Updates around DirectTV Now

Forum
1

Hi All,

Not too many topics around Direct TV Now integration. Few questions:

  1. Will there be a channel guide? I see there is one for Sling TV…
  2. In v5 vs v5.5 you could see a scrolling text of the channel opened. In v5.5, it seems that this was removed? Will it come back or is there a way to bring it back?

Thanks,
B

2

I am also curious about this. I recently moved from DirecTV to DirecTV Now and am really missing the tight integration that Simple Control had with DirecTV. Hope you guys are working on it…

3

When talking about DirecTV Now or similar apps, the much more important question is what you’re using it on. The DirecTV Now aspect is basically irrelevant. What is relevant is that you’re using it on an Apple TV, or a Roku, or whatever.

Also, since V5 introduced the ability to access your guides regardless of the underlying activity, you are able to access channel guides at any time. The ability to do things beyond that is basically whether DirecTV Now decides to provide APIs. Given that they don’t properly integrate with Apple TV as an example, they are a ways away from an API. The program feedback they provide the Apple TV is corrupt (we have special code to recognize DirecTV Now’s errors and not show feedback because of that). The video player they use is non-standard. They don’t integrate properly with Apple’s TV app, etc. If they simply had a respectable Apple TV app that followed Apple’s guidelines, we would be able to do a lot with that. So I would encourage application of pressure there first.

But again, at a higher level, the thing on which you use DirecTV Now is more important to state first.

4

Thank you for a solid response. Much appreciated.

5

Yes, thanks for the detailed response. I am using DirecTV Now on Roku. I assume the situation on Roku is similarly bad?