Streaming sports

SINCE IT IS FOOTBALL BYE WEEK THIS IS POSTED EVEN THOUGH IT IS UNFINISHED.  BASICALLY, I AM GOING TO STICK WITH VIPBOX AND FIRSTROW SPORTS.  I PREFEr them (no caps) because they are just as good--none are perfect non-blip HD-as the pay services plus they are simpler (no accounts or login).  As for quasi-live streaming TV, I admit I am spoiled and I hesitate to pay for anything with ads.  I can find a lot of the videos I want to watch free and commercial-free on the web. 

Overall, I found Hulu pretty good and I wouldn't mind having it.  Maybe someday I'll pay for it.

It seems like Youtube is cracking-down and it is getting harder and harder to find full games there.  My experience is that Michigan folks in particular keep trying and usually the games are there.  Lately they do not seem to be staying there.  Some games are there and others are not.  Ohio State has an even bigger following than Michigan and their games were always available, but even those are harder to find.  I still cannot find the whole OSU at Purdue game.

Even before cutting the cable I have been watching Firstrowsports and Vipbox.  The selection is as close to everything that you can get.  Usually it is watchable--the picture varies from barely watchable to good HD; almost always it is functional in terms of live news.  I think they are hard to use in that you have to be able to close a lot of pop-ups and try different links.  You also need a strong internet connection and, in my experience, a powerful computer.  I have never had success with anything except a good Windows 10 computer (I am not an Apple user and I would not trust a Android phone or tablet either).


My first attempt was youtube tv.  For $45 it is television on a computer with the major historical bugaboo--no local stations--fixed.  I found it did not work very well.  It was worse than the pirated, Bovada-supported sites mentioned.  The rest of line-up with commercials did not really interest me.  After the free trial I canceled.  (Incidentally, they are all really easy to sign-up with and try.)

Another weekend of college football was starting so I tried Fubotv, is that what it is called?  Again, it is really easy to sign-up for a week trial with a credit card number.  These companies are great at making cancellation easy and providing email confirmation, so there is no reason not to try it.  They may work better elsewhere or you may have a faster internet connection than my home modem.  My guess is that if you have a business-quality web connection and similar up-to-date computers they work well.

Fubo has a nice channel line-up and it works.  It was not fool-proof quality in my experience.  Still, if you are watching things like CNBC the quality only marginally-better than someplace like kmedia.  I definitely do not want to watch commercials (A&E, USA, etc.) in HD.  Much of it is network reruns that I did not watch the first time and I have not missed them.  I like to watch Hallmark and Lifetime movies but I can find them (lesser quality) on demand and commercial-free elsewhere.  I am used to downloading them and watching them at my leisure anyway because there are usually live interruptions.  Also, I learned channels such as History, documentary, and such often have unappealing real-life programming.

Hulu was next and it has similar if lesser programming plus a much-larger library.  Did I say commercials?  Even good programming loses something.  There is a strange pay-more/no commercials option that blocks some of the commercials with an on-screen timer.  BTW, if you are going to do a free trial you may as well try the free bells and whistles.  Hulu has a lot of movies and it is easy to bookmark them for later.  Hulu is something that at the $10 level is worth having.

The biggest problem with Hulu was that it was not live.  Several times I saw scores or plays in online stats that had not yet happened watching the game!  There are blips and interruptions and those may help with the delays.  It was not as real-time as Firstrow and VIP.

Next up--we're almost done!--was Sling.  Beware you cannot use a browser you have to install an app.  To bad, because I think adblockers may help with some of the others.  (One reason I did it was I also tried ESPN-something ($4.99) which was completely worthless.)  I barely watched it before canceling.  There were few games on but I didn't even bother; I cannot keep track of Fox vs. ESPN and I never want to.  With Vipbox I get them all.  I did notice that Sling offered almost no vid on demand or ways to pause, rewind, etc.    Even the DVR was either very slow or limited in this way.