Eureka!
I probably should have thought of this sooner.
I switched over to now intentionally "throttling" my network for DirecTV only.
This is forcing (and just guessing here for sake of conveying) a 1080p stream instead of a 4k stream.
If I set the throttle too low, it CLEARLY drops to 480p (again, just a number for sake of conveying).
I couldn't find a throttle setting for 720p. Anyone that streams will know the difference between 480 and 1080.
But the difference between 1080 and 4k (on a medium-sized monitor) is BARELY NOTICEABLE.
Plus, it is physically IMPOSSIBLE to take a "VCR Quality Source" and 'upcode it' to be "DVD Quality".
And I think this is what DirecTV is doing, just sending EVERYTHING as "4k" *IF* the customer has the bandwidth.
And this throttling introduces ZERO buffering lags !
And most importantly, CPU and GPU both stay BELOW 25% !!!