Distro TV

There are the big boys of free ad-supported live streaming, such as Pluto TV, Xumo, Tubi, The Roku Channel, Stirr, Sling TV Free, Plex, Peacock, and the like.

You've probably heard of most of those, and have probably watched at least some of them. They're really all worth a look. Some of them have really easy to use interfaces, and some are not quite as user friendly. All of those are pretty good insofar as free live streaming is concerned.

Some of them have more that live streaming. They all offer on-demand content to varying degrees. Some actually have other original intent, but added live streaming after launch. Plex, for instance, didn't start as a live streaming service. Peacock is actually a pay service, but has a free tier. Same goes for Sling TV. The Roku Channel was free on-demand content and added live TV much later.

These aren't the only live streaming services, though. I recently ran across one called Distro TV. They've been around since 2019, but only recently came across my radar. One major difference between Distro TV and the others listed, is that Distro TV is independent of the major networks and studios. Pluto TV is owned by Paramount. Xumo and Peacock are owned by Comcast. Fox owns Tubi. Stirr is owned by Sinclair. Sling TV is owned by Dish Network. And so on. Distro TV calls itself "the largest, independent, free, ad-supported streaming television service." And they very well may be.

I'm not their primary target audience, though. It appears as though they are targeting people younger than me. Much younger. That happens more and more as time goes on. If you haven't that out yet, you will.

The content is still similar to that of the other services. However, Distro TV seems to have a higher percentage of non-English language channels available. While the other services mentioned do, of course, have non-English language channels, Distro TV seems to have a higher percentage in that category.

The number of live streaming channels is under 200, but not much under 200. I counted 187, plus nine music channels. That is nearly three times the number available from Sling TV Free, but Sling TV's free offerings are more of a "best of" listing. That's not to say that Distro TV doesn't have some gems that aren't available there. They do have some content you won't find on Pluto TV or Sling TV Free.

The problem I have with Distro TV, and yes, I do have a problem with it, is that the app doesn't work well. On Roku, the live guide freezes. I've not found an issue with the other menus, but the grid guide doesn't work well. The only way to fix the freeze is to exit the app and re-enter.

On Fire TV, the grid will not freeze, but the scrolling up will stop at times. It's as if the top limit moves down every so often. The only way to get back to it is to exit the app and re-enter.

The performance on Chromecast is worst of all. It's not available. The Website shows Android TV as a supported platform, but Google's own Android/Google TV device isn't supported.

There's a lot of potential in Distro TV, but they aren't there yet. They need to fix the apps above all else. I suspect they are focusing on getting additional content, which would be good, but I hope they set aside some work for the app. It needs it.

For now, this won't be a part of my Streaming Life. But, if the app gets fixed, I'll give it another look

Olympics viewership down 42%, except for streaming

The Beijing Olympics ended with horrible ratings. But not for streaming viewership. While overall rating for the Olympics were a huge disappointment for NBCU, the streaming audience grew. And that's a good thing for streamers like you and me.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the Winter Games were down 42% from the previous Winter Games, and down from last year's Summer Games.

The topline figure is that the Olympics averaged 11.4 million viewers across all of NBCU’s platforms in primetime. That’s down 42 percent from the 19.8 million average for the 2018 winter games in Pyeongchang, South Korea — in keeping with the trend both from the first few days of the games (and, in fact, closing the gap with four years ago a little bit) and the general decline of broadcast network ratings in the past four years.

NBCU’s coverage from Beijing is also down about 26 percent from the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, which averaged 15.5 million primetime viewers in the company’s “Total Audience Delivery” metric (a combination of Nielsen ratings for TV and Adobe Analytics figures for digital platforms). That too is on par with the declines from last summer from the opening week of the winter games.

Not all of the news was horrible, however. In fact, the streaming news was pretty good. Streaming viewership was up.

... the streaming audience for Beijing was either the largest or second largest for any Olympics to date, depending on the measurement. Streaming on Peacock, NBCOlympics.com, the NBC Sports app had an average primetime viewership of 516,000 viewers, up 8 percent from the summer and an all-time high for any Olympics in the streaming era. Streaming made up about 4.5 percent of the total primetime audience for the games.

U.S. viewers watched 4.3 billion minutes of Olympic coverage over 18 days on the NBCU outlets and social media platforms, the most for any winter games and behind only the 5.6 billion minutes for Tokyo last year. Steaming minutes improved by 78 percent over the 2018 Winter Olympics, and NBCU said Peacock had its “best 18-day stretch of usage” in the 19 months since its national launch. Peacock streamed every event live from Beijing.

With an overall decline in viewership, the fact that streaming was up offers good news for those of us that use that method of watching TV. The streaming audience is growing, even when viewership for the event being watched is dropping.

Maybe this will help push the networks into thinking about streaming and look to offer more for streamers. NBCU did a good job of offering coverage to streamers, with every event available on Peacock TV.

While ABC, CBS, and Fox may be smiling at the low ratings for NBC during the Olympics, they need to learn from this as well. They need to understand that streaming viewership is increasing, and they need to offer more for streamers. If they do, my Streaming Life will be better. And so will yours.

Raspberry Pi streamer Update 3

My Raspberry Pi streamer project has gone okay so far. There are a couple of issues, which I covered in two earlier posts: Update 1, Update 2.

Now I've run into a new issue, but this is a very different issue. Very different. But I also had a good experience to go along with it.

First the good. I didn't really like the remote I originally bought for it, and found a different one that I thought would be better. It is better. I like the new remote. I found it on sale from Walmart.com, and haven't been able to find it elsewhere. The mouse part doesn't work well, but that was true of the first remote. However, the buttons are great. The remote looks and feels a lot like an Apple TV remote, but larger. I like it.

Now the bad. If you recall, I installed the Android TV setup on a 2 GB Raspberry Pi. It recommends a 4 GB device. I didn't have a 4 GB device, so I decided to try it on a 2 GB device just to see what would happen. It ran, but I still wanted it on a 4 GB device. So I bought a 4 GB Raspberry Pi.

It took a few days, since I bought it directly from CanaKit rather than through Amazon, like my first device. Part of the reason was because it wasn't available from Amazon, which would likely have shipped sooner. Anyway, it arrived and didn't work.

Now, it wasn't that the Android TV setup didn't work. It was that the Raspberry Pi board didn't work. I never go to the point of installing Android TV on it. It failed before we got that far. How far did we get? First power up for initial setup. No display. I did proper troubleshooting and ruled out the cause as the monitor, the HDMI cable, the power supply, even mouse and keyboard were changed out. It's the Raspberry Pi itself.

I've communicated for replacement (I want one; I don't really want my money back, just a working device). We'll see how that goes.

The 2 GB Raspberry Pi still works, but I wanted the 4 GB to operate to get a better idea about things. I must say that I am disappointed. I plan to run Plex on a 4 GB Raspberry Pi, but I need a running 4 GB Raspberry Pi first.

My Steaming Life is quite frustrated at the moment. I'm awaiting on that company in Canada to help make it better.

Washington's Birthday

Today is Washington's Birthday. Well, it's not the actual anniversary of the day George Washington was born, that's tomorrow. But there is a federal holiday, and it's called Washington's Birthday, and here in 2022, that's today.

Here's the listing of this year's holidays from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management:

Can you read that part at the bottom? The part that references today's holiday? It says:

**This holiday is designated as "Washington’s Birthday" in section 6103(a) of title 5 of the United States Code, which is the law that specifies holidays for Federal employees. Though other institutions such as state and local governments and private businesses may use other names, it is our policy to always refer to holidays by the names designated in the law.

Some of you, maybe most of you, are thinking that today is Presidents Day. It's not. There is no such thing. And some of you may want to argue about it. "The combined Washington's Birthday and Lincoln's Birthday together and call it Presidents Day."

No they didn't. There never was a federal holiday for Lincoln. Ever. Look it up. There may have been state holidays, there may have even been local holidays that closed schools, but there never was a federal holiday for Lincoln. Ever. I'm not saying there shouldn't have been, I'm just saying there wasn't. And that's the truth.

What some -- or most -- may not realize is that the holiday wasn't to celebrate George Washington as president. Yes, he was president. He was the first under the current Constitution, but that's not why there's a holiday for him.

George Washington was one of the most important figures in the creation of the United States as an independent country. He was reviled and respected -- maybe even more respected than reviled -- by the United Kingdom when the War of Independence was fought. He was loved by many in this young country.

His actions in the founding of this country happened in the 1770s and 1780s, with the War of Independence being fought from 1775 (the 1776 signing of the Declaration of Independence was well after the start of the war; look it up) to 1784 (Cornwallis surrendered to Washington in 1781, the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, but Congress didn't ratify it until early 1784; look it up).

Washington became president in 1789, the first one under the Constitution that was ratified in 1788. However, this was at the end of his service to the nation he helped found. He achieved his high status well before he became president. Had he never become president, his birthday would still have been celebrated, and we'd probably not have any of this silly myth about a "Presidents Day."

We would also have not had the presidency of George Washington. Maybe that would have been a good thing, maybe it would have been a bad thing. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and others, including ones that never served as president, may have been our first president. Perhaps they would have handled some of the major events of those eight years differently. Maybe even some of those events may not have happened at all.

What I do know is that George Washington's birthday wasn't first celebrated because of his presidency. It was because of his actions that led to the creation of this nation, and its establishment as a republic. Without him, there may not have ever been a United States. He didn't do it single-handedly, of course, but without him, there may very well have never been this country.

George Washington was a flawed man. He was an adulterer and a slave owner. He was not a perfect man by any stretch of the imagination. However, we are all human, and we all have faults, some worse than others. Washington was one of the most important men to lead this young country, well before he became president. That is why his birthday is celebrated.

Today doesn't celebrate the men who held the office of president. There is no celebration of Joe Biden. There is no celebration of Donald Trump. There is no celebration of any president at all, except for Washington, but his being president has nothing to do with the celebration. There is no holiday celebrating anyone for being president. And there probably never should be.

So, what does all this have to do with streaming? Nothing. Unless you bought a new streaming device or TV in some store's poorly-named sale. Now go watch some educational video with your streamer, and learn the facts about something. Like the actual holiday that is today.

Watching the NBA All-Star game

Tonight is the National Basketball Association's all star game. If you are a streamer, you can watch the game, as long as you have a subscription to one of the live streaming services carrying the game.

If you have an antenna, it won't do you any good. The game is on TNT and TBS, and you can't find that over the air. So, how can you, a streamer, watch it?

There are four streaming services that carry either of those networks. Actually, they carry both of them, so you can choose. Well, six services, if you county Sling three times. Because Sling is, well, Sling.

TNT/TBS

• Sling TV (Orange) ($35/month)
• Sling TV (Blue) ($35/month)
• Sling TV (Orange+Blue) ($50/month)
• YouTube TV ($65/month)
• Hulu+Live TV ($70/month)
• DirecTV Stream ($70/month)

Sling TV has two different plans. They carry many of the same channels, but the Orange plan has some channels the Blue plan doesn't have, and the Blue plan has some channels the Orange plan doesn't have, and the Orange+Blue plan combines them. The other services either have multiple plans that are build on the lower plans with each level adding more, or add-ons to the various plans.

Fubo TV, which markets itself as the top streaming service for sports, is actually the worst for basketball fans. Many games are on TBS or TNT, and Fubo doesn't carry either.

Oh, there are also some NBA events around the all star game that are carried on NBA TV. That can be a standalone service, or it can be part of a streaming package, such as with YouTube TV, as a higher tier plan for DirecTV Stream, or as an add-on to Sling TV (any plan).

If the NBA all star game is something you want in your Streaming Life, you have options.

Fubo TV's big lie

I've generally thought well of Fubo TV. I remember when it launched, that it was essentially a live streaming service for soccer fans. I assumed the name "Fubo" came from the Spanish word for the sport the USA calls "soccer" and others call "football" or "futbol." It expanded beyond its soccer roots and became a full-fledged serious streaming service that would rival YouTube TV, Sling TV, Hulu+Live TV, Vidgo, and others. If you wanted a live streaming service, particularly if you were a sports fan, Fubo TV was one to consider.

Recently, Fubo TV conducted a little experiment. They dropped their monthly plan for new subscribers, requiring them to subscribe for a quarterly term only. They have since brought the monthly plans back for new subscribers. And here's where the big lie came into play.

Ahead of the change from monthly to quarterly, Fubo was $65/month. There are bigger plans that cost more, but the basic plan was $65/month.

When they made the change, the quarterly plan was $195/quarter, which works out to $65/month. So, nothing changed, right? Well, not exactly.

If you look at this screen shot from the Fubo TV Website, you'll see that the $65/month for the quarterly plan was promoted as a 29% discount. See?

And that wasn't a single error on one page. It appeared on another page was well.

The match is wrong. A 29% savings from $81 is $57.49 not $64.99. But that's not the big lie. Well, not the only one. When the monthly plans returned, the price is again $65/month. And there's the other big lie.

Where was the discount? It clearly said a 29% savings. Even if it's a typo and it should have been a 19% savings -- $65 is 81% of $81, therefore it's a 19% savings -- even that is a lie. Monthly was $65. When it went to quarterly, it averaged $65. When the experiment stopped, it was $65. The price per month never changed. Yet in the middle of all that, with no actual price change, they promoted the regular price -- the price it was before and the price it was after -- as a discount.

There was no discount. They said there was. They promoted it as such (but got the math wrong). But it was regularly $65, then on sale for $65, then back to the regular $65 price.

If this was a mistake, it got by a lot of people. That shows poor quality control.

If this was not a mistake, it was deception.

So, are they incompetent or liars? I'm not comfortable doing business with either. I don't know if Fubo TV will return to my Streaming Life when I'm next looking for a live streaming service. And I suggest you look long and hard before giving them any of your money.

Roku non-certified apps

I've been looking to write about Roku's move to drop non-certified apps. There are a bunch of people getting their panties in a wad over it on the Roku support forums.

Personally, I don't like everything about the approach Roku is taking, but I understand the reasons behind it. Most of what they're doing, I'm fine with. The only part that really bothers me is the 20-user limit. Yes, Roku will only allow a beta app to have 20 users. That's not enough. But the overall idea of no longer allowing unlimited users for an unlimited period of time is something I understand.

So, I prepared to write up a post telling what's going on and my thoughts about it. Then, I found a video published by Cord Cutters News. This YouTube video on their channel offers good information.

[Direct link]

I can still offer my thoughts. So, do watch the Cord Cutters News video first.

I think that Roku needs to do something about their Private Channels, now known as Non-certifies Apps, process. It's turned into a place where you can find great content, and utter junk. You'll find great little apps that offer great content. You'll also find apps that let you pirate content. Something needs to be done about it.

Two companies with apps that seem to get a lot of use are VidAngel and PornHub. VidAngel edits movies and redistributes them into a more family-friendly format. PornHub is videos of naked people fornicating.

VidAngel lost a lawsuit with Disney over their operations. They had to pay over $62-million in damages, went bankrupt, reorganized, and are now trying to make a comeback. I wouldn't use their service, but if others want to, and if their service doesn't violate any copyright laws or content owners rights, then fine. Go for it.

Personally, if I was offended by a movie, I wouldn't want a third party to edit it for me. The offending company still gets their money (unless it's being pirated, which is a problem), so they have no incentive to do any different. Whatever.

VidAngel has taken the tactic to misrepresent what's going on, painting themselves as the victim. That's out and out false. They don't have a certified app, and want the new rules to not apply to them. I have no patience for people who think they're above the law, or think rules don't apply to them. Those type of people are all the same, and if all disappeared tomorrow, I wouldn't miss them.

PornHub is a service that shows pornographic videos. And PornHub has had its share of legal troubles.

The lawsuit claims that PornHub and its parent company, MindGeek, allowed any type of pornography to be published and incentivized people to watch more of it. Executives understood that users were posting nonconsensual sexual content and knowingly chose to monetize it, according to the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

“The case is not about consensual porn or negligence,” Michael Bowe, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said in an email. “It’s about a porn company’s intentional election to include in their business model rape and other nonconsensual content.”

Like VidAngel, PornHub has stirred up its base by painting themselves as the victim of Roku. VidAngel and PornHub are no different in this respect. Their respective supporters have more in common than either realize. Remember the season of the reality show, The Surreal Life, where Tammy Faye Messner (nee Bakker) and Ron Jeremy became friends? This sort of reminds me of that.

I don't have any sympathy for either VidAngel or PornHub. I don't care about their content, but neither does Roku. And that's the thing that they don't want to hear. It invalidates their argument. It removes the victim label, and forces them to have to follow the same rules as everyone else.

Neither VidAngel nor PornHub will be in my Streaming Life. But, if the content of either is for you, I hope they get things worked out within the rules and requirements of the Roku certification process.

Fubo TV back to monthly?

There was a report this week that Fubo TV would switch back to monthly plans today. I hope this is true. Well, I kinda hope it's true. The hesitancy is because of that I'm seeing with the quarterly plan pricing.

In case you forgot, or never knew, the background, Fubo TV changed to quarterly plans earlier this month. I didn't see anyone else pick on on one things I noticed. Along with the move to quarterly, Fubo updated the monthly pricing, raising it around 24%.

See that monthly price? The one that's marked through? That indicates you still get the $65/month price, but only if you subscribe for a quarter at a time. If not, the price is $81/month. Of course, there was no monthly option, so this is either classic salesman lie-speak, or it's a sneaking in of a massive price increase.

The report about Fubo TV going back to monthly plans was from the Twitter account of The TV Answer Man, Phillip Swan.

FuboTV says its quarterly-only plan is expected to end on Thursday. But I can’t find it anywhere as an option. Everything looks to be back to monthly plans.

— The TV Answer Man (@TVAnswerMan) February 14, 2022

Mr. Swan has a reliable reputation, so I'm inclined to believe he was correct regarding the plans, at least, at the time of his posting.

As of this writing, Fubo TV hasn't gone back to offering monthly plans (despite listing a monthly price in the quarterly plans), so I don't know if they're going to keep the old price of $65/month, or keep the new monthly price of $81/month.

Either way, this is a bad look for Fubo TV. I think it's a decent live TV service (if you need a live TV service) especially for most sports fans. But sketchy behavior like this can only help me decide to keep it out of my Streaming Life.

Fire Tablets

I saw an article online this week that said new Amazon Fire tablets had received FCC approval. The actual FCC document doesn't mention Amazon, However, evidence points to it being a new Amazon Fire tablet, according to Liliputing.

The case for this being a new Fire HD 10 tablet? The FCC documentation doesn’t mention Amazon by name, but everything was submitted by a company called Abyssal Plain, which is the same name as the shell company Amazon used to submit documents for the 2021 Amazon fire HD 10 tablet. And FCC IDs for the new listing (2AWRO-8768) and last year’s (2AWRO-8762) are very similar.

What does this have to do with streaming? Well, you can stream from a tablet, can't you? It's how I stream away from home. Many will pack a Roku stick or Fire TV stick when traveling, but I'll just use an iPad. I could just as easily use an Amazon tablet.

I like the Amazon tablets, but not as much as I like an iPad. Still, they are good little devices. Perhaps the newer tablets, if this is what they really are, will be an improvement.

Whether around the house or on the road, tablets can be very useful in your Streaming Life.

In bed with Roku

I've been a fan of Roku devices since I bought my first one in late 2010. It was a good device, and I've kept good Roku devices in use ever since. Yes, I've used Apple TV exclusively for periods of time. I've used Chromecast exclusively for periods of time. I've used Amazon Fire TV devices exclusively for periods of time. But each time I came back to Roku.

None of this was a lovers spat. You have to remember, in the early days, not every device has every major app. Some stuff only worked on Roku, some stuff only worked on Apple TV. I didn't say anything about Chromecast or Fire TV in the early days, but that's because those are latecomers to the game. They weren't around.

When new devices came out, I did try them out. I was able to get a new device every so often, and I did. Some people I knew liked one thing or another thing, and I tried them out to see what I thought. I gave away all my early Fire TV devices. I gave away early Chromecasts, but as gifts, not to get rid of them like I did with the Amazon devices.

I've used other devices for periods of time so I could give them a good test drive. But, at the end, I always went back to Roku. Now, let's suddenly switch gears.

When I was in the Army, I learned quickly that if I didn't take advantage of situations where I could grab some sleep while deployed, I might not get another change for a day or two. So I learned to sleep in noisy environments. Imagine sleeping on a bag of tent poles while riding in the back of a duece-and-a-half (2½ ton truck) on a path without roads. I can do that. I know that because I have.

Having learned to sleep in noisy conditions actually made it difficult to sleep in quiet conditions. So, when Roku introduced a feature a few years ago, I decided to try it out. It was easy, because it was the default setting for the new feature. They call it Bandwidth Saver.

For me, it was a way I could have the TV playing when I went to sleep, and it would turn off after a period of time. Well, the TV wouldn't turn off, but the Roku would stop playing and return to the home screen. The screen saver would kick in, and if it was the black screen, it would be almost as if being off. So, for me, it allowed me to fall asleep easier and not worry about streaming all night.

And why is streaming all night an issue? Well, I have data caps. Streaming when I'm not actually watching is a waste of my data. If I waste enough, I'm paying overage fees. I don't like paying extra, particularly for something I'm not getting benefit.

So, at night, I'm in bed with Roku, while it plays something from my Plex server, or something streaming online. The Bandwidth Saver keeps my bandwidth under control when I'm streaming at night. It's like a timer, and while that's not exactly why Roku added the feature, it works for me, and makes my Streaming Life better.