SlingTV or YouTube TV?
 

I'm tired of getting screwed over by cable and satellite companies, so I'm looking for cheaper options to watch the Royals this year.

Last year I had SlingTV. I enjoyed that, except for that it's always about 30 seconds behind live TV and tends to lag and crash once in a while.

I'm looking into YouTube TV. Does anybody have any experience using this to watch the Royals? Their channel lineup says they have "Fox Sports," but I'm not sure if that specifically includes FSKC (I live about 3 hours from KC). I also noticed they have DVR, which is a feature SlingTV did not have last I checked.

I'm also wondering if YouTube TV is actually live, or if it's delayed like Sling. It was frustrating because people would text me about a play 30 seconds before it happened on my screen. I eventually had to tell all my friends not to text me about live action cause I was always behind.

I use my Bros HuluTV it's pretty dope

You may get the Cards feed....

you tube tv as in free dvr to record stuff.

Yeah, that's what I'm wondering. I'm in Springfield, so that's the primary Fox Sports channel here. I know SlingTV has both the Royals and Cardinals stations.

It live so you wont lag too behind.

I wasn't even aware that that was a thing. I'm looking at their channel lineup and it says they have "Fox Sports" and "Fox Sports Plus." I wonder if that means KC and STL games would both be available.

It gives you the channels relevant to your location. If you get Royals games on local cable in Springfield, then you'll likely get it on Youtube TV.

I've had both, and I think Youtube TV blows Sling out of the water.

I just canceled Sling TV today because I just don't watch TV all that much.

But Youtube TV doesn't carry NFLN?

porn

Why specifically do you think it blows Sling out of the water?

No NFLN. Just about everything else though...

ESPN
ESPN2
ESPNU
ESPN News
SEC Network
FS1
FS2
FS KC
FS KC Plus
NBC SN
NBA TV
MLB Network
BTN
CBS Sports Network
Golf Channel
Olympic Channel
Tennis Channel

But no NFLN.

I just did the 7-day free trial for YouTube TV and it does have the Royals games on the upcoming schedule for Fox Sports. That's encouraging.

The navigation. The previews. The unlimited DVR. The channel selection. The video quality. The performance reliability. All was better than Sling TV.

YouTube TV is incredible. Cannot recommend highly enough.

You can watch the games live on your phone/tablet/laptop as well. And you have an unlimited DVR.

What do you run it on? We've got Fire TV and I know that you can't use it.

Mine runs on Xbox, our iPhones and Macbooks too.

I may look into Youtube TV then. Hadn't considered it before, but some of those channels are things I'd watch, if nothing else for the Royals games.

Let me know what you think Thurman.

I have a Mac Mini connected to my TV. Also run it on iPad, Android, Windows.

There's workarounds for watching it on Fire TV.

Got a link to that last sentence?

Honestly - don't know anything about You Tube TV but we are on on Son's Sling account and it does just fine. Unfortunately, you have to watch everything "live" - but other than that, it's great!

Also... you can share a Youtube TV subscription with 5 other people in your "Family." Just type in someone's email address(tied to a Youtube account) in your "Family" settings and they get access too, with their own separate DVR. Share the costs with your "Family..."

This

I love youtubetv

Okay, so I'm testing out YouTube TV with the free trial now. I downloaded it on my Roku. I called a buddy and had him turn to the same channel I was watching. It was about 20 seconds behind him.

Then I tried watching it on my computer and it was about 10 seconds behind him and 10 seconds ahead of my Roku.

Any thoughts on this? Is my internet just not fast enough? Is my Roku not fancy enough? I just have the basic cheap one, I think.

Streaming cable is gonna have a delay, mang. Heck, Uverse had one too when I had it.

Seems like in 2018 they should have figured out a way to get things broadcast in real time.

https://forum.xda-developers.com/fir...v-apk-t3614016

It looks like the current workaround is using the Silk web browser along with a mouse.

You conveniently left off the price. :)

It's kind of the nature of streaming. It will likely never be completely live, though as bandwidth gets higher and higher, it should theoretically get a little closer than it is now.

Sling TV was trash for me. Constantly buffering. I will gladly pay extra for YouTube TV

Must depend on the setup. I've had it for 3 years now, and it's great. For half the price of YouTube TV, it works for me.

No, I didn't. I was paying the exact same price to get everything I wanted to see on Sling. Blue and Orange packages together is $35. One or the other was not sufficient for me. And even with both, I still couldn't get the regular NBC channel. Or all Royals games because the Fox Sports channel wasn't the KC based one. No DVR was a huge difference too.

Yeah, I'm grandfathered in to the DVR for free, so I'm a little biased in that regard. And as you say, it just depends on what channels you watch. The $20/month Orange package takes care of everything I ever watch.

Not to mention slingTV the layout is a abortion. Navigating to find anything is such a pain. I dont know about Youtube I might do the trial.

Do these streaming services provide local channels based on billing address or physical location?

Based on billing location. But it will also use location services too, and there is supposedly some content that will say unavailable if you're playing from outside the actual location. You can easily turn location services off to prevent that. I've never seen the unavailable content when away from KC, but one of my "Family" members has.

Hmmmmmm. Seems like a potential workaround to avoid needing sunday ticket (if you know somebody in the area and have them bill it under their name)???

how much does each cost? Major pros and cons? ...been thinking of making a switch myself...paying $150/month cable.

YouTube TV is $40/mo. Sling has different packages that are $20, $25, or $40, depending on which channels you get.

Yeah, absolutely. For local sports it kicks ass. You're guaranteed every Chiefs/Royals/Jayhawks/Wildcats/Blues/Some Mizzou games. You just add the team itself to the DVR system, and it will auto record every time it's on TV, which covers every potential channel it could be on. As well as any other sporting event that is televised locally. I used to pay $40 for NFL Rewind. But now I get that plus everything else I want to watch in Youtube TV. Also slowly building a movie library of movies I like, that can be watched any time.

HmmmMMMMM inteERerStingINg

Youtube TV. Most markets now are showing live local channels. Local channels will match where you location services are. I live in Spfld. Visited family in KC a couple weekends ago and the local channels (on phone) changed to match KC.

IMO the DVR is the best of all the streaming services. I have tried them all. Unlimited storage, saved for 9 months.

You can pause/resume live shows, skip commercials on recordings (unless it has be made available for on demand viewing).

You have six google accts tied to one Youtube TV acct. They allow 3 active streams at one time. My brother and I share the cost. TV for 17.50... yeah!

Edit...
You can also set DVR for a specific teams, or some "leagues" (i.e. PGA, UFC, NHRA, NASCAR, etc). It will record all "games" for that team or league.

Go get yourself an Amazon Firestick. Load KODI on it - pay $10 for 90 days of Real Debrid and you should be good. I've been using it for years and stream sports, live TV, first run movies, and every nearly every show to ever exist. No buffering. Can pause. NO DVR, but works for me.

Another streaming option that I found a few weeks ago is Directv Now. It looked better than Sling to me, but I haven't tried it out as of yet.

I gotta say, though, that YoutubeTV looks really good. I may have to try that once my Directv contract expires.

A lot of that has changed over the last year or two.

The Fox package includes about 4 or 5 local FOX channels (beyond Fox Sports Midwest). Fox Sports KC is one of them, and I frequently see Cincinnati Reds and some other games too. While it's not nationwide, we aren't stuck with the "Midwest" (STL) version.

And Sling has DVR for $5/month.

Also, unlike Sling TV which wants you to buy a more expensive package to allow more than one user to watch TV at a time, YouTube says that its service will allow up to six people in the family to access the service and will allow up to three of them tune into the service simultaneously on the same account – a big advantage when you’re looking to replace cable and you have a big family.

The other thing we know about YouTube TV is its price: $35 a month. For comparison, that’s slightly more expensive than Sling TV’s basic $20-per-month package and a few dollars less than PlayStation Vue’s basic $39 package that includes local stations like CBS, NBC, etc…

Cut to the chase
What is YouTube TV? A live TV streaming service like Sling TV
When is it coming out? It's available right now!
How much will it cost? $35 per month, unless you get an add-on package
Where can you watch it? Anywhere in the 83 US markets where it's available


Cloud DVR, if you've never heard that term before, allows you to record your favorite shows as they air and save them, well, to the cloud so that you can watch them later. It’s TiVo, but everything’s online. YouTube TV promises unlimited storage for shows for up to nine months – a serious advantage over the competition which usually only offer 28 days of storage.


Much more here:
https://www.techradar.com/news/youtu...eaming-service

Personally, Sling works for me because I only use it for a few specific things and can keep the cost down by switching around. Getting 99% of the sports I need and movie channels for $30-50 isn't a bad deal.

In the summer and fall use Fox (for Royals), winter go to ESPN (for college hoops). Alternate the movie channels every month or so, when their selection gets stale. If need be, ditch the movie channels for the RedZone during football season.

Hulu and Netflix for everything else.

I had Sling all last year. It didn't carry all the Royals games. Which was one of the main reasons I'm paying for any streaming at all. In addition, if you wanted both ESPN and FSN, you have to get both the orange and blue packages. Add in the DVR, and the price is now higher than Youtube TV. And I still didn't get NBC, which isn't reliably available on my OTA antenna either.

YouTube TV.

And it’s not even close.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see a single reason to have ESPN when it isn't college basketball season. Sunday night baseball? Maybe 30 for 30, but those end up on Netflix eventually.


But yeah, it's all about what works for you. Sling just fits my personal needs, and I haven't tried YTTV to even comment on it.

I have Youtube TV and generally like it, but...

You can only watch a DVR game after the game is over. If it is the start of the second half, you can start watching it live or you have to wait until a few minutes after the game is over to watch from the start. The good news is that you can check and see if the DVR will work without getting any spoilers.

I use the DVR a lot using the Chrome browser on my desktop to skip commercials. Especially on ESPN channels, it will occasionally lock up when I try to skip forward. It is pretty easy to refresh the page and get back to where I was, but a minor annoyance. I have this on two difference computers but I haven't seen reports of other people having this problem.

As you slide the bar forward to skip commercials, you get a thumbnail preview of the video which makes it easier to see how far to go.

I don't believe that is correct. I've never seen that before, and I've recorded tons of games. If you've clicked the "+" button to record the game before the game has aired, then you can absolutely start from the beginning, or anywhere you choose. I've done that countless times. If you click the record button while the game is already in progress, you'll likely see the behavior you've described. But not if you set it to record before game time.

That article's a bit out of date, so a few minor quibbles just for the record:

-YouTube TV is $40/month these days
-You can watch up to 3 streams simultaneously on Sling if you're on Blue, but it's restricted to 1 stream on Orange.
-Sling's DVR costs $5/month for 50 hours, but there's no time restriction for how long you can keep them. You can't use it on all the ESPN channels, though - not sure if that's the case of YouTube TV or not.

Thanks Face. I saw it was posted 2 days ago so assumed it was current. Apologies to all.

Absolutely LOVE Sling TV! Great lineup and no issues streaming. Really no other ‘live TV’ comparison on the market (DTV Now blows). And the 7 day free trial is a great way to see if you like it.

I've used about all of them, except for YTtv.

Here's a list of the worthy ones:
Vue (their geological, billing systems are like shoving a rusty hot needle up your dickhole though)

Not worthy:
The rest

Caught this yesterday, it got a chuckle outta me... 'what are you doing?'

<div style="position:relative;width:100%;padding-top:56.25%;padding-bottom:40px;"><iframe style="position:absolute;top:0;right:0;left:0;bottom:0;width:100%;height:100%;" src="https://www.ispot.tv/share/wQUK" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>

YouTube TV Navigation:
Three main sections across the top of the screen and a search icon
Section 1: Library - all your recorded content
Section 2: Home - recommendation, resume shows you had started, on demand content
Section 3: Live - A channel guide you scroll through, customization to organize or remove channels from showing (on phone, not sure about other platforms)
Search is fairly robust, you can search sports teams, leagues, actors, shows, networks, even shows on local channels.

I suspect it's one of those sites that's constantly updating minor things in their articles and the date is from whatever most recent update there has been (regardless of the fact that they didn't actually dig into all of the facts recently).

https://www.setvnow.com

has anyone tried this?

I may have to try the free trial of that. It looks pretty ****ing good.

I think i will too, it has a lot of stuff

Something seems off about that. Too good to be true


Yep...
https://flixed.io/set-tv-not-legitimate/

You can only watch a DVR game after the game is over. If it is the start of the second half, you can start watching it live or you have to wait until a few minutes after the game is over to watch from the start. The good news is that you can check and see if the DVR will work without getting any spoilers.


Man, I want the version of YouTube TV that you have. It seems much better than the version I have. :(

From:

https://support.google.com/youtubetv..._topic=7128555



For every college basketball game that I have recorded and tried to watch, it does not get added to my "recently recorded" list until a few minutes after the game is over. If I go down and find the actual event/team name, it says "live" and clicking there does indeed bring up a live version.

When I click on something that is currently recording, it asks me if I want to watch from the beginning or start where it currently is.

I'm not sure what to tell you. Myself and others have done many times what you're saying you can't do. For anything I've recorded, it always asks me whether I want to start from the beginning or Live.

The screenshot you've attached deals with commercials being included or not. Even then, you can start from the beginning and skip past commercials.

Did you set the Royals game to record? Try it and see.

nice find man thanks

I've not tried any Royals games.

But if this is just operator error on my part, that would be great.

So if the game is in progress, where does it show up in the Library? Do you see it in your recently recorded library list while it is still in progress? Because I don't see it there until a few minutes after the game ends. Scrolling further down where I see the team/game live in progress: I only tried clicking there once but it definitely did not ask whether I wanted to watch live or start the recording, it just immediately went live.

No, it doesn't actually show up in the Library until after the episode is over. But that's by design and it doesn't mean you can't watch it yet. If you go to Live and click on the game, it will then ask you whether you want to start from beginning or live. As long as you clicked to record before the game started.

If you click record while a game is already in progress, it will allow you to skip back only as far as the point you began recording. Immediately after it's over, you can then start from the beginning.

Test it out with the Indians vs. Mariners game tonight at 9pm. Set it to record now before it starts, and see what happens.

FYI, I tested it out myself with the Indians vs. Mariners game.

https://i.imgur.com/9hfMW24.png

Should probably move this to media center

So I tried it on an NBA game last night and it worked as you said.

Before signing up, I seem to remember reading a review that, incorrectly, said you couldn't always start the DVR until the game was over, so I was expecting that behavior and didn't investigate anymore when it indeed that appeared to be how it worked.

But even if I shown be idiot, it was well worth it to find this functionality.

Thanks for the patient help. :thumb:

And maybe someday I will figure out what idiot thing I am doing that causes the occasional lockup when skipping forward.

No. This question pertains to the Royals.

Another cool feature I discovered on my free trial of YouTube TV: The games automatically record to the end of the game on DVR. Instead of the typical 3-hour window, the recording of the game yesterday is 3 hours and 55 minutes.

:toast:

Glad it worked for you.

I'm not sure what browser you're using. But I'm using Chrome. I've never had the lockup issue when skipping forward. Maybe update your browser and/or Flash and java.

Shit.

Just signed up for free trial. About 1/3 of the channels took so long to buffer I gave up and went to another one. At $20/month it appears you get what you pay for.

Just finished my 7 day trial youtube tv and really like except for no NFL Network. I will probably cancel Sling after the NFL Draft and go Youtube and hope they pick up NFL channel. I experienced no buffering at all but neither do I on Sling. Navigating channels is better than sling but still not Tivo worthy wish they could follow Tivo's model.

Has anyone tried Philo?

I think I'm going to get YouTubeTV. The selling point of it over Direct TV Now for me appears to be you can stream 6 TV's simultaneously at a time compared to 3 at DirectTVNow. I want to use it between a house in Shawnee and a house in Olathe. Will I have any problems doing that?