Maybe it wouldn't sound anymore fragmented than the Cable/Dish market if we name the parent companies, and it might help you make a decision. Here are your best options vs pirating using NBA Reddit Streams: AT&T (DirectTV Now) Dish Network (Sling TV) Google (youtube TV) Disney, Comcast, NBC and Time Warner (jointly own Hulu) So, all the big players in delivering TV the old ways are providing options now....with Google as a notable addition. They all pretty much have the same plans, with different pricing. As @Dave2000 says, they all have a free trial month, so you could alternate trial months throughout the playoffs. (knock on wood that we need more than a month). Treat this time as exactly what us cord-cutters were trying to achieve ... all broadcast TV and Basic "Cable" Channels is available via streaming now w/o a Cable Provider (at a significantly reduced rate), with HBO, SHO, Netflix, etc having streaming options to add-on. Cheaper options supporting all devices without cable is what we wanted, but we are back to paying the same people, nonetheless.
You were able to watch almost every regular season game with sling? How? Seems like Sling, Hulu, YouTube offer the same package of channels...
Sling was just his provider. He meant any of them. He also said "With LP" ... League Pass. ie, since Rockets were on national TV so much this year, and LP has blackouts, I'm assuming he meant that he did Sling for the ESPN, TNT and ABC games and used the $7 single-game options of League Pass for the rest....(btw: OS Triginom lives out of town). Note at beginning of the year I don't think AT&T, Hulu and YT were up and running, yet. So you had to use LP/Sling, cable or pirating/IPTV. So the complete answer now is to include Sling, YT, DirectTV Now and Hulu.
I second this. There were times when buffering was a huge issue with me for sling. Playstation Vue was fine for the most part for me. Never had a problem with Hulu, but haven't tried the live tv. I'm going to try the free trials of each one of those listed in here to see how they go. Vue will be my fallback if I don't like any of the others.
Oh God thank you, I've been using reddit but its a hassle getting the stream on Tv so the only game I was able to watch freely without a freeze was Boston on Abc.... I was looking into league pass but yup they blackout. And Cable is insanely expensive and I just cant push myself to paying $80-$90 a month for a single channel since I don't really watch tv. I wouldn't mind watching the walking dead on sundays thou. I'll for sure get one of those three for playoffs, most likely youtube or hulu...
yep, HP got it right. Half the games were on national tv so Sling allowed me to watch almost every one of those, League Pass handled the rest. Not being in Houston, that's the best way to cover all the bases for me. I also tried the reddit streams briefly this season, but about a week after I started watching the streams there, the NBA shut the most reliable ones down, so it was back to League Pass. I don't mind paying for the services so long as they work, and LP seems to be doing a better job this season compared to last year when there's bandwidth issues with our provider (rural area, still on dsl. can't wait for fiber!).
I have Google Fiber and LP, which works great except when a game is on NBAtv (google fiber doesn't carry it, not yet) which seems to be more frequent than in the past, which is probably due to the success of the Rockets this season. So I should look into Reddit streams? I've never had anything to do with Reddit, so don't know a thing about it. When we had Time/Warner cable, they had both LP and NBAtv, so I saw every game in real time, no problem. Sometimes I have to watch the game delayed with Fiber and LP, LP showing a delayed broadcast. It's very irritating. My guess is that at least some of the playoff games will be on NBAtv, because the league wants to increase their earnings. I hope I'm wrong.
It's pay-for-pirating, which OP said he didn't want to do. And it could go *poof* at any moment like Ballstreams. Only reason NBA hasn't shut them down yet (like Ballstreams with many pre-paying ppl losing money) is because hehe learned from Ballstream's mistake and they don't accept credit cards. (NBA went after the banks for supporting illegal activity, so the banks shut down the merchant account of Ballstreams, and no one could get a refund.) Hehe accepts Amazon Gift Cards and Paypal, so I'm sure NBA has been applying pressure to them, too, to close the merchant account receiving those funds. I guess bitcoin payments to hehestreams are hard to stop, though, so hehe might survive doing pay-for-pirating services.
I have had a ton of issues with Sling but using my TV app and the Xbox 1 app. It would buffer a lot or freeze video but audio would still be streaming. I was told YouTubeTV is pretty good. Its a bit more a month but if I can sign up and cancel on a monthly basis it would be worth it for me for the playoffs.
