# Please educate me about PPV webcasts

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-educate-me-about-ppv-webcasts/719356>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 6, 2015, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-educate-me-about-ppv-webcasts/719356 "2015-05-06T03:12:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\
**Post date:** [May 6, 2015, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-educate-me-about-ppv-webcasts/719356/1 "2015-05-06T03:12:00Z")

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Well, it is a bit embarrassing to confess my lack of technological knowledge, as though I were some sort of cliched old hippie or something. The fact that the question arises in the context of my desire to watch the Grateful Dead concerts this summer probably doesn’t help with this.

Anyway, the shows are going to be available by pay-per-view webcast (ad is [here](http://dead50.mlb.com/concert/dead50/?utm_source=20150501_facebook&utm_medium=payPerView&utm_campaign=preSale) but not very informative.  
I assume that the deal is that I would need to watch on some sort of internet-connected device and that I would need to watch at the actual time it is being webcasted, rather than being able to save it for later. Do you think these assumptions are likely accurate?

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**Author:** ![GregH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@GregH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GregH)\
**Post date:** [May 6, 2015, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-educate-me-about-ppv-webcasts/719356/2 "2015-05-06T18:43:05Z")

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You’re right, there’s not a lot of technical info available yet.  
Let’s assume that the technology will be similar (or the same) to the Phish webcasts. In that case, click [here](http://www.livephish.com/help.aspx) and scroll down to the Live Webcast Pay-Per-View Help section.

I’ve watched a few Phish shows this way and you cannot watch them later; only live.

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**Author:** ![Saturn\_Dreams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Saturn\_Dreams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saturn_Dreams)\
**Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-educate-me-about-ppv-webcasts/719356/3 "2015-05-07T02:10:20Z")

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If you purchase the webcast version, you’ll have to watch it live as it’s streamed unless you have a setup that allows stream/monitor recording. If you want to record the concert for posterity, I would recommend the PPV broadcast via cable as a better, (i.e., more stable stream and higher resolution) option, assuming your cable provider will carry it.