Direct TV and "mirroring"

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TrickyDick

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I know it's not a beer question or topic, but thought I'd throw it out there.

I have a room in my home with a nice TV, wet bar, and pool table. It's fairly big, and when watching TV (football) with friends over, if we get to playing pool, you can't see the TV, so I had another TV setup on the opposite corner wall. Worked great. Then got a lightning surge and knocked out the receiver. Tech installed a newer receiver that didn't have the same outputs as the old one. He did enable the mirroring and provided the special cable needed, but I had get some barrel connectors to hook it up.

Couple months later, I get a smart TV that can supposedly do all sorts of cool things (and it can), one of which is to operate directv without needing to pay for a monthly subscription for a box. It seems that I need their new "genie" box to do this though I was told. So tech comes and installs the genie box. I thought it best to put it in the pool table room since that didn't have a DVR connected to it. The tech wouldn't setup the mirroring feature.

I don't get it. Why? I just want to watch the same program on both TVs for when I am entertaining watching a little football. direcTV says that I must have a receiver on every TV. I don't want a receiver on that other TV. It is unnecessary.

Anybody work for directv know the way to fix this? Otherwise I'm putting the mirrored non-DVR back there, and moving the genie to another spot. Purely stupid. Perhaps directv thinks they can make more money by forcing more monthly rental fees.

Another thought regarding football is the blocked out games. I live well beyond the supposed black out radius, but still games are blacked out. Why is it you go to a sports bar, and they can get ALL the games with NO black out? Why? Do you think it would work to take the card or even an actual receiver such as the small HR-25 unit, and trade it with an out of state family member so as to be able to watch live football games that aren't blacked out, assuming that they get the football package?? Might be worth a shot.

TD


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https://www.directly.com/p/directv-how-do-i-mirror-image-an-second-tv-from-a-genie-mini-100182

Not sure about the blackout thing, but I think they can subscribe to the games because they are a bar and not a household, and cannot be expected to attend the games in person. Blackouts are there in an effort to get people to leave their homes and go see the games in person (and spend a bunch of $$ on tickets and food and other extremely expensive junk...)

I have seen a few headlines mentioning blackouts, and I believe they are mentioning that the NFL may drop blackouting, but I never clicked to know for sure. I'm all for getting rid of it. I too get blacked out on some games and it sucks because I am not driving 3.5+ hours to go see a game just because the tv is not showing it.
 
Thanks for the link.

Here is one for you:

Frontrowsports.eu

And I think also

Thefrontrow.eu

I assume there is a www. At the front. Need to wade through lots of annoying pop ups, but last time I tried it, it did work with no additional software player junk to install. It just worked.

TD


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I have checked out a few streams this season, for both football (too lazy to go into the other room to keep track of the score and I was playing WoW with friends anyway...) and Ferris Hockey (Mostly because I was curious to see if there was an actual stream available for free, and because the official streaming service costs WAY more than it should when compared to the ticket price). I watched the first Ferris game at a local brewery (game was sold out before I could get tickets) and the TV service was basically the local cable access channel re-broadcasting the Internet stream!

They work much better than they did when I checked them out a couple of years ago. I probably won't make it a habit to watch hockey since it's so hard to follow the puck on a small screen.
 
Not sure how to help with the direct issue, but you could always mask your ip address and have it reroute to somewhere outside of the US or Mexico. You can then pay $100 bucks a year to buy NFL gamepass. You get every game with no blackouts and can even rewatch games and have multiple games on at once. Just hook your computer up to your TV and you are good to go
 
Hmm. Is there a Mac client or is it browser based? wonder if a raspberry Pi could handle the job?

TD


Oh and also, I am guessing paying for the service with PayPal? Wouldn't they not see my physical address?? Need to research

TD

Oh and one more thing. I use VyprVPN and can select which server to use. It appears that my IP address is originating from that location.

the NFL game pass site on my iPad from work ISP says "sorry gamepass only for outside of USA, blah blah blah. "

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In such cases a proxy server would act as a fake you and reroute your packets for you. The streaming server would believe you are based in another location and serve your streams.

People I know have done this to watch geek shows when they are released first in the UK. Others have historically done this to mask their identity when downloading illegal files like warez and KP, and of course it's a basic method of hacking.

I've never done it, but I've heard it's as easy as finding a highly rated proxy server online and signing up. Probably lots of free ones.

And I'd not recommend using it for hacking or KP. I doubt it's as safe as it was in the old days.
 
I'm not so sure what all those terms mean. Heck, I'm no hacker for sure! I can barely keep my windows PC running!
If I ever cut the "cord" on directv, it's good to know that the Internet can provide...at least if I move to Canada. Still need high speed internet though. They get you one way or another.

So the incompetent DTV tech who came to house (for a 8-12 service window and showed up at 5:30 PM) was near useless.
Couldn't finish before family was sitting for dinner, after arriving so late, so I made him leave. Said he would be back the first stop next morning. Showed up at nearly noon. Spent until 5:30 trying to hook up the genie box. Now it quit working along with one other receiver. Two receivers weren't working by the time he was gone on day two, but took me a while to figure out they weren't working. He spent most of the time on his phone calling for help. New service appointment setup later this week. I'm not going to be there for it.
SWMBO going to have to ask tech to setup mirroring, or I follow the link (THANK YOU!). also going to try and get Samsung TV to operate without a receiver. The large hotel chains, like Hampton inn, get direct on their LG TV in the rooms with no receiver. Probably satellite companies have to go through all these measures to prevent people from using their signal without a subscription.

TD



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I forget the ip masker I've used before but when I went to the game pass sight it didn't say the whole only available outside of the US part.

And trickydick I had a lot of success in college calling and complaining to charter when service techs showed up late. It shouldn't be to hard to get discounted bills for your troubles
 
FWIW, I think my wife was able to talk the tech into setting up the mirroring for us, I've not had a chance to confirm. Apparently, the tech saw my basement brewery and is a winemaker who wants to make beer. He told my wife that I had a "really awesome setup"! Who knows, maybe that helped my cause.

TD
 
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