Apps in Ecuador

We don't watch NFL, but the pass is free on direct TV but it's all in Spanish. We are more of college sports fans and use or TN US friends login to his cable provider using a VPN.  I was able to stream the March madness app using his login and my VPN.  But now the apps have a built in decoder that shows them when u plug in a phone or iPad by HDMI into your TV and quit working.  Starting the weekend of the 26th, I will let you know if KODI will stream the games.  But I always run a vpn on my kodi just in case but it's not necessarily needed.  Will keep you posted.

My laptop processor isn't fast enough to get a great picture and also has problems locking up due to the streaming speeds.  But my phone is so much faster with a great picture.

Cool, and I look forward to your input after the 26.

How is the resolution with watching games free? This is something that's very important for me as I like crystal clear viewing or FHD on my TV. As for Direct TV I was actually thinking about but only if I can login and use the The Sunday Ticket App. I'm not sure if we can do that in Ecuador because they are two Direct TV entities and is also regional. So if someone knows that let me know.

The thing with the NFL Game Pass is they currently have promo codes for $99 and I want to take advantage of that but the NFL App is not working on my TV or even through my PS4. I get this message "Sorry for the inconvenience but NFL Game Pass is currently moving apps ....please login to NFL,com/gamepass to access ... bla bla bla."

I've had the game pass before and it was awesome as you can easily switch games and even watch 4 games at one and in Full HD.

The NFL Game Pass is working  now and I had to validate my PS4 through a PC . The issue before was that the NFL App wasn't loading on my TV and so I couldn't get the access code.

Despite working now through my PS4 it's still not loading on Amazon Fire Stick. And it froze a couple of times but the frequency is lessening, I'm going on 2+ hours now with no issue.

So what’s great about the NFL App? You can watch every regular season game live on your TV. If you like sport shows and sports news there is a ton of programming all day long, it's literally NFL 24/7. The NFL game archive is also impressive as you can watch all games from 2012 to date, and all Super bowls.

If you want to watch it in Full HD on your TV make sure you have a fast internet connection at least 20 MBs down. Although it doesn't need that much that's what I recommend because speeds fluctuate but with at least 20 MBs your streaming will play flawlessly even if you have other gadgets/PCs on.

One would think that a 60 billion dollar industry which generates more revenue than some sovereign countries would be able to get their App right. But clearly that is not the case. So here is the situation. The App does not freeze anymore, and I've been testing it all day but it logs off after a game is completed. So for instance I let a complete preseason game play and afterwards it logs off. You might say so what just log in again?

Well, to log back in you have to get another code to validate your TV. It's a small inconvenience for me but I can see how this might be an issue for some people who don't tolerate any kind of inconvenience.

Ok, I received a reply from NFL customer service and their App is not ready yet for "Roku, XBox one, PS4, Apple TV, Fire TV and Android TV."

This perfectly explains why it works on my computer without any issues, and also iphone.

And they added if you are outside the U.S. to use the Game Pass International App. I actually have both of them working. On my iphone I have Game Pass Intl and on the PS4 the NFL App because there isn't a Game Pass App I'ntl on PS4. 

Hopefully they get it right before the season begins, but worse case scenario, and if I continue to get these problems with the App on my TV via PS4 I will buy the iphone lightning HDMI cable and simply broadcast the game from the iphone in Full Hd to the TV.

My latest experience streaming sports has been:

The kodi free sports streaming is horrible.  The picture freezes up, stops completely, or the picture is so bad it's not worth the trouble or aggravation.

I use a vpn with all streaming, most American apps, especially for sports, require a US IP address.  However, recently, some of the sports apps have some kind of built in code that can tell if your iPhone/iPad is connected to your tv via hdmi connector and will not play when connected.  You will get an error message and it will even stop playing on your iPhone until its unplugged.  So I am back to using my friends cable login from the US, with my vpn and streaming it that way.  Make sure before you buy all the connectors that the app will play with on your tv, if you have to buy them.  There are hundreds of forums out there that will tell you if you google it.  So far this year with a vpn and cable login, I have been able to stream with my iPhone connected to my tv, from the espn and cbs app with little buffering and a full screen HD picture.  Although I did have some problems last week with the Alabama vs FSU football game.  The espn app didn't play it live but restarted the game from the beginning.  That has never happened before and luckily it was only a few minutes delay.  Good luck as I know how important sports entertainment can be.  I actually paid for the mayweather fight.

Good info Sophems.

And I kind of assumed that kodi free sports weren't all that, at least from Ecuador. I'm also using a VPN now, initially to see if I could get the Verizon NFL App to work, which didn't, but then found out that Amazon Prime worked perfectly fine with a VPN and in Full HD. So I think FHD is possible when it's direct via a VPN similarly to your FHD cable TV. Of course with the exception of prudish companies that are cracking down on techniques such as you mentioned, and blocking proxies and essentially treating expats like step children.

As for the NFL App on TV (not Game Pass App Intl) it's working fine, but have to restart it every 3 hours or so with a small fix but it's all good, and I know the NFL is trying as they updated the sucker twice in August. On gadgets and computers it works flawlessly.

Today, on my espn app, when a game ended it automatically disconnected my vpn.  That's never happened before, so I guess I will have to log back in after every game. But at least I don't have to get a code, just re-connect my vpn and restart the app.

If you get the lightening hdmi connector for you Apple devices, make sure it's legit Apple.  I know people who tried the knock off ones from here and they didn't work.  They're cheaper in US if you know someone coming here (at least they used to be), not sure about now.

I'm doing a trip to Miami (if it's not destroyed) in the upcoming couple of months.  I connect in Quito, let me know if you want me to pick one up, if you can wait that long.

Good luck!!

Thank you Sophems that’s very kind of you but I’m alright. The fix that I have in place now which works great is connecting an HDMI from my laptop which has 1600x900 resolution and technically FHD to the TV. But considering the disparity with my TV resolution (1920x1080) the screen is reduced to 70% but  the 16:9 aspect is sizable, and crystal clear.

As for the Lightening cable being sold here I saw it on Mercado Libre for $85, and it’s probably $100+ at official Apple distributors in the city. It might even be obsolete with the iPhone X which is coming out soon.

Anyways thanks again for the kind offer.

Ok a few updates on the inconveniences of Apps in Ecuador. First I am also now a victim of pop-ups that Sophems detailed. They simply pop-up on MY LAPTOP when I have an HDMI cable connected to my TV. I don't know what's up with these people, I am a paid subscriber.

I don't know what's the logic behind it. These pop-ups instruct you to use an appropriate App from Google Play/Apple App Store. The thing is the apps are either not available for TV and other gadgets or they are too buggy.

The good news is it's not much of an inconvenience because as Sophems mentioned you don't get logged out. What I do is if I'm watching one game and this pop-up appears I switch to another game and then back to the game I was watching. Probably 10 seconds max of inconvenience. On Sunday it appeared 3 times. Now if it starts appearing more than that, then I might ponder some kind of class action suit  , again I am paid subscriber. Why should they care if I want to watch the games on my TV.

Okay now for the iPhone lightening cable. Indeed it will be obsolete on the new iPhone 8 & X as Apple is changing things up again and the new phones will feature a USB-C port. But considering that I am getting these pop-ups on my laptop. It makes no sense to buy such a cable to connect to a TV.

What I'm considering is connecting an HDMI from my desktop computer to the TV. Technically it should be no issue because the HDMI cable will be connected directly from the graphic card to the TV. The only issue is the distance as the desktop is an an office, and I hate wires, but as a last resort it's okay just for when games are on, and to finish this subscription.

Had I know about this absurdity beforehand I would not have subscribed. I can live without watching the NFL just like I avoid MLB/NBA and simply resort to reading the box score. And if there is a particular game to just go to a pub and watch it there. Clearly there are pros and cons with being attached to expat things. One big negative for me is that I haven't cycled on a Sunday (Quito's bike day)since the NFL season began.