Rather than start a new thread, my problem has to do with Smart TV's as well (or so I've been told):
I have Directv and NFL Sunday Ticket. My cell phone is AT&T. It is an iPhone 5s. When I signed up for my Directv renewal, I told the customer service rep I wanted to be able to watch games at other locations where there was no internet or satellite tv. In other words, I wanted to be able to watch Bills games out in the middle of the woods if I wanted to. She said "Oh, that's not a problem...you can watch the games on your phone and it doesn't require internet. It will use data."
I also told her I may want to "mirror" the game from my phone onto a tv (once again, where there is no internet or satellite). She said all you need is an HDMI cable adapter and you can mirror the Bills games from your phone onto the tv via the HDMI cable (HDMI goes into adapter, HDMI adapter plugs into iPhone and other end of HDMI goes into the TV HDMI port). I have tried a couple times just with live TV (like a Saturday ESPN college game) and it projects the audio but no video. Then, just to make sure my phone wasn't all screwed up, I tried to mirror Netflix shows on the TV and there was no problem.
So it appears Directv either has some restriction on "mirroring" NFL or live tv from a phone via the Directv app onto a Samsung tv (about 5 years old) or I am doing something wrong.
The Directv person suggested I go buy a "smart tv"...I don't want to buy a Smart TV if that isn't the problem. It would seem I should be able to mirror live tv (and NFL ticket games) to my existing tv.
Any suggestions? Does a Smart TV really offer some other technology that would allow the mirroring of a live football game from my iPhone?