PAC-12 channel access - Printable Version

PAC-12 channel access - Printable Version

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PAC-12 channel access - M T - 08-30-2019

FYI, my Sling has a preview of the six PAC-12 channels now through Sept. 8.

I cut the cord with Comcast/Xfinity at the beginning of the summer, and have been using Sling, plus some channels that came with a Samsung TV, plus antenna (plus the services my wife subscribes to).  My intent is to add PAC-12 to Sling for the school year.

Btw, my impression of Sling has not been that good.  About the only thing I've been able to regularly depend on for is the Giants broadcasts.  I got a Sling AirTV box and it is poor. IMO, they have a bad user interface.  They will cut out your reception of over-the-net channels without warning, and with no one-button way of getting back to them. (If they don't cut it out sometime, you would be getting the channel even when your TV is off)  Often, they'll cut it during, say, extra innings of baseball.   I found the antenna sensitivity was weaker than expected. ; (I wound up buying a TiVo for OTA instead. FYI, for over-the-net channels, TiVo will pop up a "Are you still watching" overlay which you can say OK too.)  Some of the Sling over-the-net channels don't let you rewind while watching (but the PAC-12 preview does).  I have a local disk on the AirTV box.

RE: PAC-12 channel access - qwerty49 - 08-30-2019

(08-30-2019, 01:07 PM)M T Wrote: FYI, my Sling has a preview of the six PAC-12 channels now through Sept. 8. I cut the cord with Comcast/Xfinity at the beginning of the summer, and have been using Sling, plus some channels that came with a Samsung TV, plus antenna (plus the services my wife subscribes to).  My intent is to add PAC-12 to Sling for the school year. Btw, my impression of Sling has not been that good.  About the only thing I've been able to regularly depend on for is the Giants broadcasts.  I got a Sling  AirTV box and it is poor.  IMO, they have a bad user interface.  They will cut out your reception of over-the-net channels without warning, and with no one-button way of getting back to them. (If they don't cut it out sometime, you would be getting the channel even when your TV is off)  Often, they'll cut it during, say, extra innings of baseball.   I found the antenna sensitivity was weaker than expected.  (I wound up buying a TiVo for OTA instead.  FYI, for over-the-net channels, TiVo will pop up a "Are you still watching" overlay which you can say OK too.)  Some of the Sling over-the-net channels don't let you rewind while watching (but the PAC-12 preview does).  I have a local disk on the AirTV box.

I cut the cord last year and used Sling, then suspended my Sling account after football season (Pac-12 network was the only thing Sling gave me that YouTubeTV could not) and it just re-activated.  So I haven't used Sling this year yet, but I was able to use it effectively from my laptop to my big screen through both my Amazon Fire Stick and my Google Chromecast.  Both are $30-40 HDMI dongles that are well worth it.

RE: PAC-12 channel access - M T - 09-09-2019

Now that the preview is over and I started to sign up for PAC-12 with Sling, I find that Sling has upped the price of their Sports Extra package from $5 and is now at $10/month if you want to watch PAC-12 channel. Sigh... (And if you want ESPN, you have to have the Orange package as well.)

For WVB away games, only 7 will be on PAC-12. 2 on ESPN-something, 2 on BigTen, 2 not available. (11 of 11 home games will be on PAC-12)
For WSOC away games, only 4 will be on PAC-12, 4 unavailable. (6 of 6 home games will be on PAC-12)

I recorded the Texas-Stanford WVB game on Sling (Cloud DVR: $5/month extra fee, does not work for all content). Compared to TiVo (recording Xfinity broadcast), the deficiencies include:
(1) I couldn't remotely tell the recording to extend because the match ran long
(2) The UI for Rewind sucks. Just a capability to jump backward/forward 10 or some sorta indeterminate multiple of 30 seconds.
(3) No slow motion capability
(4) After I accidentally hit a button that jumped back to TV, when I got back to the recording, I found it resumed at an earlier position just before the previously-shown Sling-inserted commercials (they stream their own commercials (with somewhat louder audio) rather than the commercials shown in the broadcast). So then I had to search forward to where I had last seen the game. (I didn't test whether this jumping back occurs each time you get out of the playback.)

The video doesn't appear to be full quality HD, but I'd want to determine whether that is the fault of the content (perhaps the PAC-12 channel is degraded) vs the fault of an intentionally lossy recording/playback, or whether I'm just wrong.

Sigh...

RE: PAC-12 channel access - 76lsjumb - 09-09-2019

Is something going on with the Pac-12 Network channel [823] on xFinity? Last week, after not having watched it for a couple of months, I tried to tune to the Pac-12 channel [823] on xFinity and the screen said I needed to upgrade my set-top box in order to get that channel. It had worked for a couple of years on the existing box, and, as far as I could tell, all the other channels in the vicinity [including, e.g., the SEC channel on 824] were all still fine.

In any event, I replaced that box with a new one sent by xFinity, and now we get 823...except that it seems to take forever to start broadcasting once the channel is selected, and, when it comes on, the picture quality, especially for live feed, is a little "off" [again, something that doesn't seem to be the case for any other channels].

Anyone else experiencing this? Also, what would make one channel [but, seemingly only one channel] have a different feed requiring new equipment?

Just to be safe, let me make clear that I, for one, welcome Larry Scott and all of his Pac-12 overlords...

[Got that, Larry?]

RE: PAC-12 channel access - CompSci87 - 09-09-2019

I read something elsewhere that said Comcast recently made Pac-12 network available outside the Pac-12 geographic area with a technology that only streams the channel if someone on the downlink is watching it. It can take about 5 seconds to start if no one else was watching.

It sounds like they did that in your area even though you'd already been getting the channel before the change. It also sounds like they're compressing it more now, enough for you to notice lower quality. Yuck!

RE: PAC-12 channel access - 76lsjumb - 09-09-2019

(09-09-2019, 03:15 PM)CompSci87 Wrote: I read something elsewhere that said Comcast recently made Pac-12 network available outside the Pac-12 geographic area with a technology that only streams the channel if someone on the downlink is watching it. It can take about 5 seconds to start if no one else was watching.

It sounds like they did that in your area even though you'd already been getting the channel before the change. It also sounds like they're compressing it more now, enough for you to notice lower quality. Yuck!

Thanks for the info, maybe that's it. Still, since I live about a 15-minute bike ride from Stanford Stadium, I would have thought I'm safely within the Pac-12 geographic area...

RE: PAC-12 channel access - CompSci87 - 09-09-2019

(09-09-2019, 04:47 PM)76lsjumb Wrote:
(09-09-2019, 03:15 PM)CompSci87 Wrote: I read something elsewhere that said Comcast recently made Pac-12 network available outside the Pac-12 geographic area with a technology that only streams the channel if someone on the downlink is watching it. It can take about 5 seconds to start if no one else was watching.

It sounds like they did that in your area even though you'd already been getting the channel before the change. It also sounds like they're compressing it more now, enough for you to notice lower quality. Yuck!

Thanks for the info, maybe that's it. Still, since I live about a 15-minute bike ride from Stanford Stadium, I would have thought I'm safely within the Pac-12 geographic area...

I'm in the immediate Stanford area too. I didn't notice the change myself yet, but I may not have watched the channel since it happened.

RE: PAC-12 channel access - ca245 - 09-09-2019

(09-09-2019, 03:02 PM)76lsjumb Wrote: Is something going on with the Pac-12 Network channel [823] on xFinity? Last week, after not having watched it for a couple of months, I tried to tune to the Pac-12 channel [823] on xFinity and the screen said I needed to upgrade my set-top box in order to get that channel. It had worked for a couple of years on the existing box, and, as far as I could tell, all the other channels in the vicinity [including, e.g., the SEC channel on 824] were all still fine.

In any event, I replaced that box with a new one sent by xFinity, and now we get 823...except that it seems to take forever to start broadcasting once the channel is selected, and, when it comes on, the picture quality, especially for live feed, is a little "off" [again, something that doesn't seem to be the case for any other channels].

Anyone else experiencing this? Also, what would make one channel [but, seemingly only one channel] have a different feed requiring new equipment?

Just to be safe, let me make clear that I, for one, welcome Larry Scott and all of his Pac-12 overlords...

[Got that, Larry?]

I watch PAC-12 (823) regularly on Xfinity and have not noticed any recent changes, other than the welcome one that PAC-12 Bay Area (433), which used to be available only in SD, now auto-tunes to HD on channel 1330.
(And my set-top box has been the same one for several years.)

RE: PAC-12 channel access - BobK - 09-09-2019

Identical for me 245.