Pros & Cons
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- Reliable streaming performance
- Supports 20 simultaneous streams
- Lineup includes RSNs from Comcast, Sinclair, and Spectrum
- Parental control options
- No longer has a two-year subscription requirement
- More affordable Genre Pack options
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- Expensive
- Some interface quirks
DIRECTV Stream Specs
| Ads | |
| Anime | |
| Concurrent Streams | 20 (at home) and 3 (away from home) |
| DVR Storage & Retention | 20 hours or Unlimited, nine months |
| Live TV | |
| MLB Playoffs Coverage | FOX, FS1, and TBS |
| Monday Night Football | ESPN |
| NBA Finals | ABC |
| On-Demand Movies and TV Shows | |
| Regular Season National NBA Coverage | ABC, ESPN, and TNT |
| Regular Season National NHL Coverage | ABC, ESPN, NHL Network, TBS, and TNT |
| RSN Coverage | AT&T SportsNet, Bally Sports, and some NBC Sports |
| Sports Coverage | International*, National, & Regional |
| Starting Price | $101.98 per month |
| Sunday Football | CBS and FOX |
| Sunday Night Football | NBC |
| Thursday Night Football | FOX |
| World Series Coverage | FOX |
Ditching your cable provider is easier than ever, thanks to the growing number of video streaming services that focus on live TV. DirecTV (formerly known as DirecTV Stream) performs well, offers lots of channels, and has relaxed some of its harsh DVR restrictions. That said, it remains relatively expensive compared with competing options, such as our Editors' Choice winners for live TV streaming services, Hulu and YouTube TV.
Plans and Prices
DirecTV is a device-free streaming option alongside the company's classic satellite packages. Like every other live TV streaming service I've tested, DirecTV charges on a month-to-month basis, no longer requiring a two-year contract. It lets you cancel a subscription within the first 14 days of service for a full refund, but you can't do it on your own; you must contact a customer support rep via DirecTV's website chat tool.
The service has four streaming plans: Entertainment, Choice, Ultimate, and Premier, which differ in price and channel quantity. I prefer streaming platforms, such as Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV, that offer single-package lineups. Fubo and Sling TV also annoyingly segment their plans into several different tiers.
(Credit: DirecTV/PCMag)The 90-channel Entertainment Package is the "cheapest" option at $101.98 per month (after a discounted introductory price). This plan includes all the local broadcast affiliates from ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC, plus news channels, such as CNBC, CNN, CNN International, C-SPAN, FOX Business, FOX News, and MSNBC. Entertainment and lifestyle channels include Animal Planet, Discovery, Disney Channel, Food Network, FX, HGTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount, SYFY, TBS, and USA. You also get sports channels, including ESPN, ESPN2, FS1, NBC Sports Network, and TNT. You do not get regional sports networks (RSNs) at this tier.
The $114.99-per-month Choice plan increases the total channel selection to 125. You get all the channels from the Entertainment Package, Cheddar, plus CNBC World, Cooking Channel, Fuse, Game Show Network, Nick Jr., Nicktoons, OWN, Science, Tastemade, The Weather Channel, and Travel Channel. You can also stream additional sports networks, including ACC, ESPNews, ESPNU, MLB Network, NBA TV, and Tennis Channel.
The biggest advantage of the Choice plan over the Entertainment plan (and every higher-price tier) is that you get RSNs. They're important for sports fans who want to watch local MLB, NBA, and NHL games that air on RSNs owned by one of three media networks: Comcast (NBC Sports), Sinclair (Bally Sports), or Spectrum (SportsNet). I'll dive deeper into DirecTV's complicated sports offerings in a bit.
The $129.99-per-month Ultimate plan expands the lineup to 160 channels. It comes with all of Choice's plans channels, plus American Heroes Channel, Aspire, BBC World News, CBS Sports Network, Discovery Family, Discovery Life, DIY, FS2, FX Movie Channel, Golf Channel, Logo, MTV Classic, Nat Geo Wild, NHL Center Ice, Olympic Channel, Oxygen, several Starz Encore channels, Smithsonian Channel, and Universal Kids.
To get even more channels, you can spring for the $169.99-per-month Premier lineup, which includes 185 channels. The most significant additions to that lineup are Cinemax and Showtime.
Like most other services, DirecTV lets you subscribe to add-on packages. For instance, you can add Premium Channels, such as Max ($16 per month), Cinemax ($11 per month), MGM+ ($6 per month), and Starz ($11 per month). There are also Brazilian ($30 per month for two channels), Korean ($30 per month for 11 channels), and Vietnamese ($20 per month for nine channels) package options. The $15-per-month Español add-on includes 15 channels, such as CNN en Español, Discovery en Español, ESPN Deportes, Fox Deportes, Telemundo, TUDN, and Univision. The $5-per-month Deportes option includes a sports-focused subset of the Español add-on (ESPN Deportes, FOX Deportes, TyC Sports, and Univision Deportes). Note that some add-ons may be unavailable since they are already included in your streaming package.
All of DirecTV's streaming plans are expensive. For instance, Sling TV’s Orange and Sling Blue plans cost just $46 and $51 per month each, while the combined Sling Orange & Blue plan costs $66 per month. YouTube TV, Fubo, and Hulu + Live TV start at $82.99 per month, $84.99 per month, and $82.99 per month, respectively. They all offer more channels than DirecTV's base streaming plan. Philo’s $28-per-month, 70-channel plan offers comparable channels to DirecTV's Entertainment package at a fraction of the cost, though its lineup lacks news, sports, and local broadcast channels.
If all this sounds too rich for your blood, consider MyFree DirecTV, the company's ad-supported, free streaming service. Frndly TV is another low-cost option, starting at $6.99 per month, but it has a limited selection. A better balance between content and price comes from DirecTV's new Genre Pack options. These alternate bundles give you fewer channels, focused on specific topics, at a lower price. For example, MyEntertainment offers more than 40 entertainment channels, from Bravo to Discovery to FX, for $35 per month. That's certainly an easier way to enter DirecTV's ecosystem, but you're sacrificing channels and still paying more than the average on-demand service.
Streaming Sports
DirecTV's main advantage for sports fans is that it is one of the few live TV streaming services I've reviewed that offers RSNs from Comcast, Sinclair, and Spectrum. Note that AT&T has exited the RSN business following the Warner Bros. Discovery merger. DirecTV streams all the local broadcast affiliates (ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC) you could want, and many popular sports channels. The problem? You pay more for those channels than you would with other services. For instance, you don't get access to RSNs until the Choice tier, and Golf Channel and NHL Center Ice are restricted to the Ultimate plan.
The streaming packages now include NFL Network, a feature also offered by Fubo, Hulu, Sling TV, and YouTube TV. Likewise, DirecTV and these other services offer add-ons with the NFL RedZone channel. However, you can no longer enjoy NFL Sunday Ticket; that's part of YouTube TV.
DirecTV is so committed to sports that now you can subscribe to a separate, sports-only tier that's more affordable than the standard tiers. For $69.99 per month, MySports, one of the aforementioned Genre Packs, gives you more than 25 sports channels, including Big Ten Network, SEC Network, and other specialized channels mentioned earlier. However, MySports is currently only available in certain major markets like Chicago, Miami, New York, and San Francisco.
If you want to explore watching sports online, check out our picks for the top MLB, NBA, NFL, and NHL streaming services.
Navigating DirecTV
DirecTV's web interface is less splashy than competitors, with a lot of white space and uniform content lists. It's easy to navigate, and I did not encounter any stuttering pages or crashes during testing. However, I would like to see a dark mode option since the bright, light color scheme can be somewhat uncomfortable to look at in low light.
The top navigation menu has four options: Watch Now, My Library, Discover, and Guide. The top right has a search bar and a gear icon for accessing account settings. The search function has basic functionality, but it works fine for finding movies, networks, and TV shows. You can filter results by content type, which is a nice touch. For example, I filtered results by TV shows and Sports while looking for soccer matches. YouTube TV's search feature is more advanced, combining multiple terms in a search, such as a genre and a year. You can manage subscription settings in the Account Settings section, turn on parental controls, and tinker with the captioning display options. Oddly, you cannot deactivate the Play Live TV on Launch option when accessing DirecTV via the web.
The main Watch Now screen highlights some of the service's top content, organized in horizontally scrolling lists, such as Action Movies, Featured TV, New This Month, Just for Kids, and Trending. The top section is dedicated to playing whatever channel you last launched. However, it persistently—and annoyingly—hangs from the top of the screen when you scroll down and effectively blocks part of the interface. The Discover tab is similar. In that section, you can browse for shows, movies, and networks, or by any of the premade collections. The Guide section works as expected. With it, you can navigate the programming list by channel or select a content type, such as movies, sports, or kids, to see what is currently playing. The My Library section is where your DVR recordings and bookmarks of favorite channels live.
To watch a live TV program, you click the thumbnail to start the stream. Selecting a thumbnail for on-demand content brings up a dedicated page with more details, including available seasons and episodes.
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Streaming Quality and DVR
DirecTV's streaming web player is clean and offers all the expected playback features. In addition to the standard playback controls, you get 15-second rewind and fast-forward buttons (on select channels), a DVR record button, a Restart button (on select channels), basic channel information, arrows for moving to the next or previous live channel in your lineup, and closed captioning options.
(Credit: DirecTV/PCMag)DirecTV supports up to 20 simultaneous streams per account on the same home network and up to three away from it. YouTube TV supports three concurrent streams by default, but an add-on lets you stream on unlimited devices on your home network. Fubo and Hulu + Live TV allow three and two simultaneous streams by default, respectively, but both offer add-ons that expand those limits.
The top live TV streaming services I've reviewed, such as Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV, support 1080p/60 frames per second live channels on select platforms. A representative from DirecTV stated that the service uses an adaptive bitrate that maxes out at HD. I could not confirm the exact resolution of DirecTV's HD channels, but they didn't appear to reach 1080p, and the frame rate seemed to be locked at 30 frames per second on the devices we tested. Fubo is the only live TV streaming service we tested that supports 4K streaming without any add-ons. YouTube TV has a 4K Plus add-on that unlocks 4K streaming on select channels, the ability to download DVR recordings for offline viewing, and unlimited simultaneous streams on a home network.
DirecTV DVR storage features are now much closer to competitors. With unlimited storage, the service lets you record up to 30 episodes and keep those recordings for up to nine months instead of a scant 90 days. YouTube TV imposes no storage limits on your recordings and keeps them for nine months. Hulu + Live TV and Fubo have unlimited options as well. Sling TV lets you save 50 hours of content by default for as long as you subscribe.
(Credit: DirecTV/PCMag)DirecTV has two standout streaming features: Lookback and Restart. The Lookback feature lets you watch select programming from up to three days in the past. This would be particularly useful for sports fans who may have missed matches from the previous day or so, but few sports channels support it. You can find the full list of channels compatible with Lookback by searching for that term on DirecTV's support site.
The Restart feature, on the other hand, lets you play back a live program from the beginning. Many other channels, including A&E, Bloomberg, CNN, Food Network, FOX Sports, Travel Channel, and UniMas, support this feature. You can find the full list of channels compatible with Restart by searching for that term on the support site, too. One drawback is that once you restart a program, you cannot record it from the beginning, which seems like a missed opportunity. Philo can also restart program streams. Fubo offers similar Lookback and Start Over features.
DirecTV recommends internet speeds of at least 8Mbps per stream. I tested DirecTV over a home Ethernet network (200Mbps) and, as expected, did not encounter any streaming difficulties. The Lookback and Restart features also worked fine in testing.
For more on streaming, check out five reasons to ditch your video subscription and keep cable. Learn how to pick streaming services that fit your budget, and enjoy all sorts of reality show trash. Finally, check out our recommended streaming video guides if you don’t know what to watch.
Mobile Apps
DirecTV has streaming apps for Android and iOS. I tested the DirecTV app on an Android phone and had no issues signing into my account. The mobile app experience is consistent with the desktop experience, but it's not particularly impressive. One annoyance is that you can't disable the Picture-in-Picture view in the app, so it ends up covering part of the interface.
You can't update your subscription settings from within the app, but you can change closed-captioning settings, set streaming quality preferences (Good, Better, and Best), and enable parental control restrictions.
In addition to the phone and tablet apps, DirecTV can be downloaded on media streaming devices (Apple TV, Chromecast, Fire TV, and Roku). Notably missing from this lineup are the PlayStation and Xbox game consoles, but Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV support those gaming consoles.
Accessibility and Parental Control
DirecTV offers closed captioning options directly on the playback screen on the web and includes many customization options. There are options for white text on a black background and black text on a white background. You can also customize the font, text size, text color, and background color. The captions were accurate in testing, although they ran several seconds behind live broadcasts.
(Credit: DirecTV/PCMag)Like audio descriptions on Netflix and Prime Video, DirecTV offers a Descriptive Video Service for select on-demand content. Audio descriptions are audible narrations of on-screen events that cannot be picked up from the dialog alone.
DirecTV is one of the few live TV streaming services that offers parental control features. In the Settings section, you can block movies and TV shows by rating and restrict access to everything without a rating. Restrictions apply to both live and on-demand content.
Much like Sling TV's implementation, this feature's utility is limited since you cannot link these restrictions to individual profiles. Different household members would presumably not be bound by the same viewing restrictions, so it may become annoying to provide a four-digit PIN every time you switch channels or want to watch a movie.
Can You Watch DirecTV With a VPN?
You should use a virtual private network, or VPN, to secure your network activity, even though DirecTV and many video streaming services may prevent you from using one with their service. Sometimes, video streaming services block VPN traffic to enforce regional broadcasting restrictions. DirecTV, for example, is only available for US residents.
For testing, I connected a desktop PC and a mobile phone to Mullvad VPN servers in Sweden and the US. I had no trouble streaming over the connection to the US-based VPN server on both devices. However, the service stopped working when I switched to the VPN server in Sweden.
Even if your VPN and video streaming service work without issue, that’s no indication that they will continue to do so. Video streaming services find new ways to detect and block VPN traffic. You can always disable your VPN temporarily, but I recommend picking one based on its privacy and security credentials rather than whether it works with all your video streaming services.
Final Thoughts
(Credit: DirecTV)
DirecTV
DirecTV delivers a reliable live streaming experience with regional sports networks and DVR options, but its plans are much pricier than the competition.