How Do I Add A Show To Record On Directv Now

I'm testing DirecTV Stream to cut the string — here's the pros and cons

(Prototype credit: Henry T. Casey)

I'm almost prepare to cutting the cord, only afterwards testing DirecTV Stream I've realized that it comes with an asterisk I didn't conceptualize. This service, readers, is a lesson in reading the fine print. Because while you lot may have heard that it'due south the place for regional sports networks, y'all don't get them in every parcel.

DirecTV Steam, if you've not heard of it, is the newly rebranded AT&T TV. It was AT&T TV Now before that, and DirecTV Now before that. It's never been one of our favorites, but I feel the need to make sure I've checked under every rock. And unfortunately its wins are more often than not found in competition to cable TV, and not upwardly against the likes of Sling TV or YouTube TV.

To requite you some context, I am cutting the cord because of the cablevision box's primitive nature. That said, my roommates don't desire to surrender their specific channels, and so I'1000 planning on getting rid of my cable box, and telling them that their $127 per calendar month cablevision bill (which volition get cheaper without that cable box) is their trouble. I'll even offer to allow them share my account with me.

DirecTV Stream Cheat sail

Cost: $70 per month
Channels: More than 65
DVR: xx hours
Simultaneous streams: 3
Broadcast networks: ABC, CBS, Play tricks, NBC

My ultimate goal in all of this is to find a service that is great enough to convince them it's time for all of us to wave goodbye to cable. I was trying to be optimistic about DirecTV Stream, formerly known equally AT&T TV, since it'southward the only identify you can get the Yes Network (and I live with some Yankees fans).

The acme ii competitors for my dollar are Sling TV and YouTube Tv set, which impressed with price and excellent apps, respectively. Unfortunately, not all of its competitors tin say that much. Hulu with Live Television receiver, for example, didn't prove stable enough for my liking. And fuboTV doesn't take TNT, which means much fewer NBA Playoff games.

Based on my testing, here's the pros and cons of DirecTV Stream for cord-cutters.

The best streaming devices correct now
How to watch all of the NFL live streams
Plus: The Hawkeye trailer is here — we've got v questions for the Disney Plus prove

Where DirecTV Stream beats (or matches) cable

Unfortunately, the upsides of DirecTV Stream against cable are the same upsides y'all get with all of the all-time cable TV alternatives. For starters, you can stream all your favorite channels anywhere you go along your telephone. Spectrum's mobile app only gives me that whole channel guide if I'm logged in on my domicile network.

Secondly, DirecTV Stream offers the same month-to-month contract structure that the other string-cutter services practice. It'due south bang-up, especially if you find that you don't similar DirecTV Stream.

I wish this department were longer. But that'southward not the case.

Where DirecTV Stream fails against cable (and Sling and YouTube Tv)

DirecTV Stream suffers from ane of the problems I found in Sling: less-than-live Telly. YouTube Television receiver is already nigh xx seconds or more than behind my cable box, and that's not great (watching alive events with friends and constantly being backside them stinks). Simply Sling was even further behind YouTube TV, and I timed information technology out that DirecTV is 10+ seconds backside YouTube TV.

But I had issues with DirecTV Stream before I could even become my business relationship going. It all started when I clicked the wrong Google result for DirecTV Stream, which gave me traditional DirecTV package options. Things got even more abrasive when I thought I'd fabricated information technology to the correct page, and a DirecTV rep chosen me out of the blueish (which my iPhone flagged every bit a spam hazard) to sell me standard traditional DirecTV and non the DirecTV Stream package.

It turns out I didn't await closely enough at the fine impress of the site I was using, which states "By clicking "See PLANS" in a higher place, I consent to receive from DIRECTV and whatsoever political party on behalf of DIRECTV emails, telemarketing calls using an autodialer or pre-recordings and SMS text letters, which could consequence in wireless charges, at the number provided. I empathise that consent is non a condition of purchase."

And that'due south not great. I hate to be a cliché millennial, but I exercise not desire to become a call from DirecTV ever. That's why we have websites. But so when I found the correct Google consequence, I couldn't check out, as information technology kept giving me errors at the billing page. When I got it to work on some other device, I learned that the 'payment address' field may not have been working correctly.

This is all to say, though, that any suspicions of DirecTV Stream being a service that seems stuck in the antiquated methods of DirecTV and cable providers are warranted. Everything about the service just feels old. I don't desire to cutting the cord to go back to something that's rooted in the past.

And so at that place's the whole "rewinding live shows" issue that I've run into elsewhere. Say you lot're watching a show that you lot've got set up to record, and then aqueduct surf over to something else during the commercial suspension (to check out your other options). When I did this, and went dorsum to the prove I was watching, I lost the ability to rewind by a certain signal, even though I was recording the show. I had to and so navigate the menus in the system to the My Library section to discover the full recording of the live show.

This is worse than cable (shocking, I know) and is the kind of thing that could send people running back to their cable box. You don't have this issue on YouTube Tv set either. If you've set a bear witness to record, the service you lot're using should know you'll want to search effectually it, and not strength you to do weird things to get there. Sling has been inconsistent at this, sometimes letting me rewind live recorded content, and other times non.

DirecTV Stream as well simply doesn't assistance itself. Information technology puts up these interstitial title cards for the channel and show you're about to watch when information technology's loading — which makes it seem like the load time is longer than it should be. Simply when I tested YouTube TV and Sling TV, I realized that those apps just have a black screen that shows up as the channel loads, which takes upwards the same second or two.

The DirecTV Stream app on the Apple TV 4K too merely seems very buggy. It once randomly spammed me with the Welcome to DirecTV Stream splash window when I was switching apps, long after I'd signed up. Information technology would also randomly throw up a title card for the show and channel I was watching.

Some other annoyance yous may have with DirecTV Stream is the lack of a Chromecast with Google Television receiver app. It's one of the best streaming devices, and I can't imagine what the hold-up is. I also looked for an AT&T Tv set app. Nothing. Instead, DirecTV advises you bandage your mobile device app to your Television. And that's non enough.

Does DirecTV Stream striking my sweet spot for channels and toll?

DirecTV Stream has been one of the services we're interested in for aqueduct bundle reasons, but afterward I started using the service I realized that the DirecTV Stream entry-level package is defective in the one way the service stands out.

That's regional sports networks, such as the Aye Network our apartment full of Yankees fans is interested in. It turns out that Aye (which is just on DirecTV Stream, and no other service) is not in the $seventy per month DirecTV Stream Entertainment package, but express to the $85 per month Option package. And that toll, vs the $127 cable bill, doesn't offer enough savings.

It's really irksome that people would accept to spend an extra $twenty — vs. fuboTV or YouTube Boob tube, two relatively strong picks in this field — to follow the sports team of your choice more closely. Especially for all of DirecTV Stream'southward other flaws.

Otherwise, though, the $lxx per month Entertainment package of DirecTV Stream has a perfectly decent channel lineup, but not i that makes paying $5 more per calendar month over those competitors make sense. Y'all get CNN, MSNBC and Fox for news, and some of the ESPN networks (but not ESPNews, which might irk yous).

You lot go all the local circulate channels such as ABC, CBS, Pull a fast one on and NBC (something Sling tin't offer without AirTV now that Locast is nether footing), and I get all the other channels I need, with AMC, USA Network, TNT, One-act Central and Cartoon Network.

DirecTV Stream, by way of charging more for these channels, takes an L on the Roommates Test, charging $fifteen more for the parcel with YES and a whopping $25 more for the $95 per month Ultimate package that has the BBC World News (which YouTube TV has in its regular package). That said, PBS is attainable for donors via the 13 Passport. It would simply be prissy to have it packaged in with everything else.

The other DirecTV Stream pricing fail is its DVR, which only has twenty hours of storage by default, though an extra $ten per calendar month gets you 500 hours. By comparison, Hulu and Sling requite y'all 50 hours by default, fuboTV includes 250 hours and YouTube TV has an unlimited DVR (with a 9-calendar month expiration window).

All of this — channels and DVR — adds up fast, and nosotros'd probably spend $105 per calendar month for DirecTV Stream. That's way too much.

DirecTV Stream is not a contender to supersede cable

Now having tested v of the best cable TV alternatives, I've nevertheless got 2 main contenders and 3 coulda-been-a-contendas. DirecTV Stream's pricing and bugginess and rewinding issues just kick it to the curb.

DirecTV Stream is basically the same app as AT&T TV and AT&T Tv set Now before it. The name may alter, but the bug stay the same.

my string-cutting power rankings then far

Side by side up, I'm making sure I've tried everything past kicking the tires on Philo to run into what it's like. That said, it lacks TNT and United states, two of the near of import channels for me, so I'm worried about its chances.

Right now, Sling is still winning with the best pricing for my particular needs. YouTube Tv'southward superior app and mid-stream navigation help make it my favorite if coin were no option. All the same, a year of YouTube TV is $780, which is 85% more than than the $420 per twelvemonth for Sling Blue.

If only DirecTV Stream didn't seem similar DirecTV minus the cable box.

Stream Fourth dimension is where Tom's Guide senior editor Henry T. Casey dives into the big choices nosotros make about streaming media. We tackle it all, from the best and worst streaming services and devices, to the never-catastrophe list of shows to watch.

Exist certain to check out my guides to the all-time streaming devices (and best streaming services ) for more than recommendations. E-mail me at henry.casey@futurenet.com or leave a comment beneath with anything you'd similar to encounter me cover in the streaming world — I might just address it in a future installment.

Plus: How to watch Riverdale season 5 summer premiere online and without cablevision

Henry is a senior editor at Tom'south Guide covering streaming media, laptops and all things Apple tree, reviewing devices and services for the past seven years. Prior to joining Tom's Guide, he reviewed software and hardware for TechRadar Pro, and interviewed artists for Patek Philippe International Mag. He's too covered the wild world of professional wrestling for Cageside Seats, interviewing athletes and other industry veterans.