The YouTube TV Thread

I was wondering how everyone's experience was with the Super Bowl last night? Mine looked great, and I only had one point when I got up for a beer, and came back and had an error message, but was able to get right back to it, and continue watching.
I am currently running a 1 month comparison with Dish and my H3 to see if I will be dropping Dish. Watched the whole event on YTTV, I had zero issues and it streamed and looked great.
 
I compared the Superbowl offerings on YTTV Fox streaming , Channels OTA, and Plex OTA through my Shield 2019, Fire Stick 4K, Roku Stick 4K, and OTA on my LG OLED. The OLED OTA won. Weird thing was it said it was receiving 720P so its upscaling must be pretty good. All I can think is my local Fox in Wilmington NC couldn't/wouldn't push the hyped 1080P HDR up-scaled to 4K.
 
All I can think is my local Fox in Wilmington NC couldn't/wouldn't push the hyped 1080P HDR up-scaled to 4K.
FOX does not broadcast in 1080 lines (not yet anyway). End of story.

For those who can't bring themselves to read the official statements from Fox that began last Summer:
  • The game was captured in 1080p/60fps with High Dynamic Range (HDR, extended brightness/darkness range) and Wide Color Gamut (WCG, more colors)
  • The affiliates were sent a 720p/60fps SDR signal. Some stations may convert the program to 1080i, but the signal will have been double-transcoded by the time it is viewed. If you're watching other than through a UHD feed, you're getting a derivative of this signal.
  • Fox Sports offered a 2160p/60fps line upconversion of the 1080p source through Altice Optimum, Comcast, DIRECTV, DISH, Fubo and Verizon FIOS (and maybe others) either through a UHD channel or using TV Anywhere (streaming directly from Fox authenticating with your pay TV subscription).
I really hope we can put the horrible misconception that Fox OTA is 1080i or better to bed sooner than later. It may well look better than other sources but that's likely because it has suffered fewer conversions (some of those other sources start with the OTA signal and mangle it from there).
 
Can’t sleep and found that YTTV is offering a 2 week trial. So what the heck, why not give it a whirl? :)

Been playing around with it for a couple hours. Lots to like, some to not like though there are more likes than not likes.

Not like - just 2 hours of grid guide. Seems odd but then the search is unbelievably good and the ‘home’ showings make up for that a bit. Still would prefer at least a week of grid guide, but could live with this.

Like - Heck of a lineup mix! Everything is there that I would want with the exception of Paramount, but that’s for only one show, so not a big deal I can get that show in other ways.

Like - unlimited DVR! And trick play for most it seems, though not all.

Not like - can’t actually sort the guide. Not a big deal, but it would be nice. I can’t figure out how they have it sorted, just seems a bit willy-nilly!

Like - VOD. Don’t have that on my cable since I use my own retail version of Tivo. It isn’t Hulu but more like what the channel specific apps do it seems.

The price seems fair for what is provided and it all seems to work quite well on my AppleTV. And since there is also an app for the Xbox One, all audio would be faked Atmos, which is a big plus!


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Your 2 not likes. You should be able to see seven worth of programming in the guide. You can also go to live and click on any channel symbol then scroll to the right to get 24 hours worth of programming in that particular channel.
Number two dislike. You can edit the guide in the YTTV app.
 
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Your 2 not likes. You should be able to see seven worth of programming in the guide. You can also go to live and click on any channel symbol then scroll to the right to get 24 hours worth of programming in that particular channel.
Number two dislike. You can edit the guide in the YTTV app.

Thanks. Odd, when I looked a bit earlier live was only showing an hours worth.

Editing the guide just allows for which channels show, no easy way to change the sort order other than moving channels up/down. So, yeah can be done, but a royal PITA to do IMO.


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Not like - can’t actually sort the guide. Not a big deal, but it would be nice. I can’t figure out how they have it sorted, just seems a bit willy-nilly!



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You can create a custom guide on a pc or with the app on your phone. You can not edit it on a streaming box.

On a pc or your phone just go to settings, and then live guide and you can move them around there.

Then when you are on the guide using a streamer, select custom instead of default and your custom guide will be available for you.
 
Thanks. Odd, when I looked a bit earlier live was only showing an hours worth.

Editing the guide just allows for which channels show, no easy way to change the sort order other than moving channels up/down. So, yeah can be done, but a royal PITA to do IMO.


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You can edit for any order you like on the mobile app then it will transfer to your Apple TV.
 
Thanks, both of you.

Yes, you can edit on a tablet, phone or PC, but it is awkward IMO. Just can’t do a simple alphabetic sort, you have to manually move channels up/down one at a time.


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This is just experimenting. If I was even a little bit of a sports fan I might actually consider going with YTTV. It hits lots of sweet spots and the price is fair.

But it is only $9/month cheaper than my cable TV sub. In June it will be $29 cheaper. But because of my channel/show selection a combination of OTA, Hulu no ads, CBS no ads, Peacock no ads and possibly HBO Max would save me more money and get me plenty of original programming that isn’t showing on any channel. That’s important to me as I watch a fair bit of daytime TV and these days that’s nearly all streaming as I can darned near recite the dialogue in all the incessant reruns of the same shows that plays on cable during the day!



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Not like - can’t actually sort the guide. Not a big deal, but it would be nice. I can’t figure out how they have it sorted, just seems a bit willy-nilly!

In the iPhone app, click you icon in the upper right to go into your account. Click settings. Click live guide. From there you can hide channels and drag and drop them into your preferred order. This persists across everywhere you log in to YTTV, so the guide is in the same order everywhere.

This can be done on the web site, but I find it easier on the iPhone, but haven't tried it on the web in a while, so it may be better there now.


Not like - just 2 hours of grid guide.

There should be a two week guide on the web site. I think it's easier to scroll that far in advance in the web page on a laptop, and doing so doesn't interrupt viewing or annoy the wife. She can look for what she want independently if she wants.


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Not sure whats going on. The last few days my 4k Fire Stick is losing audio if I switch inputs and come back. I have to reboot it or change the audio setting and refresh to get it back and now YoutubeTV dvr is having some glitches in the video right before it goes to a commercial and when I skip forward the ad info icon stays up in the left corner once the show is back on.
 
Just to piggyback on and clarify some of the responses above . . .
Not like - just 2 hours of grid guide. Seems odd but then the search is unbelievably good and the ‘home’ showings make up for that a bit. Still would prefer at least a week of grid guide, but could live with this.

I'm not sure about ATV, but on both my Roku and FireTV devices, the grid guide goes out to eight hours. As touched on above, you can select the channel icon in the live guide or if you arrow down in live TV to get the next 24 hours for that channel. On PC, you can scroll ahead up to 7 days.

Like - unlimited DVR! And trick play for most it seems, though not all.

I'm not sure what you mean by "trick play," but the controls for DVR recordings are the same for every recording. You may have selected a VOD version of a show, which prevents you from fast-forwarding through commercial blocks. (If there are little yellow tick marks in the progress bar, it's the VOD version of a show.)
Not like - can’t actually sort the guide. Not a big deal, but it would be nice. I can’t figure out how they have it sorted, just seems a bit willy-nilly!
The default guide sorts channels by category: locals, sports, news, kids, etc. But some channels don't fit into a neat category (e.g., TNT, TBS), hence the willy-nilly effect. Not to mention, the order of the categories seems willy-nilly.

Yes, you can edit on a tablet, phone or PC, but it is awkward IMO. Just can’t do a simple alphabetic sort, you have to manually move channels up/down one at a time.

This was well covered in the other comments, but I just wanted to add, speaking as someone who has never put together a music playlist because I can't think of a bigger waste of my time, customizing the YTTV channel list takes about 20 minutes. And assuming you watch TV almost every day, it's well worth the time. But for a trial, I can see where you wouldn't want to go to the trouble.

The price seems fair for what is provided and it all seems to work quite well on my AppleTV. And since there is also an app for the Xbox One, all audio would be faked Atmos, which is a big plus!
From what I've heard, ATV and Xbox One offer the best app experience for YouTube TV.
 
I haven’t looked at it on the Xbox One yet, but I assume it will be as good as ATV, but with the addition of the faked Atmos I get from the Dolby Experience app on it. I’ll check that sometime today.




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Just to piggyback on and clarify some of the responses above . . .

I'm not sure what you mean by "trick play," but the controls for DVR recordings are the same for every recording. You may have selected a VOD version of a show, which prevents you from fast-forwarding through commercial blocks. (If there are little yellow tick marks in the progress bar, it's the VOD version of a show.)

From what I've heard, ATV and Xbox One offer the best app experience for YouTube TV.

Trick play is the skipping and such. Just played last night’s Magicians that was recorded. No skipping and I wouldn’t have thought that would have been a VOD since it was just last night. So I’m convinced trick play is hit or miss until proven wrong! :)

Installed YTTV on my Xbox One. Video very good but not quite as good as the ATV. But audio is much better as I expected it to be. On the Xbox One with the Dolby Experience app running in the background, audio that is at least 5.1 gets a faked Atmos effect which is excellent.


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Trick play is the skipping and such. Just played last night’s Magicians that was recorded. No skipping and I wouldn’t have thought that would have been a VOD since it was just last night. So I’m convinced trick play is hit or miss until proven wrong! :)

Installed YTTV on my Xbox One. Video very good but not quite as good as the ATV. But audio is much better as I expected it to be. On the Xbox One with the Dolby Experience app running in the background, audio that is at least 5.1 gets a faked Atmos effect which is excellent.


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Id check your recording. Often in the past it would default to the VOD version if it exists, and you had to choose the DVR version. If it isnt letting you skip, I would wager that is what occurred. The latest update deal with CBS fixed the only channels where you were forced to use the VOD version if I am not mistaken.
 
This thread seems to be turning into more of a "How to use Youtube TV" or "Common Youtube TV problems" thread. Could we start another thread with just Youtube TV announcements? As a subscriber, I like getting announcements about the service. But this thread is kinda moving away from that.
 
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