Earlier today Comcast CTO Matt Zelesko and Eric Black, senior vice president of U.S. operations and video streaming held a talk at the NAB Show in New York. During the talk they made it clear that Flex, the company’s cord cutting streaming player, wouldn’t be open to all apps.
“I’m not sure we’ll ever throw the gates open and let all the apps in,” Zelesko said according to a report form FierceVideo. Unfortunately, this means cord cutters who want to use services like PlayStation Vue, YouTube TV, and AT&T TV NOW are out of luck. Comcast does offer some international streaming packages like Sling TV’s international TV packages, but you won’t find Sling TV’s Orange and Blue packages.
Last month Comcast made their Flex streaming player free for Comcast Internet Customers (reduced from $5 a month). Many have said this could be the Roku, Fire TV, and Apple TV killer because Comcast is offering it for free. Yet if you are a cord cutter you probably want to just skip the Comcast Flex streaming player.
The Comcast Flex streaming player is not bad and includes many of the more popular streaming services. But cord cutters will find many other popular streaming services are not included and, more importantly, won’t find any live TV services other than Comcast’s own streaming service.
Comcast does plan to add more apps to the service. Recently Comcast purchased Metological to help make adding apps to X1 and Flex easier but these will only be approved apps that Comcast wants on their streaming players and set-top boxes.
Do you have a Flex streaming player? Leave us a comment and let us know what you think of the Flex player from Comcast.
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