Cutting the cord. Questions
 

Hi All:

I'm firing Xfinity and getting fiber pulled to my house. I presently have and use their "TV" services to get local channels and a bunch of others. I really only use the locals and ESPN channels to watch Formula One. I also have a DVR.

How do I do the same with fiber? The outfit I'm getting doesn't offer TV.

Thanks!

Assuming you have a smart TV. Just get a subscription to YouTube TV. Gives you all the broadcast channels and all the regular “cable” channels and ESPN for around $80 a month. Use your broadband to download apps to the TV like you have been doing on your phone forever.

Was literally just looking at it. Thanks!

And they have Sunday Ticket? Done!

Pluto, Tubi, and a few others have a lot of free channels and movies.

If I didn't have a family I'd pay zero for streaming entertainment.

YoutubeTV would be the best for your scenario for sure. You can configure your home family so that each family member can have their own separate channel list and DVR list. Works on pretty much any device.

My daughter and her husband used to have YouTube TV but got rid of it....she said they really didn't like it.

I tried it once on a trial subscription and wasn't impressed enough to change from Xfinity.

I need to look into this. I'm that idiot that pays entirely too much for services I barely use, and I throw paying Spectrum the bullshit fees they charge into that category. I really only use Spectrum for watching golf, the Royals ( :Lin: ), and the NFL.

I'm in the same boat; Spectrum keeps adding subscription services to their plan however I've paying $300 a month for phone/internet/TV and I watch about a dozen channels. A friend recommended Drogon TV for about $12 a month. I thought it was one of the jailbroken apps for the Firestick however this seems legit.

I don't pay for anything other than my internet bill. Samsung TV Plus is free and has a billion channels. I have an HD antenna for local channels. For sports on cable channels I just use streameast.

Having a PC connected to my TV is the key.

How well does the DVR function work on YouTube TV?

Honestly I find it to be a pain in the ass but as time goes by you adapt and learn to work around it. What they do is when you add a show to your library, they record EVERY SHOWING of that show, and stick it in your library. It's improved some, as they're getting better about just showing you the new recordings.

EDIT TO ADD: They will store an unlimited number of show in your library but theoretically they keep the shows for up to 9 months, However as I mentioned, they record every airing so if a 9 month old show gets shown again, they'll record it again and start the countdown again. I generally don't find this to be an issue.

Navigating their guide leaves a lot to be desired.

Weird but as long as it's there, I'm good. Thanks.

You're welcome. As a FYI, I recently dropped YTTV, not because of the DVR issues, as I said I've adapted, but they just raised the price another $10 a month AND I'm having an issue similar to what Frazod mentioned some time ago with Hulu Live. I'm now using the Verizon Home 5G internet and it works like a charm. But for whatever reason, they use revolving IP addresses. And YTTV uses the IP address to set your home viewing area. You can override with the app on your phone, and it's not THAT hard really but I just got annoyed with and finally said F it. Now I'm using a combination of OTA, Hulu, Paramount Plus, and Peacock to watch what I want, The downside will be when the NFL season starts again as my OTA is not that great. (I live in a condo, can't have an outside antenna) I"ll probably have to break down and go back.

As for this location issue, I've reached out to YTTV and can't get an answer as to why I can't just set my location and be done with it, regardless of what the internet IP is doing. ESPECIALLY when said location matches my billing address. The people at YTTV just can't seem to comprehend that simple concept.

EDIT TO ADD: Sorry I just realized I left out a chunk of infomation. I live in Jefferson City, Verizon Home 5G says I'm in St Louis, so they want to give me the St Louis locals. So I have to update my location using the geolocation services on the app on my phone and then it's good for awhile, and then all of a sudden I'm getting St Louis again. I probably had Verizon for 6 months without issues and then this nonsense started.

It can be an issue with sports, because it'll record the original airing and then if there's an overnight replay, it'll record that and it'll default to the most recent... so you're watching the replay and hey, there's the final score at the bottom of the screen! :banghead:

There's an easy way around it though, even though IIRC it's not exactly obvious when you go to play it... there's an option to choose which recording you want to watch.


I was traveling a bit and this became a pain in the ass... you can only change your permanent location twice in a year and have to log into your home account every 90 days, IIRC. I wasn't able to do that at one point, so I had to change my home location and then change it back. Shouldn't be an issue for the next rolling year, but still.

And it's only happened once outside of traveling, but I've had it complain about location before on my Fire stick, even after having it update from my phone.. and seems like you go in circles with it a few times before it finally figures it the **** out.


Overall though, I much prefer it to Dish, which I dumped due to them being ****ing assholes with contracts and constantly dumping channels for weeks/months at a time... I've only had one email from YTTV over a couple years saying Paramount stuff might be dropped, but it wasn't.

YTTV's app (Android) works really well and haven't ever encountered issues between devices (it happened quite a bit with Dish where I'd record something from my phone and would find out later it didn't).

My issue wasn't happening with travelling, it just thinks I'm somewhere I'm not based on my revolving IP address. Even though I haven't gone anywhere. So far they haven't limited me to changing it back using the app on my phone. But as I said, I got tired of dealing with it, and at a minimum I'm going to take a break from it during the summer rerun season.

That is 100% a Verizon issue. Not a YoutubeTV issue. It's a major drawback when using mobile hotspot internet like Verizon. Not to mention the data prioritization issues.

Before we got rid of cable and actually looked into our costs it was shocking how much we paid. The boxes, DVR, fees, etc. We now have fast internet for $35 through everfast and for TV we do Philo, $20 per month with DVR, no fees or boxes, and antenna for NFL. I also don’t NFL Sunday Ticket through YouTube but that’s just a personal splurge. Don’t really watch live sports anymore besides NFL so this works for me. But if sports were a must, (philo has none) I’d have to figure something else out.

Well we'll have agree to disagree on that. There's no reason YTTV can't let me set my home and viewing locations to match and then LEAVE THEM ALONE regardless of what my internet IP is doing. My TV isn't travelling. My ROKU isn't travelling.

EDIT TO ADD: The rest of the story on this is I have a buddy who lives across town and was able to get Verizon a good 6 months before I got it. And he had YTTV. He kept encouraging me to switch from Mediacom, but I'm a big "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" guy even if it's a lot cheaper. Well eventually Mediacom become "broken" and I made the switch. But I asked my buddy repeatedly about this location issue thing and the revolving IP before switching (because I'd read Frazod's ordeal with Hulu.). He assured me he had no problems. So I got Verizon and went several months and then all of sudden this location thing became issue for both my friend and me.

So it's pretty clear to me that YTTV made some kind of switch in late 2024 because that's when the problems started for the both of us.

If they simply allowed you to set your location once and never check again, then it wouldn't be very effective at all. It's based on the actual IP address, which is given to you by Verizon.

Like I said, it's only an issue with cellular internet. And it's because of the nature of cellular internet itself. Cellular internet like Verizon doesn't provide you with anything close to a standard IP range. It's a known issue.

YoutubeTV has had the location limitations in place for a long time. Much longer than late 24. I've had the service since the beginning, and have shared my service during a good portion of that time. It's Verizon.

Why?

Because they are legally bound by geographical viewership restrictions like any other service provider. Things such as sports blackouts and other media that's region based. It's not just the user's personal preference for local channels.

Well thank you, you're first person that's explained that. YTTV Customer Service refused to give me that information.

I still think there has to be a better mousetrap and I'm still really not clear how doing what I suggested still wouldn't accomplish that. In fact, what they're doing is JUST THE OPPOSITE. I live in Jefferson City, but I can watch whatever St Louis can get. How does that accomplish what you're referring to? It's literally just the opposite of forcing people to watch the programming in their own geographic area.

In fact, I used this very thing to get around watching my local ABC station here a few weeks ago. I wanted to watch the network shows one night and our local affiliate decided to pre-empt the programming to show hockey. So I deleted my YTTV app and reinstalled it and it defaulted me to St Louis and I could watch network programming not shown in my area.

YoutubeTV is doing its due diligence in requesting you to verify your location. When that happens, YoutubeTV queries your IP address. Which is provided by Verizon. The problem is that Verizon's internet is cellular based which is load balanced by many multiple towers in different locations that could theoretically be in different viewing areas as classified by YoutubeTV's coverage maps. Your devices are obviously getting an IP address that is sourced from the St. Louis area.

Note that Verizon does offer a fix for the issue. You can upgrade to their Business plan and get a static IP address which would solve the problem.

It still makes no sense to me to not do it the way I suggested. But whatever. I've dumped them for now, and may not go back. I may miss some Chiefs games but so be it. Push comes to shove, I may reinstate it for the playoffs.

As for the business plan, I didn't know that was an option but I'm assuming it's cost prohibitive. By switching from Mediacom I'm saving around $65 a month and it would be foolish to wipe that out with an upgrade. I might as well go back to Mediacom. But again, thanks for that info.

Follow up question, is this "due diligence" on a set schedule (Once a month, once a quarter, whatever) or this happening EVERY SINGLE TIME the IP address changes?

I just talked to my friend who also has Verizon and YTTV and we're both a little puzzled by this. Because, and I know you don't agree, but he went MONTHS before he was queried about his location. And I can't imagine that Verizon went months without rotating their IP address. And now, (well up until last week when my subscription expired) I was getting the location prompt a lot more than he does. I assume we're on different towers since he was able to get the service before me, maybe "my tower" rotates more something. It's just weird IMHO.

Typically YoutubeTV will require a location check every 3 months. I know there are certain triggers that cause that check to happen more often than that. But honestly I'm not 100% sure how that works.

Thanks,

SOMETHING was definitely triggering it, so much so that between the first part of December 2024 and mid-March 2025 it happened so much that I became really annoyed with it to the point of cancellation. One night I was watching what I thought was my local NBC station and all of a sudden I realized I watching KY3 out of Springfield MO. I don't know HOW that happened. As I said, weird.

Also a word about location checks and due diligence. They aren't asking me anything. They just change it to ST Louis and don't tell me squat and if I left it be, as I said, it would be doing the OPPOSITE of what they're trying to do. That is, I would be watching locals, sports, etc, out of my geographic area. So I think they need to rethink this process. Because it's NOT accomplishing what they are intending.

Also I'm guessing someone might be thinking "Why don't you just change it or leave it alone, it's not that big of a deal." And that would be correct, after the first time I did it, it really became easy to change back to my locals using the app on my phone. I think I became overly annoyed with YTTV's customer service when they couldn't explain what/why this was happening. And outside of Chiefs football, the combination of Paramount Plus, Hulu, and Peacock, which I already have anyway regardless, gets me what I want to watch and saves me $83 a month. I've recently added Philo to pick up some cable channels that I miss so that cuts my savings to $55 a month.

Thanks.

You can blame it on Verizon but in reality, geo-locating via IP address is a very inefficient and antiquated way of doing it.

Why not just get a VPN and assign a certain server so you connect to the same place each time?

Personally, I'm about done. Amazon double charged for BritBox, wants to charge for ad-free shows and most movies are available on free options. Netflix has gone from $7.99 to $17.99 and makes it difficult to watch when I am not home. I watch too much TV already and can do without all of the subscriptions.

I know people who subscribe/cancel the services to catch the shows they want. It's time to quit being lazy and take charge.

Well here's the problem with that. First and foremost, I do not know how to do that and from googling it, the best I can figure I would have to plug a router into a router (the Verizon mobile hotpot cube) and it would take quite a bit of effort to set that up (according to what I read). Juice not worth the squeeze because I would have to pay someone to do it.

Secondly I was just reading about YTTV and VPNs and apparently they aggressively fight against that and POTENTIALLY could block access. So again, the juice is not worth the squeeze.

For now, my best solution is to do what I did, tell them to F off and find alternate ways to view the content I want. If they would have just did this location thing every 3 months I probably could have lived with that, but they got to a point where it was about every 2 weeks for me.

I was just reading that Disney Plus has a deal where they limit you to how many times you can watch out of your "home area." (Anti-password sharing protection I believe.) And I assume at some point, they're going to give me shit because my IP is going to be all over the place. I don't watch if often and I wouldn't even have them if it wasn't part of a Hulu, Max, and Disney bundle at a good price ($30 bucks a month for all 3 with no ads.) Push come s to shove, I'll just drop down to just Hulu.

I asked my buddy the other day "Why is that just trying to do something simple like watch a little TV has become such a major pain in the ass?

The VPN goes on your device, like a Firestick or PC. The industry preys on people not knowing how things work. Yeah, computers and TCP/IP are complicated. Read up on how things work and ask friends/family for assistance.

According to Google, Rokus do not support VPN and I'm back to the "router plugged into a router" thing.

For the time being, it's a non-issue as I no longer have YTTV.

And with respect to Fish, I STILL think YTTV made a change in late 2024. I just talked to my friend who also has Verizon Home 5G and he said he's had it for approximately 2 years and had YTTV that whole time. He never had an issue until December of 24, approximately the same time it started for me. So SOMEBODY, made some kind of switch. The difference between me and him is that he's only had to reset it a couple of times since then. I've had to reset probably on average of a least once a month and more right before I cancelled it.

I have a working theory that MAYBE it's because he has an Android phone and it's doing something in the background with his location. Because the problem started for both of us after we had a day trip to STL about the first Saturday in December and the problem started almost immediately after that trip. However I'm not sure how that relates to me though because I have an iphone with the locations services turned off except when using the app, And I NEVER use the app except when I had to refresh my location for my app on the Roku.

Yeah, that's probably Roku's fault... google says it only determines location by IP address. Apparently an Amazon Fire stick looks at router info and some are even GPS enabled.... granted, last time my YTTV bitched about location on my Fire, it wanted me to verify by phone, I assume so it could use GPS.

Now that I think about it, wonder if enabling location use for YTTV even when the app isn't in use would help with such issues... if it would actually communicate back to other devices. :hmmm:

Ha, I hadn't read that when I posted.... mine is set to only use location when using the app.

Now I kind of want to travel with my Fire stick next time I leave the state just to try out turning on background location for YTTV on my phone. LMAO

LOL, yeah I understand. I don't have it anymore but this is like an itch I can't scratch. I wish I could crack the code on what triggers it to switch. If it was once every 3 months, ok I can deal with it, it's actually pretty simple to fix. But SOMETHING is triggering it more frequently and that's the "itch I can't scratch."

If I knew WHAT was triggering it, then maybe I could come up with a strategy to deal with it. (Maybe at least get it on the "once every three months" schedule. ) The more I think about it, the more I'm inclined to think it's using my location services on my phone even when it's supposedly off. Because if that's the case, that actually would explain a lot as I'm frequently out of my current geographic viewing area.

FYI, if you are using an Android device to stream YoutubeTV, a fake GPS location app works just fine for spoofing your location to get local sports. I've used this one many times to watch Chiefs games when out of state in a different viewership zone:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...hl=en_US&pli=1

Doesn't work on Roku though..

If you have Verizon or T-Mobile, check out what streaming services they have available. We get Netflix, Max, and the Disney bundle (Disney, Hulu, ESPN) for about half of normal price. I had Google One 2TB through Google, for example. It's $10 a month. Through my mobile provider it's $5 a month and I get Gemini access for free.

F ew years back when Google fiber no longer offered their bundle of internet and tv the offered us a year of YouTube tv for free. Figured why not since we’d have to figure out some way to watch tv. Man I’ve really enjoyed it. we have YouTube tv, netflix, prime and paramount plus

Prime we already had because my wife has a pretty good stream of stuff coming from Prime anyway. We already had netflix. Only thing we added was paramount plus which is so so. find ourselves on prime way more often.

YouTube tv is great especially for me who likes to watch YouTube. In fact I probably watch more YouTube than regular channels.

Settling your location for streaming has been around since the 80's. It originally was to prevent theft, now its for a lot of reasons.

I also find myself watching more you tube videos than I did a couple of years ago. Way better quality and depth than just a few years ago. I've already got more videos saved than I'll ever watch.

The 80's? Who the hell was streaming anything in the 80's?