The YouTube TV Thread

[Zookster]

Okay, here's the official comment from YouTube: a spokeswoman says they have "no plans" to raise the $35 price on existing customers.

YouTube TV Adds Turner Networks, Will Raise Price to $40 for New Subscribers

 

[king3pj]

I misread the article yesterday. I was thinking I had to sign up yesterday because the price was increasing today. Now that I know I can wait another month it's a no brainer. I'll just sign up around March 12th which is the day before March Madness starts anyways. This will give me TBS, TNT, and TruTV for the tournament and lock me in at the lower price point.

 

[Zookster]

When PS Vue announced its price increase, existing customers continued to get the old price for 3-4 months (depending on renewal date), so I would like to think YouTube would maintain the old price for at least that long. I just hope they don't do other things to adversely affect the service, like replacing recorded shows with on demand versions with forced commercials.

 

[Zookster]

Has anyone figured out the max length of the live TV pause buffer with YouTube TV? With PS Vue, you only had 5 minutes to pause or worth of rewind time in a live program.

 

[Zookster]

UPDATE: I contacted my NBC affiliate through Facebook, and my problem has been escalated to NBC Universal digital content techs, with whom I'm in email contact. After further troubleshooting, I can't get a live stream on my local affiliate's app or the NBC network app either -- on Roku, FireTV, and Android.

It looks like I picked a bad month to cancel my PS Vue subscription (after 20 consecutive months) to try YouTube TV.

FINAL UPDATE: The problem has been fixed. I don't have any more issues watching live streams on the NBC apps with my YouTube TV login credentials.

 

[comfortably_numb]

Don't know if this has already been posted, but the $35 price for YouTube TV ends on March 13. So, if you want to get grandfathered-in on the old pricing, now is the time.

 

[Ronnie-]

Has anyone figured out the max length of the live TV pause buffer with YouTube TV? With PS Vue, you only had 5 minutes to pause or worth of rewind time in a live program.

Not sure the max length, but I hit pause to run to town, and 15 minutes later it's still paused.

 

[tigerfan33]

Which Roku are you guys using with YouTube TV?
My Roku 3 is tons better with this app compared to my Roku 4.
Are you able to navigate through the whole menu with live tv?

 

[Ronnie-]

Which Roku are you guys using with YouTube TV?
My Roku 3 is tons better with this app compared to my Roku 4.
Are you able to navigate through the whole menu with live tv?

Roku 3 and roku streaming stick plus

I see no difference in the navigation. Both work the same.

 

[tigerfan33]

Roku 3 and roku streaming stick plus

I see no difference in the navigation. Both work the same.

Thanks.
Looking at a few post over at avs and some are saying when ff a recorded show you may not see thumbnails until after the show is there for 24 hours.

 

[king3pj]

I've been using YouTube TV for about a week now and I'm pretty impressed so far. I expected the DVR to be much worse than my Tivo Roamio and it is but it's still quite a bit better than I thought it would be. I expected buffering every time I fast forward through commercials like I get when I fast forward in the YouTube app but it doesn't seem to have to do that. The thumbnails when you are skipping forward are super helpful for making sure you don't go too far too. I'll still miss the Tivo auto-skip feature but the YouTube TV DVR is good enough for my purposes.

Picture quality is fine too. I do sometimes get quality dips for a second right after fast forwarding but this is much better than stopping to buffer every commercial break and the quality ramps back up very quickly. My only real complaint so far is the lack of 5.1 audio but this seems to be the case with all of these OTT services.

We'll see how the service holds up when thousands of people sign up for free trials to watch March Madness next week.

 

[navychop]

$40 here, $30 there- pretty soon you're paying as much as for a satco or cableco.

 

[king3pj]

$40 here, $30 there- pretty soon you're paying as much as for a satco or cableco.

If it wasn't for the equipment fees that those companies charge I would agree with you. My parents have one of the cheapest programing packages they could get with Dish (Flex pack, locals, regional action pack) and they pay $92 per month. They pay $31 in equipment fees alone.

As long as equipment fees are such a big part of the bill with cable/satellite most people will be able to save quite a bit of money by switching to a streaming service.

I'm not currently saving that much money over my old double play with Charter but that is because I had a Tivo Roamio with lifetime and a Tivo mini so I wasn't paying any equipment fees. My last bill with my double play was about $120. With the non-bundled internet price of $65 and YouTube TV at $35 I'm paying $100 now.

The major difference is that I just signed up last week for a couple specific shows this spring and March Madness. I don't plan to subscribe to YouTube TV year round like I did with my double play. I'm still recording my locals through Tivo and that will be all I need over the summer when the shows I signed up for end for the year. I really just don't need cable most of the year.

 

[tigerfan33]

Picture quality has been pretty good. Motion with 30 fps has been jittery at times when panning on movies and shows. Sports on NBC and CBS and Tennis Channel have a stutter sometime. 720p 60fps motion is very clean with sports. Comparable to Directv.

 

[Zookster]

I've been using YouTube TV for about a week now and I'm pretty impressed so far. I expected the DVR to be much worse than my Tivo Roamio and it is but it's still quite a bit better than I thought it would be. I expected buffering every time I fast forward through commercials like I get when I fast forward in the YouTube app but it doesn't seem to have to do that. The thumbnails when you are skipping forward are super helpful for making sure you don't go too far too. I'll still miss the Tivo auto-skip feature but the YouTube TV DVR is good enough for my purposes.

Picture quality is fine too. I do sometimes get quality dips for a second right after fast forwarding but this is much better than stopping to buffer every commercial break and the quality ramps back up very quickly. My only real complaint so far is the lack of 5.1 audio but this seems to be the case with all of these OTT services.

We'll see how the service holds up when thousands of people sign up for free trials to watch March Madness next week.

Unfortunately, you don't get thumbnails with recordings of every show -- at least I don't. Does anyone see thumbnails when FF'ing a new recording of The Walking Dead? I haven't yet.

One great thing about YouTube TV that PS Vue never got right is adding 1 minute and 6 seconds to each recording to cover when one show bleeds into the next or starts a bit early. I've noticed every YTTV recording starts few seconds before the actual show starts. That must be the six seconds. Then one minute must be on the back end.

I heard last night there were widespread issues on DirecTV Now and PS Vue during the Oscars. I had absolutely zero problems watching on YTTV. I took a chance watching it streaming rather than OTA, because I wanted to be able to pause for extended periods and then fast-forward through commercials, long acceptance speeches, and other boring bits. YTTV did not disappoint even streaming on multiple TVs simultaneously.

EDIT: Here's something else cool. I just looked at my recording of the Oscars and the time listed for it is 3 hours and 52 minutes, even though it was originally scheduled to run for 3 hours in the guide. I don't think PS Vue ever automatically added time to shows that went past the scheduled time slot.

 

[king3pj]

Unfortunately, you don't get thumbnails with recordings of every show -- at least I don't. Does anyone see thumbnails when FF'ing a new recording of The Walking Dead? I haven't yet.

One great thing about YouTube TV that PS Vue never got right is adding 1 minute and 6 seconds to each recording to cover when one show bleeds into the next or starts a bit early. I've noticed every YTTV recording starts few seconds before the actual show starts. That must be the six seconds. Then one minute must be on the back end.

I heard last night there were widespread issues on DirecTV Now and PS Vue during the Oscars. I had absolutely zero problems watching on YTTV. I took a chance watching it streaming rather than OTA, because I wanted to be able to pause for extended periods and then fast-forward through commercials, long acceptance speeches, and other boring bits. YTTV did not disappoint even streaming on multiple TVs simultaneously.

EDIT: Here's something else cool. I just looked at my recording of the Oscars and the time listed for it is 3 hours and 52 minutes, even though it was originally scheduled to run for 3 hours in the guide. I don't think PS Vue ever automatically added time to shows that went past the scheduled time slot.

I watch Walking Dead with a friend at their house every week so I haven't recorded that one myself. The only recorded show I've watched with YouTube TV so far was the season premiere of Atlanta on FX. I watched that the night after it aired and the thumbnails worked properly. Besides that I've only watched live college basketball and news so far.

The automatic extended time is something I've always wanted DVRs to be able to do. It's awesome that YouTube TV is smart enough to do that. I just wonder how common it will be. Will it automatically adjust to catch the entire episode of a show on Sunday nights when NFL games run long or will it only be smart enough to record the end of the actual event that went long? Will they even do this on a regular basis for things like sporting events or is it only going to happen for rare occasions like the Oscars?

 

[Bruce]

$40 here, $30 there- pretty soon you're paying as much as for a satco or cableco.

Doubt they will catch up any time soon, it would take about 6-8 years for my Vue package to catch up and that is only if there are no yearly increases for satco or cableco ( highly doubtful ).

 

[Zookster]

I watch Walking Dead with a friend at their house every week so I haven't recorded that one myself. The only recorded show I've watched with YouTube TV so far was the season premiere of Atlanta on FX. I watched that the night after it aired and the thumbnails worked properly. Besides that I've only watched live college basketball and news so far.

The automatic extended time is something I've always wanted DVRs to be able to do. It's awesome that YouTube TV is smart enough to do that. I just wonder how common it will be. Will it automatically adjust to catch the entire episode of a show on Sunday nights when NFL games run long or will it only be smart enough to record the end of the actual event that went long? Will they even do this on a regular basis for things like sporting events or is it only going to happen for rare occasions like the Oscars?

I've heard it automatically adds a set amount of time to recordings of sporting events--I believe 30 or 40 mins. But I have yet to test this myself. My experience with cloud recording (on Vue) is it simply gives you the episode in its entirety as opposed to a recording of a set timeframe, e.g. 9pm-10pm. I've never come across any complaints in the Vue user groups about this particular other than Vue routinely cutting off the last 30 seconds of any given show. So I imagine YTTV will work in a similar way.

 

[Zookster]

NBA TV and MLB TV are now live on YTTV.

 

[comfortably_numb]

NBA TV and MLB TV are now live on YTTV.

Good to know. MLBN is huge for me. Glad I made the switch to YTTV for my office.