliably deliver service… T10/11/12 will be over 20 years old, and T14/15 over 15 years old. These birds could still be operating in 2035, but not much longer.

From a business perspective, the satellites should be paid off, so the only have to pay for O&M. That helps. But, given the customer attrition rate, it’s unlikely they’ll buy new satellites.

I stand by my estimate of 3,000 days (8 years) and 5,000 days (14 years) above.



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You are making some huge assumptions about losing DVR functionality or precise control. YouTubeTV and SlingTV both offer DVR capability and neither are limited to the amount of storage in your local device. Whoever ends up with NST will be highly motivated to deliver a very good viewing experience to those paying for this premium service.
Having used Xfinity's cloud DVR and YouTubeTV's DVR for watching sports (I'm in the Philly area and can't get my local (non-NFL) teams on DTV), and neither are as good as the local HD on my DTV DVR. The tech is improving, so hopefully it will be better than what I have used in the past, but things like easily switching games and especially 30-sec skip are unlikely to be very high on the priority list for a new ST streaming service.
 

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Wow is xfinity dvr that bad lol

And this year I have noticed more phillies games on D* via the 700s.. I wonder if your able to view?

See if your able to view tonight's game on 733

I know in the past D* didn't carry many phillies feed games . And I'm not a 76ers fan so didn't play close attention but I think they had the 76ers feed available . I know we don't have a dedicated channel for NBC SN Philly but have noticed more and more games

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Wow is xfinity dvr that bad lol

And this year I have noticed more phillies games on D* via the 700s.. I wonder if your able to view?

See if your able to view tonight's game on 733

I know in the past D* didn't carry many phillies feed games . And I'm not a 76ers fan so didn't play close attention but I think they had the 76ers feed available . I know we don't have a dedicated channel for NBC SN Philly but have noticed more and more games

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Xfinity DVR isn't terrible (better than YouTubeTV), but the response time for trying to do anything is slow - it's probably only seconds, but often it is enough that I'm pressing buttons multiple times trying to skip ahead, or change channels, etc. If it was the only system I had ever used, I probably wouldn't think it was that bad, but compared to the DTV interface, it's clunky.

I don't look in the 700's for any local games, since I have never purchased any of the MLB, NHL or NBA DTV packages, since the Philly games are blacked out for me because they are on SN Philly. The only games I can watch on DTV are the few national broadcasts, Fox/ESPN/TNT, etc. The MLB/NBA/NHL channels (in the 200's) are blacked out whenever they show a Philly game as well. I miss the days when DTV was trying to force Comcast to let them carry SN Philly (Comcast SportsNet at the time), but after years of fighting, it looks like they gave up on that battle.
 

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Right but the 700s are usually just mirrors of the 600s (RSN) so what I'm suggesting is see if u can view the game tonight since u live in Philly market .

Its like a duplicate channel to group all the MLB EI/NBA LP channels together

IIRC even when I didn't have MLB EI or NBA LP the mirror of (my local RSNs) NBC SN Washington or MASN i was able to view ... but I could be mistaken


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· Beware the Attack Basset
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Does this mean we get 4k & HDR for every game now?
This is not a logical conclusion. The game coverage will continue to come from most of the same parties (Fox, CBS, NBC, ESPN) that are providing HD feeds up to now. There would need to be a pretty large subscriber base to justify asking the networks to upgrade the finished product.
 

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Discussion Starter · #197 ·
You are making some huge assumptions about losing DVR functionality or precise control. YouTubeTV and SlingTV both offer DVR capability and neither are limited to the amount of storage in your local device. Whoever ends up with NST will be highly motivated to deliver a very good viewing experience to those paying for this premium service.
I think the question is around whether Apple, Amazon or Disney will provide the ability to see a game on a "delayed" basis and have it work similar to how a DVR would (completely with skipping, rewind, pause and well, ad skipping). The jury is still out on that. That might be something you may lose when it goes to streaming. The OTT streamers like you mentioned all have that ability, but we just don't know if an NFL ST based streaming service will. Honestly we know very little of how it's going to work or how much it's going to cost. We don't even know who's going to provide the service. I have no problem with streaming because that's just the way things are going. You'll lose some functionality, but you might gain some as well, and certainly it will be available to a larger base.
 

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Discussion Starter · #198 ·
Having used Xfinity's cloud DVR and YouTubeTV's DVR for watching sports (I'm in the Philly area and can't get my local (non-NFL) teams on DTV), and neither are as good as the local HD on my DTV DVR. The tech is improving, so hopefully it will be better than what I have used in the past, but things like easily switching games and especially 30-sec skip are unlikely to be very high on the priority list for a new ST streaming service.
I have used DirecTV streams DVR and it's VERY good. I liked that it skipped 15 seconds rather than 30 which made it much finer to stop at points of the show. It was VERY close in functionality to the HRxx boxes. So yes, the tech is getting better.
 

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Discussion Starter · #199 ·
Aren't Fox and ESPN still 720p?
Yep. That's still considered HD, just not FULL HD (1080p). NBC and CBS are both 1080i which is a little better. The caveat here is that local channels may vary from that. I don't know if the streams will match what the networks use, but I'd imagine they will. Hopefully, the streamer you use will do some up-scaling.
 
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