Anyone have Youtube TV?
What do you like/dislike about it? Would you recommend Youtube TV?
Wife and I are considering cutting the cord.

ForeverAg said:

---

I want to be the first person to tell you, there are absolutely 0 topics about this on TexAgs. I don't care what the search function tells you, it's all a lie!!!!

---

So that's a no on the recomendation?
No specific negatives?

Dr. Horrible said:

---

Only downside is they keep increasing the price.

---

Truth!

Switched to yttv over year ago. Went from 40 to 45 to now 60 bucks during that time!
They keep adding crap channels to justify...just like cable did.
It is the best out there if your fine with that price. The ones that are cheaper are good but all of them have 1 or 2 things that don't quite stack up.
We're testing out other options right now.

If there's one group who has the cash to handle doing a la carte tv it's google...doubt they do it

aTm2004 said:

---

YTTV is generally the universal best choice for streaming. I've had it for about a year and love it. Had PSVue at first but switched to this when Sony shut down Vue. IMO, YTTV is much better and worth the hype. My dad had Hulu Live and switched to YTTV after using it when he was over one day.

---

Seconded. I tried a few alternatives during our recent non-sports season that were ok (Sling was the best of that group) but for offerings and interface YouTubeTV is head and shoulders above the rest.

trip98 said:

---

If there's one group who has the cash to handle doing a la carte tv it's google...doubt they do it

---

The problem with this is that the way the industry and channels operate you probably wouldn't come out ahead. Most channels are also owned by a few big corps who don't have any incentive to sell you individual channels as that would just kill off the smaller networks and give them less content to produce.

As you mentioned Google might have the leverage to go in an a la carte direction, but if you end up paying $5-10 per month to 10 channels you want we're back in the same place we started in.

IMO the play is for individual networks to offer their full catalogs via a streaming app that's disconnected fro your cable sub and available for an $X per month fee. I don't think most networks would see a lot of success with it, but I can see a world where Food Network, Discovery, and a few others have success with that kind of model.

Without recreating the wheel, this thread might help you decide!

https://texags.com/forums/25/topics/3135120/replies/57300115

We had it and really liked it. But considering it's now almost $70/month, we were paying less for cable when it was bundled with internet.

Plus when the grandparents came to visit, I always had to do a 30 minute tutorial on how to use YTTV on the AppleTV.

One feature I like is that you can put your subscription on hold for up to 6 months. I only keep it during football season and it kept my settings while I was away.

Picard said:

---

YouTube IS Google you maroons!

---

Actually, they own YouTube. But we know.

Next time I'll explicitly spell out "what Google could do with YouTubeTV".

Its worth it. There's a bit of a learning curve and I still miss channel numbers, but even with the increased costs lately cable cant come close when you factor in unlimited DVR space and HD for all your TVs.

IceAg08 said:

---

Its worth it. There's a bit of a learning curve and I still miss channel numbers, but even with the increased costs lately cable cant come close when you factor in unlimited DVR space and HD for all your TVs.

---

This is my biggest thing with telling DTV to take a hike. I live in an area where Suddensuck has a monopoly, so it's their crappy service or one of the dish providers. With all of them, I have to pay each month for a receiver to use, and if I want to have a 2nd or 3rd, I have to pay a monthly fee for a receiver/card to use. With streaming, I can use the native app on a smart tv, or buy a Roku/FireTV/Chromecast for ~$50 and be done with it. I can outfit my entire house for less than I was paying DTV for 2 HD receivers each year.

I think I'm gonna sign up for Sling today just to watch Aggie sports. It looks cheaper than Youtube and has everything I need.

It seems many have buffering issues with Sling. May want to read up on that.

I think I'd mostly just use the espn app anyway, just need the sling credentials

Why not just ask a relative for their login then and get yourself an antenna?

All my relatives are dead

J/k, that's probably a better idea but I don't like mooching if I can help it

It's not a mooch if they don't use it. Also, if they've ever come over and drank your booze or borrowed something of yours, it's settling up.

Thanks for the input.

I like YouTubeTV the best of all the streaming platforms. I believe they still offer free trials. Download and see if you like it

fig96 said:

---

trip98 said:

---

If there's one group who has the cash to handle doing a la carte tv it's google...doubt they do it

---

The problem with this is that the way the industry and channels operate you probably wouldn't come out ahead. Most channels are also owned by a few big corps who don't have any incentive to sell you individual channels as that would just kill off the smaller networks and give them less content to produce.

As you mentioned Google might have the leverage to go in an a la carte direction, but if you end up paying $5-10 per month to 10 channels you want we're back in the same place we started in.

IMO the play is for individual networks to offer their full catalogs via a streaming app that's disconnected fro your cable sub and available for an $X per month fee. I don't think most networks would see a lot of success with it, but I can see a world where Food Network, Discovery, and a few others have success with that kind of model.

---

I like the thoughts and discussion...a few of my own..
First you're assuming $5 to $10 per channel...who knows if it's that high. And we really only need 5 to 7 in our house so at $8 per that's a win especially at the rate yttv is raising prices
Second, if networks are worried about that and it being less content for a channel that doesn't get selected much well they just quit producing that crappy content and save costs. Nobody is FORCING them to produce the content. They are doing it and forcing it on the providers and jacking up their cost to providers to profit

It's literally flipping the situation on its head where consumers are telling content producers what they want via their $$$ instead of being force fed
If there's a group that can do it it's google...or I guess we need to be clear enough for the folks who think they are smartest in the room....its google who clearly owns yttv and it's parent company alphabet
For the record we switched to fubo for now....if I'm gonna pay 60 per month I want all the sports I can get And less of the bullcrap soap opera drama "reality" tv channels

Fair points, and I definitely find this discussion interesting.

Price per channel is an interesting discussion, definitely fair to assume that the lower end channels wouldn't demand that. I'd guess that we'd probably end up in a bundling sort of situation (7 bucks a month for TLC, Discovery, Science, etc.) which could again potentially make it a pointless exercise.

I think for it to work the networks would have to either see the value in unbundling or be forced by someone with enough leverage. The problem there is that, even with Google or another massive corp, there's so much interconnection between services, networks, providers, infrastructure, etc., that I'd question if they'd see much value in throwing their weight around over the issue.

Your sports comment hits on what would really be the ideal candidate: ESPN. Providers pay somewhere around 10 bucks per month for the top few ESPN networks, a bundle of something like all the ESPN properties with Disney+ included for like 20 bucks a month would make a killing. If I knew I could do that to get every game across multiple leagues and spend maybe another 10 bucks a month on Food Network and a few miscellaneous channels I'd be more than happy.

Fox regional channels have been dropped

Leander - Ag said:

---

Fox regional channels have been dropped

---

No baseball, basketball, or hockey. Not sure if they carry any big xii stuff but don't care anyway. Hard for youtube to care. We'll see if the two sides have any luck when, hopefully, the leagues get back to a typical schedule next year.

Google isn't going to steer the market to an a la carte model, with YTTV they have a vested interested in preventing that. An a la carte model means instead of subscribing to YTTV you subscribe to:

CBS All Access
ESPN Complete (Made up service for ESPN eventually getting out of the cable bundle and selling everything direct to consumer)
Peacock
Disney+
Viacom Direct (again, a made up service)
etc.

That's a la carte, subscribing to what you want to watch directly through the provider. Google isn't ever going to encourage that model as it's a money loser for them. YTTV is a cable bundle just like we all bought from the cable company for 20+ years. Hell if you had TV from your cable provider and now you have YTTV the signal is still being delivered over the exact same cable. What's holding that model together is ESPN. As soon they are able to make the leap to a direct to subscriber model YTTV dies.

YTTV is fine as service. Nothing revolutionary, but it used to be cheap. Recent price increases make it much less attractive. The only reason I haven't dropped it yet is because the wife feels like we have to have some sort of live TV, even though we haven't watched anything live in over a year. I'm considering just cancelling and seeing if she notices.

I just signed up for YTTV for the new Google Chromecast. I'll cancel after a month unless I love it.

AustinAg2K said:

---

YTTV is fine as service. Nothing revolutionary, but it used to be cheap. Recent price increases make it much less attractive. The only reason I haven't dropped it yet is because the wife feels like we have to have some sort of live TV, even though we haven't watched anything live in over a year. I'm considering just cancelling and seeing if she notices.

---

This. YTTV is the perfect wife streaming service. Yes sling is less than half the cost, but then you have to teach her how to switch over to antenna for local channels and im telling you 95% of the time thats a dealbreaker. Sucks that they keep jacking price up into almost cable territory.