[aeneas1]

One of the NFL's biggest issues over the past couple years has been trying to figure out how to reach cord-cutting fans. Back in 2015, the league started to experiment with streaming games when they aired a game from London exclusively on Yahoo.com. The league followed that up last season by streaming 10 Thursday games on Twitter.

one of the nfl's biggest issues hasn't been how to reach cord-cutter fans, but how to control them, i.e. how to control those who are now steaming games for free, right now, how to account for their numbers, and how to monetize the copyrighted content they're streaming... in-market only games, blackouts, the model is archaic and money is being left on the table, which hasn't escaped the nfl's notice, there's a reason directv pays billions for the rights to carry the sunday ticket which, not surprisingly, can be streamed...

on a side note, i just purchased a 4k hdr tv, content in 4k hdr is crazy impressive, over the top impressive, gonna be a lot of fun when 4k content is mainstream... anyway i haven't had a chance to mount/install the thing, where my dvd/sat sources are, but realized that it had roku and wifi so i decided to just plug it in where it sat, on my office floor, just to take a quick peek and familiarize myself with the settings...

well within 5 minutes after turning the thing on i was online streaming 4k hdr content from youtube, amazon and netflix, i was mesmerized, and then it hit me, i hadn't even hooked this thing up yet, in the traditional sense, to an ota antenna, to a dvd player, to a sat/cable line, i simply plugged the power cord into the wall and. presto, i had an ocean of viewing content... streaming is the future or, better put, streaming is here, now, and will only continue to grow.

btw i've never been interested in roku, or smart tv apps for that matter, i've always found them to be laggy in terms of navigation, and an eyesore in general... but this has come a long way if this tv is any example, the roku gui on this tv is lightning fast, sleek, and the remote has a mic which allows for verbal input/commands/searches, very impressed...

[bubbaramfan]

Greedy phucks won't get a dime off me. I'll find some way to pirate the rams' games or I'll shyt-can the NFL and go fishing on Sundays. They've already priced me out of going to the Colesium to watch the game, and with every rule change pointing to regular season games looking like the pro bowl it won't be long before I dip a line.

[LARams_1963]

I dunno Bubba... if they don't start winning I think tickets will be plenty cheap... By the end of the year I was buying 45yd line seats for $60.

[aeneas1]

Greedy phucks won't get a dime off me. I'll find some way to pirate the rams' games or I'll shyt-can the NFL and go fishing on Sundays. They've already priced me out of going to the Colesium to watch the game, and with every rule change pointing to regular season games looking like the pro bowl it won't be long before I dip a line.

how do you watch games now? purely with an ota (over-the-air-antenna)? at least 80% of the u.s. population pays for tv (cable/sat), i.e. they're already paying to watch nfl games, if they tune in.

honestly, i'd rather pay a reasonable amount to stream nfl games than an exorbitant amount for cable/sat to watch nfl games, i.e. pay for a bunch of garbage that i'll never watch, the average u.s. cable/sat bill is over $100 per month.

personally i'm a huge nfl fan, what ota, cable/sat offers isn't enough games for me, i shell out for the sunday ticket every year, because i like access to a bunch of games and i love all of the other goodies, years of archived games, years of auto recorded games without commercials, coaches 22 film, etc., etc., it's fun stuff - and of course i can watch from anywhere in the world if i have an internet connection, which is pretty much everywhere... right now i pay about half the u.s. sunday ticket cost by signing up internationally (the sunday ticket is cheaper outside of the u.s., as the nfl tries to win/allure fans), but when they finally close that loophole (cut off vpn access to their site as did netflix and others) i will probably shell out the u.s. price.

anyway what i like best about the entire streaming model is that programming becomes much more a la carte, nfl programming is a perfect example.

[BuiltRamTough]

Honestly, I haven't been to someone's house that doesn't have cable/ satellite.

Me personally, I pay for cable. I tried streaming games and all that but the HD quality is not the same as it is through cable. Plus certain sports streams lag and freeze. It's frustrating.

The convince of turning on your TV and the game is there is worth the money for me. Also, DVR is a must.

That being said. I pay 80 bucks for about 6 sports channels. The rest of the 120+ channels I never watch. It's a HUGE ripoff.

[aeneas1]

Honestly, I haven't been to someone's house that doesn't have cable/ satellite.

Me personally, I pay for cable. I tried streaming games and all that but the HD quality is not the same as it is through cable. Plus certain sports streams lag and freeze. It's frustrating.

The convince of turning on your TV and the game is there is worth the money for me. Also, DVR is a must.

That being said. I pay 80 bucks for about 6 sports channels. The rest of the 120+ channels I never watch. It's a HUGE ripoff.

sounds like you tried streaming games from the likes of firstrowsports, feed2all, etc... if so, yeah, they usually have average at best feeds, but streaming the sunday ticket in hd is awesome, at least that's been my experience over the years.

it's funny, my son's best friend's (the two have known each since kindergarten, grew up together) dad is one of the top, if not the top, sound guys in hollywood, and as a result i got to know him (the dad) quite well, just an awesome guy, we would talk movies all of the time whenever we took the kids to dinner and the flicks, father/son outings... anyway he always lamented over the direction movies were being consumed by the newer generations, who are perfectly happy to stream crappy rez and crappy audio content on their phones, forget large tablets or laptops, we're talking phones.

he's all about the best motion picture audio experience humanly possible, atmos, every variant of dolby, but the younger generations just aren't going to theaters any more, not like past generations, the big screen experience just isn't the draw that it once was to the kids. and the same goes for big screen tvs, unless you're talking about gaming, which is a market hd tv manufacturers clearly have their eye on today.

anyway, my point is that all of these crappy, illegal streams, including nfl streams, are being consumed by a generation that just doesn't give a shat about great quality in terms of casual viewing but, again, gaming is a different story entirely.

btw the guy's dad i mentioned, talk about an interesting, niche profession... he has more than a few oscars on his shelf, whenever there's a huge budget project in the works he's usually the first guy folks call, his resume includes avatar, lord of the rings, hobbit, pirates of the caribbean, marvel movies, etc., etc.... interestingly he also licenses audio bytes for use in projects he's not working on, for example rain drops, footsteps, car doors closing, etc., etc., the cool thing is a lot of the sounds came from right around here, from our neck of the woods... i once asked him if the same licensed sound was ever used in different movies, he responded "yep" and, go figure, movie forum nerds contact him all of the time when they discover it, ha ha....

here's some stuff on chris:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0102110/

https://www.google.com/#q=christopher+boyes+oscar

[LARams_1963]

he's all about the best motion picture audio experience humanly possible, atmos, every variant of dolby, but the younger generations just aren't going to theaters any more, not like past generations, the big screen experience just isn't the draw that it once was to the kids. and the same goes for big screen tvs, unless you're talking about gaming, which is a market hd tv manufacturers clearly have their eye on today.

I'm 100% with him! I get frustrated by my Kodi. I don't want to watch a movie that looks like crap. We've gotten spoiled with HD

Streaming if it's REAL HD is cool, like I mentioned earlier, and someone else also mentioned it, a DVR or on demand stream is a must for me.

[BuiltRamTough]

Streaming a movie in HD via Amazon or Netflix isn't the same as watching it on Blu-Ray. The streaming version is compressed. In fast action scenes you can see pixelization or whatever it's called. That bugs the hell out of me. Some people don't care but some do.

It's just like 4k HDR. Some people say 1080p is good enough.

It's night and day when watching a movie on a high end 4k HDR TV via a native 4K HDR Blu-Ray disc.

In a couple of years there will be NFL games in 4K HDR/HLG. I just don't know if streaming couldn't handle it vs cable.

[bubbaramfan]

I live in a RV so I don't have regular TV or satellite. I use my PC and stream.

reddit,comnflstreaming/ is the best, or

goatd.net

101livesportsvideos.com/

livetoall.net

[aeneas1]

Streaming a movie in HD via Amazon or Netflix isn't the same as watching it on Blu-Ray. The streaming version is compressed. In fast action scenes you can see pixelization or whatever it's called. That bugs the hell out of me. Some people don't care but some do.

It's just like 4k HDR. Some people say 1080p is good enough.

It's night and day when watching a movie on a high end 4k HDR TV via a native 4K HDR Blu-Ray disc.

In a couple of years there will be NFL games in 4K HDR/HLG. I just don't know if streaming couldn't handle it vs cable.

good stuff...

i haven't gone the 4k player route yet, in fact i haven't used a dvd player in ages, not since i ripped my dvd collection to nas quite a few years ago, just so much more convenient for my needs to stream movies from a nas than fiddle with a player, plus i was able to donate the tonnage of dvds i owned to the local library.

but i may have to take the player plunge again, don't really relish ripping 60gb 4k discs to my server, yikes, but we'll see... so what 4k player are you using? i was on an oppo kick when i used a dvd player, went through a few of their model upgrades over the years, very, very impressive equipment, awesome support including easy firmware updates, the packaging alone would knock your socks off, but i don't think i want to drop $600 for their 4k player, looks like there are a lot of good ones out there for a third of the price.

re streaming 4k hdr content, i have my network hardwired, i don't use wifi for streaming, and i haven't seen the pixelation or stutters you mention, it has looked absolutely awesome to me, then again i haven't compared it to a 4k player, but i can't imagine streaming would top it given bandwidth and bit rate hurdles/caps... speaking of bit rate, i noticed that a lot of folks have complained about the much lower bit rates on some 4k bluray releases vs others, one of the websites that tracks dvd/bluray (release dates, reviews, library search, etc.) that i came across had a nice 4k bluray bit rate comparison... do you know the bit rates of your 4k bluray discs and can you tell the difference in pq between those with much higher bit rates vs those with much lower rates?

anyway, i always have to chuckle whenever i turn my attention to today's electronics, my parents' heads would have exploded if decades ago they were faced with the same spec options/decisions, hookup options/decisions, required reading/research, just to pick out and enjoy a tv, ha ha....