Q. I’m thinking about getting DIRECTV Now, the streaming service. But I was wondering what Internet speed would you need? I have a 25 Mbps from my cable company. Would that be enough? — June, College Station, Texas.
June, my answer is yes…and no. Let me explain.
DIRECTV Now, the live streaming service owned by AT&T, offers up to 100 channels in four different programming packages starting at $40 a month. According to its web site, DIRECTV Now subscribers would need Internet speeds of 12Mbps or more for best results when streaming.
That sounds ok, right? Afterall, you have Internet service that purports to deliver speeds up to 25 Mbps.
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But here’s the catch.
When you connect an Internet service to a home WiFi network, the service slows down. While 25 Mbps might be your max with a wired connection, 15 Mbps or less might be the top speed with a WiFi one. That’s cutting it a bit close to the 12 Mbps standard suggested by DIRECTV Now, particularly when you consider that Internet signal strength tends to vary. With a 25 Mbps service connected to WiFi, the odds are good that your video will experience occasional, if not frequent, freezing and buffering.
Now you could just go with a wired connection by connecting your Internet modem directly to the device that will play DIRECTV Now’s stream. That will likely cause fewer picture dropouts, but it still won’t eliminate them entirely. With a 25 Mbps service, the signal will still probably drop under 12 Mbps from time to time.
So I would advocate bumping up your Internet service to something closer to 50 Mbps. I still can’t guarantee a flawless picture — live streaming is still a bit technically buggy — but it will likely be much smoother than one with a 25 Mbps max.
June, hope that helps. Happy viewing!
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Don’t go with Directv Now. CONSTANT buffering problems! I tried it for 6 months and finally switched to Hulu. No problems whatsoever. I have 30 Mpbs with my Internet.
I have over 90mpbs and a wired connection. Yet the shows that are recorded thru Directv Now’s DVR don’t play right. They stop, stutter and are glitchy. Any suggestions? Someone mentioned switching my TV to 720p resolution. However, I have an older(not smart) Sharp TV and thru the menu I cannot find a way to change the resolution. Any help?
Hi Dave,
Well, you sure have plenty of internet Mbps.
It isn’t possible to change the resolution of your TV, that’s fixed. For example, a 1080p TV has 1920×1080 pixels and there won’t be an option to change that to something else like 1280×720 pixels. All you can do is select input recorded at a resolution equal to or lesser than the native resolution of your TV display.
This is so because the circuitry to upscale input is fairly good and relatively inexpensive compared to downscaling complexity and cost. If you’ve ever set up a DirecTV satellite receiver, one section checks to see all the resolutions your TV can display. If you select a higher resolution than your TV can display, you just get a blank screen. I’m assuming there is no such setup option for DirecTV Now?
The fastest way to verify the native Sharp resolution would be to check the owners manual specs. If misplaced, Sharp should have the manual and specs online.
If the native resolution is 1920×1080, you should be able to view 1080p content without all that dang jittery nonsense.
Can you watch other 1080p sources like a Blu-Ray disc, or a streaming service video or movie OK?
If you have no problem with these sources, then I’d first suspect the DVR to TV connection.
How is the DVR connected to your TV, HDMI? Try swapping the HDMI cable.
If I had a buck for every time a cable was the cause of what seemed to be a more complex problem 🙂
Last, I’d suspect the DVR itself. Keep us posted.