DirecTV Now, the new streaming cable service released a month ago, has revealed when their discounted introductory plan will increase in price. The $35-per-month 100-channel plan will go up to its regular price of $60 per month on January 9th. Anyone who has already signed up for the plan, or who signs up before January 9th, will continue paying $35 per month. The new wording on DirecTV Now’s site says “offer rate may increase” which implies the $35 price isn’t for life and will likely increase at some point, but for now, DirecTV Now is allowing customers to keep the introductory price beyond the promotion’s expiration date. If you sign up now to lock in the lower price, use promo code INTC1MONTH to extend the normal 7-day free trial to a 1-month free trial.
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Let me be the first (of many, I’m sure) to point out that DTVN needs to get its **** together to be worth even the $35 a month it currently charges, let alone the $60 regular rate.
I don’t seem to get error messages anymore, but all too often it’s still a stuttering, buffering, blue-rectangled mess.
DirecTV Now also offered me a full month of free service this morning. I had signed up early December on a week trial and didn’t renew.
I cut the cord almost 2 years ago with my local cable company. I have no competition for TV service in my area, but do have options for Internet and phone. I was going to install a rooftop antenna, but I got a better idea. My parents have Verizon Fios with a 75 Mb up and down Internet connection. An additional cablebox was only $10 for them. I bought a SlingBox and connected it to the dedicated cablebox and stream it to my Fire TVs and Android phones.
It’s absurd that a SlingBox can do something better than a dedicated service.
These companies don’t get it (shocker) They can’t or won’t get their heads around the idea that consumers want to pay for what they watch and only what they watch. In what other industry does the provider get to tell you that you will pay for all this stuff you didn’t ask for and don’t want or you will get nothing at all, often without regional competition? They’re putting a round peg (streaming) into a square hole (the dying cable model). Sling TV has already apportioned all the most popular channels between two tiers (Orange & Blue) so if you want the channels you love, you’re looking at subscribing to a bunch of channels in each tier you don’t want and spending more money than you wanted. Sound familiar? This is EXACTLY what we wanted to get away from with cord-cutting.
honestly, i’m testing a trial now. it’s just an overpriced cable package of channels i don’t want with a ton more freezes and buffering.
First thing to address is it’s far too expensive. I don’t want a ton of channels and i don’t want to pay for all these channels i don’t want. let me choose. i’m not paying $50 for 4 channels because directtv placed them in two seperate tiers. And saying we give you 100 channels isn’t a solution. i don’t want 100.
Second, the pictures isn’t always clear.
third, stop the buffering and freezes.
$60 a month? For the record, this is more than I pay cable and I get a couple hundred channels.
(Of course, I only watch about 10 of them)
Well I disagree with those here saying it’s over-priced. For me to get what you get in the basic tier here would cost 65 bucks from my cable provider. I’m talking getting at least ESPN/2, and the Turner networks, which I require. So for me, the value proposition is there in spades.
Problem is, as most have said, the service is buffering error code bonanza which makes it borderline unusable a lot of times.
I personally think the service is great and with the free AFTVSticks being offered I actually net $15 by reselling them with Kodi installed for $50.
I’m tentative, at best. I am an antenna-first cord cutter with no remorse, so we are not pining for cable television programming. We have recently dropped Prime and Netflix. I haven’t even watched national news programming since the election.
My wife will not even try it. If it is not on her TiVo (what is it with TiVo fanboys?), she is not going to watch it.
We signed on for the three months plus an Apple TV for $105. I think the Apple TV is worth $105 and my inclination is to move on after three months. I had just bought my iBoy an Apple TV at Best Buy for $102 and change and this seemed to be worth the extra $3.
We are one month into this adventure. So far, my biggest disappointment is the quality of the programming. Right now, for instance, the following channels are running infomercials: A&E, AMC, AXS, BET, Comedy Central, Comedy.TV, Cooking Channel, E!,Food Network, FX, FXX, GSN, History, Justice Central, Lifetime, National Geographic, Travel, TVG, Viceland, and WE. 20 channels — 18% of the service — is paid programming. That’s terrible. Comcast Sportsnet and ESPN2 are simulcasting radio shows.
In Boston, we have no — as in zero — local channels. If you want to use this instead of cable, there is no local news (unless you count Comcast Sportsnet), no nfl, no Big Bang. No local ABC, Fox, NBC, or PBS. No Bounce, Buzzer, Comet, Decades, Escape, GetTV, GRIT, Heroes & Icons, ION, Laff, MeTV, The Works, or ThisTV.
A lot of the channels we used to watch when we had cable are very different now. A&E might as well be called the Hoarders channel. Since when is Star Trek something you’d expect to find on BBC America? I don’t recognize any of the cartoons on the Cartoon Network. The Food Network used to be my Wife’s background noise. Now? Well, we start the day with infomercials. Then four and a half hours of The Pioneer Women and The Kitchen, two hours of Cake Wars, and six hours of Cake Wars.
Home and Garden TV is about Hoarders Cleaning up their houses and Tiny Houses. No gardening. DIY is another Tiny House channel. What is it with people wanting to live in campers?
History Channel: Pickers and Pawn Stars.
SyFy: Twilight Zone
Hallmark, Lifetime, Sundance, TBS, TVLand, and USA: older syndicated programming
Movies and Shows were pretty limited. Most of the movies are edited for language and content. Vudu Movies on Us is better.
There doesn’t appear to be any kind of programming. Just start binging some program. OnDemand is worse. Programming is fleeting and nonsensical. For instance, I was watching some episodes of Halt and Catch Fire season three when all of a sudden, season three was gone and two episodes from season 1 were available.
Technically, I have suffered buffering and freezes and the Fire TV (Gen 1), Fire TV Stick (Gen 1), and Apple TV (Current Gen). OnDemand is worse than Live, but Live is often unwatchable in Prime Time. You have to start an in progress program to see how in progress it is. It would be nice to list start stop or let the EPG roll back a couple hours.
I might have just talked myself out of this…
I pay 43 bucks including Hbo and majority of the time i get no sound and a lot of buffering which apps like ps vue i don’t get that…Dont waste your time with this app if theres no update in the next few days i will be canceling
If you’re getting no sound on a Fire TV, go to your FTV’s “Display and Sounds” settings and change the Dolby Digital setting from “Dolby Digital Plus (Auto)” to “Dolby Digital OFF.” Will probably fix the audio issue if you just have the FTV and a TV.
If you also have a surround audio system, however, this won’t be practical as it will also shut off the 5.1 channel sound coming from Amazon Video and Netflix.
I’ve subscribed for a month… and have actually been pretty impressed. Then again, my expectations may be different from most — I’m mainly looking for sports networks which are plentiful on the 100 channel $35 introductory deal.
I was actually convinced that DirecTV was going to honor their $35 “forever” price so I had pretty much planned to ditch my cable for this service.
However, now that I read that the pricing is “subject to change” — I’m pissed. And there is no way I would pay $60/month after being lured by a false promise.
So when my month is done, I’m done with DirecTV Now too.
Thanks a lot for the “bait and switch.” I will remember….
@Larry I never got the impression that the $35 rate was for life. In the tech industry, Life has little meaning anyway. I do not see anything in the ‘new terms’ that would cause concern. If the price goes up, drop the service. Because they know you can do this, I expect the price to be sticky for the foreseeable future. Bailing on $35/month for a service you like because you are afraid the price will go up in the future is kind of silly. The one thing you DO know is that if you leave and come back, the price will be $60/month. Happy streaming!
Seems like the app is gone from amazons app store now…