Now you can live stream pretty much every channel on DIRECTV

Big upgrade.

DIRECTV’s award-winning app for smartphones and tablets just got a huge upgrade and it opens up a whole new world for streaming users. With the new upgrade, you can watch nearly any channel DIRECTV offers — including locals in most markets. The only exceptions are 4k channels, pay-per-view, that sort of thing. This means you won’t lose anything even if you lose satellite service, because these streams come from central servers not from your local device.

This move clearly paves the way for DIRECTV’s triad of streaming services, still rumored for this year, and if you can live stream pretty much any channel you want, what’s to stop DIRECTV from offering pretty much every channel to streaming-only customers? It’s just the next logical step.

In testing streaming looked great. Quality was at least 720p and looked good on both smartphone and tablet. Many shows have the option of being able to start from the beginning regardless of the time you actually began streaming, too.

The app update rolled for smartphones yesterday and is rolling today for tablets. Take a few minutes to update, and… when you do check out the Mobile DVR feature and be prepared for an exclusive review from Solid Signal!

About the Author

Stuart Sweet
Stuart Sweet is the editor-in-chief of The Solid Signal Blog and a "master plumber" at Signal Group, LLC. He is the author of over 10,000 articles and longform tutorials including many posted here. Reach him by clicking on "Contact the Editor" at the bottom of this page.