Technology

[BurgoShark]

They still have ESPN on Kayo?

Or can you get a season pass from the NHL? I know the NBA do one.

Kayo shows a few games a week, and a lot of finals - but if you follow a smaller-market team like I do (Ottawa) you don't get to see them play at all.

I had the NHL streaming service (NHL TV) for several years. It was about $180/year and it was awesome. Prior to the 2021-22 season the NHL sold the streaming rights for Australia to ESPN, and made their own direct service unavailable to Australian customers. I could have used a VPN, but it makes it painful to move between different devices/TVs in my house.

I end up in front after 2 years. $200 box +$6/month across 2 seasons is ~$300, which is cheaper than $180/year. It's just funny that I have to own a $200 box to sit there and gather dust.

Optus is my Internet provider. They give people free Fetch boxes when they sign up. I asked them for one and they said 'that's only for new customers". I asked if I could cancel and sign up again, and they said "Sure - but it's a 6 week turnaround and you have to pay $200 for a new router".

 

[HaroldBishop]

I like the Fetch box because we can record stuff or pause live TV.

Ours died recently. I just hooked up a portable hard drive to the tv, does the same thing.

 

[Proud Shark]

Kayo shows a few games a week, and a lot of finals - but if you follow a smaller-market team like I do (Ottawa) you don't get to see them play at all.

I had the NHL streaming service (NHL TV) for several years. It was about $180/year and it was awesome. Prior to the 2021-22 season the NHL sold the streaming rights for Australia to ESPN, and made their own direct service unavailable to Australian customers. I could have used a VPN, but it makes it painful to move between different devices/TVs in my house.

I end up in front after 2 years. $200 box +$6/month across 2 seasons is ~$300, which is cheaper than $180/year. It's just funny that I have to own a $200 box to sit there and gather dust.

Optus is my Internet provider. They give people free Fetch boxes when they sign up. I asked them for one and they said 'that's only for new customers". I asked if I could cancel and sign up again, and they said "Sure - but it's a 6 week turnaround and you have to pay $200 for a new router".

Can you clarify what box you bought for the NHL, I had all sorts of trouble getting that going this year so just canned it.

 

[BurgoShark]

Can you clarify what box you bought for the NHL, I had all sorts of trouble getting that going this year so just canned it.

It's a fun process...

You need to buy a Fetch TV box. You can try online etc. but I just walked in to JB HiFi and bought one of these. Knowing that it lives in the draw most of the time, in hindsight I should have bought a cheaper one (the non 4k one). JB only had these ones in stock though.

Fetch Mini 4K (Fetch TV)

With FETCH have again proved why they are so popular. Grab a bargain on one today at JB Hi-Fi

www.jbhifi.com.au

Then what you do is bring it home, plug it in, and it asks you to create a Fetch TV account and activate. You have to pay $1 to activate it and you need to sign up for the $6/month Vibe Pack which includes ESPN.
https://www.fetchtv.com.au/packages/premium-channels/vibe

Once you activate and sign up, it gives you an Activation ID. Unplug the box and stick it in a draw. You can not stream games using the box.

Then you can either watch via the ESPN web page https://www.espn.com.au/watch/ or the ESPN App on your phone/tablet. Once every 6 months though, your account will get deactivated because you haven't plugged the box in. This is (I assume) to stop people activating multiple accounts using one box. Plug it in, log in once and then stick it back in the draw.

Finally, when you try to watch something online or using the App it asks you who your provider is. Choose Optus and put in your Activation ID.

What I do is watch via my phone, and then cast it up to a ChromeCast or Apple TV (which I already owned). Both of these work great, and you can watch past games etc. like you could with the NHL App. The one thing missing though is the "condensed games".

As you can see, there is also an option for Foxtel customers - but I never went down that rabbit hole. I expect the above advice is completely different if you have Fox.

 

[Proud Shark]

Thanks Burgo, that is incredibly detailed.

I have foxtel, but no box so I wonder if I can access through there.
I tried through the espn app during the season, but the stream would never load for me.

It was my first season following the league so I got behind the Kraken. Understandably by mid season I gave up a bit on trying to access the streams as they decided to stop winning games.

I'll jump back on now and give it a whirl.

 

[Proud Shark]

So I can definitely connect through fox, were you able to view all of Ottawa's games through ESPN then?

 

[BurgoShark]

So I can definitely connect through fox, were you able to view all of Ottawa's games through ESPN then?

Yep - though not watching may have been a more pleasant experience. Every game all year is available.

The App interface is also a bit hard to get used to. You can't just say "show me the hockey schedule". You have to click "watch" then "see all", and then manually find the game in the list. They also don't identify whether it is a home or away broadcast, and don't always give you the button to switch between them. I find if I get the wrong one the only reliable way to switch between them is to kill the app completely, repeat the process, and click on the other game.

 

[Proud Shark]

Yep - though not watching may have been a more pleasant experience. Every game all year is available.

The App interface is also a bit hard to get used to. You can't just say "show me the hockey schedule". You have to click "watch" then "see all", and then manually find the game in the list. They also don't identify whether it is a home or away broadcast, and don't always give you the button to switch between them. I find if I get the wrong one the only reliable way to switch between them is to kill the app completely, repeat the process, and click on the other game.

Yeah it's a shitty app. I noticed there was no way to turn off/hide score updates either which was very frustrating when watching on delay. I appreciate the info.

 

[BurgoShark]

Yeah it's a shitty app. I noticed there was no way to turn off/hide score updates either which was very frustrating when watching on delay. I appreciate the info.

No worries. I spoke to someone in Canada about this. They reckon their experience using the App is better, so hopefully over time they push that stuff in to the app for Aus.

 

[Sparkles]

I had the NHL streaming service (NHL TV) for several years. It was about $180/year and it was awesome. Prior to the 2021-22 season the NHL sold the streaming rights for Australia to ESPN, and made their own direct service unavailable to Australian customers. I could have used a VPN, but it makes it painful to move between different devices/TVs in my house.

You can ususally set up the VPN via your modem/router so it covers every device conected to the internet in your house. Might be worth looking into for your situation

 

[Shortfin Mako]

Ours died recently. I just hooked up a portable hard drive to the tv, does the same thing.

Out tv does not have that functionality afaik.

 

[Sevshark]

Out tv does not have that functionality afaik.

Amazon fire sticks are pretty good and just plug into a hdmi port.

 

[Shortfin Mako]

Amazon fire sticks are pretty good and just plug into a hdmi port.

Do they save programs and/or pause live tv?

 

[Sevshark]

Do they save programs and/or pause live tv?

Of you're watching the live program through 9now or foxtel etc than you can pause sure.

Pretty sure you can add things onto watch list for easy access.

 

[Thresher]

This question may have been answered on here before but does anyone know why Kayo is called Kayo?

Is it supposed to stand for KO, as in knock out?

 

[HaroldBishop]

This question may have been answered on here before but does anyone know why Kayo is called Kayo?

Is it supposed to stand for KO, as in knock out?

Yep

 

[Born&bred]

This question may have been answered on here before but does anyone know why Kayo is called Kayo?

Is it supposed to stand for KO, as in knock out?

Interesting question - is this to win a bet / argument?

 

[Thresher]

Interesting question - is this to win a bet / argument?

Nah. I don't have the Kayo emblem on my desktop so every time I go to watch footy I've got to remember the word Kayo. For some reason it's not a word that sticks in my head so sometimes I've got to try and remember it. Probably early onset dementia.

 

[Capital_Shark]

Nah. I don't have the Kayo emblem on my desktop so every time I go to watch footy I've got to remember the word Kayo. For some reason it's not a word that sticks in my head so sometimes I've got to try and remember it. Probably early onset dementia.

Create a desktop shortcut ?

 

[Thresher]

Create a desktop shortcut ?

Yeah I know, that'd be the logical thing to do.

But at the same time, surely they could call themselves something like "Sports Channel" or another weird name that makes you think of sports. Rather than a word that may be some way connected to sport when you apply quantum psychics to abstract art.