# Philo - competitive very-low-cost cable channel streaming



## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

On April 5 _Cord Cutting News Magazine _had a story We tried out the new Philo Streaming Service. Here's what we found. I thought it was interesting but didn't follow up at the time.

Then on April 16 _Cnet_ had a story The cheapest live TV streamer heads to Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and _Digital Trends_ offered Everything to know about Philo, the latest live TV streaming service.

It has been available on Roku since the beginning of the year.

For $16 a month (and there is a free week trial) a Philo subscription gives you A&E, AMC, Animal Planet, AXS TV, BBC America, BBC World News, BET, Cheddar, CMT, Comedy Central, Discovery, DIY Network, Food Network, fyi, GSN, HGTV, History Channel, IFC, Investigation Discovery, Lifetime, Lifetime Movies, MTV, MTV2, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr, OWN, Paramount Network, Science, Sundance TV, TeenNick, TLC, Travel Channel, TV Land, Velocity, VH1, Viceland, and We TV.

If for some reason you want AHC, BET Her, Cooking Channel, Destination America, Discovery Family, Discovery Life, Logo, MTV Live, and Nicktoons you can pay $4 a month more.

In addition to live and on-demand content, the Philo subscription also offers a free unlimited size cloud DVR (with fast forward and rewind), but with a time limit of 30 days similar to PlayStation Vue's cloud DVR's 28 days. They also include TV Everywhere authentication unlocking the streaming apps for the TV networks included in the subscription (except OWN).

Most of its programming is provided by investor (combined Philo investments total $25 million) channel owners A+E, AMC, Discovery, Scripps, and Viacom. Not involved are the "big five" corporations 21st Century Fox, The Walt Disney Company, NBCUniversal, CBS Corporation, or Time Warner. It reflects the current fact that the cable market is split between the corporate owners of the major broadcast networks and "those guys." Once you decide not to include the "big five" it's amazing what you offer for about the standard price of an HBO subscription.

But that $16 price won't buy access to sports channels or all those 24/7 infotainment news channels or your locals or any of the "big five" cable channels.

As near as I can tell, the only price competitor with a cloud DVR feature is Sling TV at $25.

Philo's history is interesting as it goes back to when it was founded in 2009 by then Harvard seniors Nicholas Krasney and Tuan Ho as a way to circumvent the fact that Harvard did not provide cable TV service for its students. Investors in the company besides the channel owners include among others HBO, Facebook co-founder Andrew McCollum who is CEO, and Mark Cuban.


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## Jhon69 (Mar 28, 2006)

I subscribed to Philo and YouTubeTVw/Starz,so far am very happy with the services and they will save me an estimate $70. a month compared to what my cable TV service would cost me.


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## mjwagner (Oct 8, 2005)

For those lucky enough to have good ota reception, Philo plus something like HDHomeRun, a NAS drive, and some streaming devices is a fairly cost effective solution.


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

Jhon69 said:


> I subscribed to Philo and YouTubeTVw/Starz,so far am very happy with the services and they will save me an estimate $70. a month compared to what my cable TV service would cost me.


Sounds like a good combo, until you look at the tve access on youtubetv, which is close to zero (whereas philo is close to 100%). For the money and channels, psvue has a better deal with nearly 100% tve (as opposed to thin coverage on their main competitor directvnow).


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## Jhon69 (Mar 28, 2006)

1948GG said:


> Sounds like a good combo, until you look at the tve access on youtubetv, which is close to zero (whereas philo is close to 100%). For the money and channels, psvue has a better deal with nearly 100% tve (as opposed to thin coverage on their main competitor directvnow).


TVE is an interesting concept,with YTTV I have not needed it because I can access all the network offerings from YTTV's guide.
Where Philo does not have a guide on my Roku,but they do on their website and it's nothing to write home about.
It would seem that it maybe possible for TVE to create some security issues when you have if I understand it correctly,one key that fits all.


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## Jhon69 (Mar 28, 2006)

Philo has now created a guide for Roku.
I have the guide now on my Roku Stick + and it's a excellent addition for my $20. Philo subscription on my Roku.


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## onan38 (Jul 17, 2008)

I just canceled Directv and Uverse internet (Its only 18 meg here tops.) and having Spectrum 200 meg installed tomorrow.I am also looking at Philo and Youtube tv together.I wanted to wait and subscribe after my Spectrum install tomorrow.


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## Jhon69 (Mar 28, 2006)

onan38 said:


> I just canceled Directv and Uverse internet (Its only 18 meg here tops.) and having Spectrum 200 meg installed tomorrow.I am also looking at Philo and Youtube tv together.I wanted to wait and subscribe after my Spectrum install tomorrow.


We have Charter Spectrum cable internet here ,it started out at 60MB/5MB,then they upgraded us to 100MB/10MB for the same price.$64.99-no caps.
Also have YTTV/wStarz and Philo,so far I am happy with my services because I'm saving $65. a month compare to what cable can offer for TV.
My wife wanted Hallmark,so I checked and subscribed to The Hallmark Movies Now app for $5.a month when you subscribe using their annual rate.
The Hallmark Movies Now app has no commercials which is nice.


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## Jhon69 (Mar 28, 2006)

The first internet streaming TV service(OTT) that offers my favorite cable channels for $5. each per month commercial free,I would say.........sign me up!!!!

But unfortunately the only ones I have found that has that deal are apps.


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## Jhon69 (Mar 28, 2006)

Philo has now added The Hallmark Networks,Hallmark,Hallmark Dramas and Hallmark Mysteries.

Philo Adds The Hallmark Channel, Hallmark Drama, & Hallmark Movies - Cord Cutters News


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

Because of AT&T's choice to dump Viacom, Discovery and AMC channel groups from its *DirecTV Now*, it seemed timely to post a link to a recent Tech Hive review that notes:

Philo is a live TV streaming service borne from desperate times. Its main network backers-Discovery, Viacom, and AMC-have to varying degrees found themselves cast out of other streaming bundles....

At $16 per month, Philo is one of the cheapest bundles of cable channels you can get over the internet today.​
Here's the current list of channels at Philo.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

phrelin said:


> Because of AT&T's choice to dump Viacom, Discovery and AMC channel groups from its *DirecTV Now*,


DIRECTV NOW restructured their packages, but those channels are still available if one subscribes to the right package.
Way too expensive, in my opinion - but still available.

The article claiming the channels were dropped was debunked when it was originally posted.


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## espaeth (Oct 14, 2003)

I really wanted to like Philo, but the TechHive review only caught 1 of my 2 deal breakers:

- 30 fps video for everything. This isn't a problem for probably 80% of the content, but for the 20% where it is an issue it's pretty darn distracting.

The review does state as a pro:

No arcane restrictions on ad-skipping or where you can watch from
Which isn't entirely true. One of the functions they have enabled is "start from beginning" when you click on a show in the guide. This can be nice because you can still pick from something "live" but not miss out on the beginning of the show. The downside is that DVR functions prevent you from skipping through mandatory commercial breaks when you do this.

It's the same story for recordings in progress. Say you want to record a 3 hour block of "Live PD" and you start watching an hour after it starts. On a cable/sat DVR you can start the recording, skip the commercials, and get caught up to live by the end of the show. On Philo, because the airing is still in progress and not fully part of your "saved" shows yet, you face the same commercial skip restrictions at least some of the time. I tried to divine the pattern of when those rules are applied, but over the course of testing it out for a month I ran into this restriction on about 60-70% of the shows I tried to watch while "recording" was in progress.

*Edit:* I saw people saying on Reddit that this is fixed, so I plunked down $17 to test, and so far after testing for a few days it does appear that they fixed the problem of skipping commercials through "saved" programs, even if the live broadcast of that episode is still in progress. Specifically tested this again last night with LivePD, and ran into none of the problems I hit when I tested this in December.


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