In this week's rundown of recent news items for cord-cutters: Court blocks sale of Roku devices in Mexico, Hulu TV improving, YouTube TV expands to 10 more markets, Sling TV launches French packages in U.S., Wall Street is nervous about cord cutting, and more.
A court order has blocked the sale of Roku devices in Mexico after cable provider Cablevision said that "they could be hacked to let users view pirated movies and TV shows." Roku boxes have been pulled from the shelves of department stores Liverpool and Palacio de Hierro. Banking institutions and convenience stores will also stop accepting payments to hackers who alter the device.
What are the best media streamers of 2017? It depends on what your needs are. Here are the top 10 media streamers as rated by CNET:
- Roku Streaming Stick 2016 - Best streaming device for the money
- Roku Premiere+ - Best for streaming in 4K and HDR
- Apple TV (2015) - Best streaming device for Apple users
- Roku Ultra - Best 4K streamer for legacy audio
- Amazon Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote - Best budget streamer with voice
- Nvidea Shield (2017) - Best streamer for geeks, gamers
- Roku Express+ - Best streamer for old TVs
- Roku Premiere - Best 4K streamer for non-HRD TVs
- Google Chromecast (2015) - Best value for phone-centric users
- Amazon Fire TV (2015) - Best Amazon streamer with Ethernet
- Roku Express - Best content selection for cheap
"Hulu's new live TV service is getting better by the day" gushes the headline on an a Decider.com article by Scott Porch. Ben Smith, head of product design for Hulu, and Decider had "a wide-ranging discussion about the new service and the modifications that Hulu is already making in the six weeks since the launch."
Research company comScore released a State of OTT (over-the-top) report. Among the findings, according to FierceCable, "Sling TV, AT&T's DirecTV Now, and Sony's PlayStation Vue have around 3.1 million users between them" and "Sling TV controls the lion's share" with more than 2 million subscribers.
YouTube announced at VidCon on Thursday "YouTube TV will be expanding to ten more markets in just a couple of weeks, including: Dallas-Fort Worth, Washington, D.C., Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix, Detroit, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Miami-Fort Lauderdale, Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne and Charlotte." As for YouTube's regular service, "1.5 billion logged in viewers visit YouTube every single month" and spend an average of "over an hour a day watching YouTube on mobile devices alone."
Sling TV has launched two French TV packages for U.S. viewers. "French Bouquet" ($15/month) offers a wide variety of channels covering news, lifestyle, movies, kids, sports, and general entertainment. It has 34 French and English language channels include TV5MONDE Info, TV5MONDE Cinema on Demand, TV5MONDE Style, France 24, TiVi5MONDE, beIN SPORTS (which carries Ligue 1), Euronews, Eurochannel, Trace Urban, Trace Sport Stars, and more. "Français Extra" ($5/month) supplements the English basic packages (Orange, Blue, or Orange + Blue) with four channels of French programming: TV5MONDE Cinema on Demand (SVOD), France 24, TiVi5MONDE, and Trace Urban.
Techdirt reports that Wall Street is nervous about cable TV cord cutting. "MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett downgraded the entire cable sector because of worries surrounding cord cutting and streaming video competition." This is an abrupt about-face for an analyst who reportedly "used to mock cord cutters for being irrelevant basement dwellers."
Can't find anything to watch on your streaming services? Check Variety's list of what's coming to Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime in July 2017.
Also from Variety: "Fox adopts six-second ad format, following YouTube's example." Tara Walpert Levy, vice president of agency and media solutions at YouTube, has said that "Since we piloted this format last fall, we've seen on YouTube that six seconds is both long enough and short enough."
Roku has started rolling out OS 7.7 and expects to make it "available on all supported Roku streaming players and Roku TV models by the end of August." Highlights of OS 7.7 include:
- Roku devices will notify you regarding if you lose connectivity during streaming and direct you to network settings to update your connection.
- You will have more control over which devices to allow or block from connecting to your Roku device when you use Screen Mirroring.
- USB Media Player on Roku TVs will now support MPEG-1 and H.263.
- Several bugs causing audio, visual and/or crashing issues on a number of streaming channels has been addressed.
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