How To Watch DirecTV Now on Roku

If you’re a cord cutter with a Roku, you may be interested in adding a new streaming service to your channels. DirecTV Now has had a few months to mature and improve and now seems like a good time to try it. If you would like to watch DirecTV Now on a Roku device, here’s how to do it.

DirecTV Now from AT&T hasn’t had the most auspicious start. Beset by early problems, accused of offering nothing new and no cloud DVR functions, the service has come a long way since launch last November. DirecTV Now offers up to 120 channels and will run on most recent Roku devices.

DirecTV Now will currently run fine on Roku Express, Roku Express+, Roku Streaming Stick, 4K Roku TVs, Roku Ultra, Roku Premiere, Roku Premiere+, Roku 4, Roku 3 and Roku 2. Roku says they are working with AT&T to support older devices but this is the current list.

Watch DirecTV Now on Roku

Before getting into what DirecTV Now offers and how it has improved, let us not bury the headline. Here is how you can watch DirecTV Now on Roku. The process is the same as adding any other channel.

1. Power on your Roku and TV.
2. Select Home and Streaming Channels.
3. Search for DirecTV Now and Add Channel when Roku finds it.

DirecTV Now should now appear on your channel list and be accessible. If Roku cannot find DirecTV Now, perform a system update.

1. Go to the Home screen.
2. Select Settings and System.
3. Select System Update and Check Now.
4. Allow the process to complete and then repeat the above steps to add DirecTV Now.
5. 

DirecTV Now

DirecTV Now is the latest in a long line of streaming TV services. It goes up against Sling TV, Sony’s PlayStation Vue, FuboTV and Hulu with Live TV among others and has quite the fight on its hands for supremacy.

Early subscribers complained of poor bitrates, lots of artifacts in streams, frequent errors and a clunky interface. Since its launch last November, most of these issues have been resolved. The interface can still be clunky at times but the rest of the issues seems to have been cleared up.

DirecTV Now has four subscription packages:

1. Live a Little @$35/month for 60+ channels
2. Just Right @$50/month for 80+ channels
3. Go Big @$60/month for 100+ channels
4. Gotta Have it @$70/month for 120+ channels

You also get local TV channels, although DirecTV Now doesn’t guarantee access to these. If you are already an AT&T wireless customer, you can get serious discounts on these prices.

The channel lineup is comparable to other services. Even the base Live a Little package has a good range of channels but doesn’t include sports. For that you will need Just Right. Fans of HBO and Cinemax will need to pay an extra $5 per month for each of these channels. The full DirecTV Now channel list is available here.

DirecTV Now features and quality

AT&T has tried to make DirecTV Now as wide ranging as possible. It runs on Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Roku, iOS, Android, Chrome and Safari so has pretty much everything covered. Each app apparently works well, although I have only tried the Roku version.

The one major shortcoming of DirecTV Now is the lack of DVR capability. Sure, you can stream as much content as you like and watch live TV from anywhere but you still cannot save or record shows or manipulate them in any way. Compared to Vue or Sling TV, or any of the others who offer cloud DVR, this is a serious omission. Just as well there are so many catchup TV channels!

DirecTV Now allows two concurrent streams per account. Compared to Sling TV’s three and PlayStation Vue’s five, this seems a little tight. There is no option yet to allow more either like Hulu with Live TV.

Is DirecTV Now worth the money?

The new and improved DirecTV Now is much better than the launch version. Of that there is no doubt. However, with no DVR function, only two streams and a clunky interface, it is hard to recommend it over other services given similar pricing. The lack of any sports on the Live a Little plan is annoying too.

If you are an AT&T wireless customer already, you can get the plan cheaper than the standard price. That makes it much more worthwhile than for those of us who are not already AT&T customers.

While video quality is excellent and the service is improving, it is hard to sell DirecTV Now over more established services. However, if the service keeps adding features and adjusting channels and prices, that could soon change.

Do you use DirecTV Now? What do you think of it? Tell us about it below!