What is YouTube TV? Since we are cutting the cord, we decided to try the much cheaper YouTube TV. When you compare the streaming TV services like DirectTV Now and Youtube TV, you really have to make a personal decision.
YouTube TV in general has more sports channels than the other guys, at least in the cheaper versions. For each one of them, you can pay more and get more channels.
You can play YouTube TV anywhere these days. It’s great to play on your phone when you are traveling about town. But you can also play it on the Roku or the Apple TV. It’s pretty widely available. All you need is an internet connection. It’s great for smart tvs, like this one.
As with any TV streaming, you’ll probably want some decent speed to your internet connection. Companies like Spectrum all offer 300 mb download speeds mostly anywhere. In some areas, you can get 1gb speeds, which are awesome.
The video quality is good. It’s full HD, although it will degrade if your internet speed dips too low. That can be a little annoying, but it’s not really the fault of YouTube and will happen with any streaming TV service.
The layout of the program guide works pretty well and is actually customizable. You can bring your favorite channels to the top of the list. The one thing is that I have had difficulty finding the program summary/info. So it’s hard to know if you want to watch something until you click on it.
Does YouTube TV ever go down?
This is very important, because we all take for granted that our cable tv will work. But how about these streaming TV services? Will they work during the Superbowl? Or when you were interviewed by that guy on the news? You know you don’t want any outages at those important TV watching times.
I actually did experience an outage for YouTube TV a week or two ago. I was really surprised when it hit. I figured there was a problem with my internet or something. However, my internet was fine. So I used my phone to lookup the outage and sure enough it was ongoing. It didn’t last very long, but it still put some doubt in my head.
Overall, however, I think these services have a pretty good record of uptime. They seem to be pretty reliable.
A Personal Choice
In the end, which streaming TV service you choose really depends on what you like to watch. YouTube TV has clearly positioned itself as the leader in streaming sports. ESPN for example is available at a low subscription price. But if you can’t sacrifice HGTV, then you can always look at a more extensive plan.
If you are interested in the TV streaming services, make sure you check out a decent smart TV to go with it. They are really incredible these days.