Streaming YouTube TV on Tablet

[RoperDK]

Our next several cruises are on Oasis class, so should be better quality internet. 🤞 We use YouTube TV at home.  As far as I understand it, I should be able to sign on to a portable device over WIFI and watch TV just like at home.  I have been told that there may be issues because the ship doesn't have a US IP address.  I am a bit tech challenged.  We normally don't watch TV on a cruise, but it will be football season after all.  I could use my phone, but will bring a tablet if I can watch local programming on the ship.  I know I can watch it on a tablet at my house, but not sure how many hoops there are to jump through to access it out of our local area.   

[crzndeb]

I also have YoutubeTV and was surprised I couldn’t watch on Alaska cruise. I started in Vancouver and the whole time kept saying it can’t work out of country, even in Alaska.

I have gotten a VPN and if I get surf and steam on Wonder TA in Oct., will see if it works with a US IP location.

[Charles4515]

14 minutes ago, crzndeb said:

I also have YoutubeTV and was surprised I couldn’t watch on Alaska cruise. I started in Vancouver and the whole time kept saying it can’t work out of country, even in Alaska.

I have gotten a VPN and if I get surf and steam on Wonder TA in Oct., will see if it works with a US IP location.

You were in International waters. YouTube and Netflix can detect where your IP address is located. With a VPN you can pretend you are in the US. The  problem is that Royal Caribbean blocks many VPNs. Some do work, maybe Royal does not have their IP address. 

[crzndeb]

4 minutes ago, Charles4515 said:

You were in International waters. YouTube and Netflix can detect where your IP address is located. With a VPN you can pretend you are in the US. The  problem is that Royal Caribbean blocks many VPNs. Some do work, maybe Royal does not have their IP address. 

Not in port, but youtubeTv must have still thought I was in international waters. I tried it in all the ports.

[Charles4515]

1 minute ago, crzndeb said:

Not in port, but youtubeTv must have still thought I was in international waters. I tried it in all the ports.

Were you streaming over the ships WiFi?

[crzndeb]

I think I tried both…ship wifi and using my iPhone as a hotspot on my iPad, which is wifi only. It really wasn’t a big deal. Just surprised.

[SG65CB]

1 hour ago, RoperDK said:

I could use my phone, but will bring a tablet if I can watch local programming on the ship.  I know I can watch it on a tablet at my house, but not sure how many hoops there are to jump through to access it out of our local area. 

 

Even on land YouTube TV will not let you watch local programming if you are not physically in your local viewing area. A VPN will not help unless the VPN has an option to simulate your local area, but I have never seen a VPN with an Alabama server. 

 

If your goal is to watch whatever football team is your home team you won't be able to do it if it is a local broadcast. 

[Charles4515]

Just now, crzndeb said:

I think I tried both…ship wifi and using my iPhone as a hotspot on my iPad, which is wifi only. It really wasn’t a big deal. Just surprised.

I suspect you were on the ship Wi-Fi. Your locality for is determined by the location of the server. Since the ship is using a satellite the IP will show a non US locality. If you were on a US cell network you should have been okay. 

[Charles4515]

3 minutes ago, SG65CB said:

 

Even on land YouTube TV will not let you watch local programming if you are not physically in your local viewing area. A VPN will not help unless the VPN has an option to simulate your local area, but I have never seen a VPN with an Alabama server. 

 

If your goal is to watch whatever football team is your home team you won't be able to do it if it is a local broadcast. 

Yes. That is true. 

[slyster]

I really thought we were able to view content in our library from YouTube TV.  I didn’t try to stream channels though.  You could record and use the library to watching any content.  Can anyone confirm it?  It’s been a couple of years since my last cruise.

[Ashland]

We've recently used our Firestick onboard Navigator, Explorer & Harmony to watch Netflix, Amazon Prime etc.

[Charles4515]

7 minutes ago, slyster said:

I really thought we were able to view content in our library from YouTube TV.  I didn’t try to stream channels though.  You could record and use the library to watching any content.  Can anyone confirm it?  It’s been a couple of years since my last cruise.

Some content can be downloaded offline. 

[Charles4515]

9 minutes ago, Ashland said:

We've recently used our Firestick onboard Navigator, Explorer & Harmony to watch Netflix, Amazon Prime etc.

Before I travel I download content from Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV Plus and HBO to my tablet. No need to stream. My iPad has a great screen. I mostly watch on airplanes. If you can use a Firestick then I could probably connect my tablet to the TV. Don’t think I want to though. 

Edited June 20, 2022 by Charles4515

[Ashland]

3 hours ago, Charles4515 said:

Before I travel I download content from Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV Plus and HBO to my tablet. No need to stream. My iPad has a great screen. I mostly watch on airplanes. If you can use a Firestick then I could probably connect my tablet to the TV. Don’t think I want to though. 

We connect to our in cabin TV....much larger easy viewing screen.

[TravisP]

10 hours ago, SG65CB said:

 

Even on land YouTube TV will not let you watch local programming if you are not physically in your local viewing area. A VPN will not help unless the VPN has an option to simulate your local area, but I have never seen a VPN with an Alabama server. 

 

If your goal is to watch whatever football team is your home team you won't be able to do it if it is a local broadcast. 

If you record a local program you can then watch it outside of your home area. I do this with our local news broadcasts. Even when it is live, it is recording to your DVR so you can watch it then also. 

[geko29]

31 minutes ago, TravisP said:

If you record a local program you can then watch it outside of your home area. I do this with our local news broadcasts. Even when it is live, it is recording to your DVR so you can watch it then also. 

 

This works, but I have never been able to watch a news recording while the broadcast was still in process, when I was out of market.   Shortly after the showing ended, I was able to view the recording.

[bobmacliberty]

This device and an HDMI cable are standard packing items when I travel internationally.  I too download several shows to my phone/iPad because I have had problems trying to trick YouTube TV into thinking I'm at home.  YouTube TV is smarter than me.  Netflix has worked better but limits you to shows that are available in the region where you're located.  I started watching Shooter (the series, not the movie) while in Poland but couldn't finish the series when I got home because it wasn't available here.

[TravisP]

37 minutes ago, geko29 said:

 

This works, but I have never been able to watch a news recording while the broadcast was still in process, when I was out of market.   Shortly after the showing ended, I was able to view the recording.

Strange. I have done that lot of times when I am traveling out of town. 

[orville99]

29 minutes ago, bobmacliberty said:

This device and an HDMI cable are standard packing items when I travel internationally. 

We also bring one of these when we sail on older ships that don't have HDMI connections:

 

 

[twangster]

Most tablets have GPS chips in them so the device knows exactly where you are.  Laptops still have an edge in this regard because many laptops don't have GPS but rely on wifi and the internet to estimate where you are.  

 

On most Royal ships in the US the satellite gateway will tunnel traffic back to Miami so you should appear to be in the US from the internet's perspective.  When ships go to Europe they change gateways so the internet thinks you are in Spain.  Likewise ships in Asia use a regional gateway in Asia.  

 

On Quantum in Alaska in May the public IP address was 66.133.11.11 which appears to be Miami.

 

https://ipinfo.io/66.133.11.11

 

On my laptop I could access ESPN+ but my phone denied me because my phone with GPS knew where I really was.

 

 

Edited June 20, 2022 by twangster

[hallux]

11 hours ago, Charles4515 said:

Some content can be downloaded offline. 

Only if you pay extra for the 4K package, which also includes the ability to download for offline playback.

 

YTTV only works in the US, as others have said.  Sometimes the ship's network shows as being in the US, sometimes not.  As someone else indicated, your home local content will only be available in your library after recording, you won't be able to watch it live, you'd need a VPN endpoint in your local area to get that content live.

 

12 hours ago, Ashland said:

We've recently used our Firestick onboard Navigator, Explorer & Harmony to watch Netflix, Amazon Prime etc.

YTTV has different network requirements than those services.  YTTV streams live TV and works with a minimal buffer, those services you mention can buffer 10, 15, 20, 30 seconds of video before playing because they're not trying to keep it "live" like YTTV does so they can work on slower networks.

[Charles4515]

1 hour ago, twangster said:

Most tablets have GPS chips in them so the device knows exactly where you are.  Laptops still have an edge in this regard because many laptops don't have GPS but rely on wifi and the internet to estimate where you are.  

A lot of usefull info in your post but only WiFi plus Cellular iPads have GPS. Most people don't spend the extra $130. 

[Charles4515]

1 hour ago, bobmacliberty said:

This device and an HDMI cable are standard packing items when I travel internationally.

 

I have one of those and a cable which I travel with but I never have bothered to use it traveling. I tried it once to show something to my neice on her TV that I had downloaded to my iPad and it does work.  Been fine so far with my downloaded content when traveling. I guess I will have to spring for the USB C version as my 2018 iPad is USB C, my mini iPad 6 is USB C and iPhones will probably be USB C from 2023. 

[bobmacliberty]

3 hours ago, twangster said:

Most tablets have GPS chips in them so the device knows exactly where you are.  Laptops still have an edge in this regard because many laptops don't have GPS but rely on wifi and the internet to estimate where you are.

 

I had a problem on my desktop last year where a VPN was not enough to watch a local sports event in another city.  I found that YouTube TV uses Windows location services to see where your computer is located.  I tried changing my default location but no luck.  I would guess (I of course have no personal knowledge) that there would be some sort of app that can spoof your Windows location and would work successfully in conjunction with a VPN.   

[twangster]

4 minutes ago, bobmacliberty said:

 

I had a problem on my desktop last year where a VPN was not enough to watch a local sports event in another city.  I found that YouTube TV uses Windows location services to see where your computer is located.  I tried changing my default location but no luck.  I would guess (I of course have no personal knowledge) that there would be some sort of app that can spoof your Windows location and would work successfully in conjunction with a VPN.   

 

I have that issue sometimes with a Canadian broadcaster that carries some sporting events.  I have discovered that private mode browsing and IPSEC VPN instead of SSL VPN works.  

 

In some cases streaming services have built a database built of VPN addresses as evidenced when multiple people share the same public address over time.  I have VPN capabilities in my home office that I can connect to when on a ship.  This has been my last resort several times to save me while cruising.    Nothing like clicking my heels twice and virtually going home.