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YouTube TV Logo
Google's excellent cable alternative
9.2 / 10  Review Rating

YouTube TV is changing, in both good and bad ways. While YouTube TV’s channel lineup is expanding, its price has steadily been increasing as well. In this review, I remembered why I was so impressed with it in the first place: It's an impressive and well-rounded live TV solution. It may eat into your savings a bit, but it also makes it painless to make the cord-cutting jump in the first place. That all said, let's take a closer look at YouTube TV together in this review.

YouTube TV Pros and Cons

Pros

  • One of the most complete channel lineups in live TV streaming
  • 1080p streaming available for some platforms and channels
  • Simple and smart menus and organization
  • Impressive DVR features

Cons

  • Loading issues sometimes interrupt streaming.
  • Comprehensive live TV coverage doesn’t come cheap.
  • It can’t always match the competition in regional sports network (RSN) coverage.

5 Reasons to Choose YouTube TV

  1. You want live TV with no contract.
  2. You’re looking to save more money than you would with cable.
  3. You’re looking for a simple, user-friendly approach.
  4. You don’t care about regional sports networks. (YouTube TV has recently lost a few!)
  5. You’re a fan of Alphabet (Google) and its products.

What You Can Watch on YouTube TV

There’s one thing we should get out of the way right off: YouTube TV is not the same thing as regular YouTube. Alphabet has used the YouTube brand for this service, and there are some limited YouTube connections to be found here (like the fact that YouTube Originals are available on YouTube TV), but YouTube TV is ultimately a fundamentally different service from YouTube. On YouTube, you can watch cat videos (and also CordCutting.com videos!); on YouTube TV, you can watch live TV channels in pretty much the same way you would with cable or satellite.

I approached YouTube TV expecting the same sorts of channels as I got with its competitors, like fuboTV and Sling TV, and I was very pleased. YouTube TV has all of my old cable-TV favorites, including AMC, ESPN, and HGTV.

And, unlike some of its biggest competitors, YouTube TV doesn’t have any obvious holes in its national channel lineup. Some live TV streaming services are missing Viacom channels — like Comedy Central, MTV, and VH1 — but YouTube TV isn’t. Other competitors are missing Turner networks — like CNN and TBS — but YouTube TV isn’t. Others are missing local feeds of the major networks (ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC) in most markets, but YouTube TV isn’t.

All of this means that YouTube TV has a channel lineup that looks an awful lot like those of its competitors, but with slight differences that just about always favor YouTube TV. To be fair, most competitors have only small holes in their channel lineups (few services are missing Viacom networks, Turner networks, and the major networks), but YouTube TV has virtually no omissions. I was pretty darn impressed by this.

As of this writing, YouTube TV’s channel count stands at more than 100. That compares favorably with its competitors, though it’s worth noting that fuboTV and DIRECTV both offer more channels than YouTube TV. In terms of familiar fan-favorite networks, however, YouTube TV feels as complete as any of its competitors.

I review a lot of these services, so I have a lot of live TV apps on my devices. I’ve grown used to hopping from service to service depending on what I want to watch. For example, I might watch CBS on fuboTV for a while and then switch to Sling TV to watch CNN, because Sling TV doesn’t have CBS and fuboTV doesn’t have CNN. But YouTube TV has both, and as I worked on this review, I found myself using YouTube TV more and more often even after I finished work for the day. It was just easier to use YouTube TV because I didn’t have to worry about which channels I could watch on which service; YouTube TV seemed to have them all. More than most of its competitors, YouTube TV is a “one-stop shop” for live TV.

There’s one major caveat to this, though, and that’s sports — specifically, regional sports. Regional sports networks (RSNs) are the sorts of channels that are home to your local baseball, hockey, and basketball teams. You know the type: We’re talking about channels like NBC Sports Bay Area, Fox Sports Midwest, and so on.

YouTube TV’s primary problem is that, as of this writing, it’s missing some key RSNs. YouTube TV has a history of losing out on the Bally Sports (formerly Fox Sports) channels, and it’s also missing some well-known individual RSNs, like New York’s YES and SNY.

Youtube TV DVR Library
Saved “recordings” in my YouTube TV library. This screenshot was taken on iOS

YouTube TV’s live TV is by far the best reason to subscribe to the service, but — like other live TV streaming services — it also offers on-demand content. Just like a lot of other services I’ve reviewed, YouTube TV seems to rely on recently aired content for its free on-demand content. I think this sort of on-demand content is a great perk, but don’t confuse it for a true on-demand library of the sort you’d find on a service like Netflix. Since YouTube TV is grabbing content from TV channels, its free on-demand library delivers the edited-for-TV versions of movies, not the theatrical versions.

Youtube TV - Rent or Buy your Favorite Movies
YouTube TV allowed me to rent or buy movies through its Fire TV app

If you do want to watch the uncut versions of movies, YouTube TV has a solution for that: The service also includes access to movie rentals and purchases from YouTube. I’m not inclined to give YouTube TV a ton of credit for this, since I could just as easily watch fuboTV or Sling TV and then go pay for rentals and purchases on Amazon, iTunes, or Vudu. Still, I suppose it’s nice to have both the live TV option and the video rental marketplace in one app.

Youtube TV - Recorded Movie in your Library
A look at one on-demand option as seen in the YouTube TV app for Fire TV

Finally, I should mention the YouTube Originals. These on-demand original series and movies are one of the few areas where YouTube TV seems connected to the “regular” YouTube brand. I watched a handful of episodes and portions of a couple of movies while testing this service, and I was reasonably impressed. Some of the YouTube originals wouldn’t look too out of place on regular old (free) YouTube. The episode of “BookTube” that I watched, for example, featured a podcast-style remote video interview and discussion. Only the production quality kept it from feeling like typical YouTube fare (which, to be clear, I don’t think is a bad thing — I watch a fair bit of YouTube myself).

Youtube TV Originals
Checking out YouTube Originals on the YouTube TV app for Fire TV

Other YouTube originals felt more like “regular” films. I felt that the documentary and discussion-style pieces tended to work better, largely because the low production budgets were far less noticeable than with the dramas and comedies. Of the originals I saw, my favorite was “The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash,” a biographical documentary of the country music legend that was both straightforward (think PBS or Ken Burns, not “Rolling Thunder Revue“) and very moving.

Based on the handful of episodes and movies I watched, my takeaway was that these extra on-demand options were pleasant additions but not game changers. In my view, they certainly didn’t measure up to the on-demand originals offered by competitor Hulu (Hulu’s live TV streaming subscription, Hulu + Live TV, includes the regular on-demand version of Hulu and all of the Hulu originals); there’s nothing here as good as “Palm Springs” (2020) or “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Still, I think the YouTube originals added something to YouTube TV — a little something, but something nonetheless.

How It Felt to Use YouTube TV

I was very impressed by the YouTube TV user experience. Of all of the services I’ve tried, YouTube TV has arguably the best and most straightforward system for organizing content. It’s a minimalist approach, and it has its downsides; there weren’t too many ways to sort and sift through content myself on the app’s home screen (though there were some buttons for categories on the web app if I scrolled down enough), so my on-demand content discovery was largely left up to YouTube TV’s choices of categories and mini-menus. But YouTube’s choices and groupings were pretty intuitive; I usually didn’t have to scroll far to find favorite shows, previously watched favorites, or live sports options.

Youtube TV and Sports
Lots of things I could watch, as they appeared in YouTube TV’s web app

And when I did want to take a bit more control, that wasn’t too tough to do. The sorting options that were largely missing from the home screen were readily available on the “Live” tab, which worked like a TV guide. It was easy to slim down the TV guide’s list to just news or sports programming, and selecting things to watch or record was a breeze.

Youtube TV Guide
YouTube TV’s channel guide as seen in its Fire TV app

Speaking of recording programs, YouTube TV offered a really nice cloud DVR feature. As always with cloud DVRs, this feature lived online. My recordings weren’t saved online, so I could stream them from any device (even if I didn’t use that device to schedule the recording). As with plenty of other services like this, YouTube TV only barely pretends its cloud DVR is really a DVR. When I selected previously aired programs to “record,” they were instantly added to my watchlist (since there was no actual recording going on, I didn’t have to wait for reruns to air). In this sense, the DVR behaves more like a bookmark system for on-demand content.

There’s a flip side of this, though: If a cloud DVR “recording” is actually just a bookmark on a piece of on-demand content, what does that mean when the content leaves YouTube TV’s platform? There’s good news on this front: YouTube TV saves cloud DVR “recordings” to your library for up to nine months. I was really impressed by this. Some other services that take YouTube TV’s watchlist-style approach to cloud DVRs were quicker to throw out my recordings. On Philo, for example, my saved shows and movies were deleted after 30 days. YouTube TV’s approach was really the best of both worlds because it gave me Philo-style access to unlimited recordings but allowed me to keep my shows for longer, almost as if I’d really acquired a “recording” that was separate from YouTube TV’s on-demand catalog.

YouTube TV’s login system might be the only thing about it that I didn’t find totally intuitive. YouTube TV uses your Google account as a login, which makes sense; Google wants as much as possible in its ecosystem, after all. But this also means that you’re using a Gmail account, which might not be everyone’s cup of tea. I use my Gmail account professionally, and I don’t necessarily want to be logging in to smart TVs and Rokus with the same credentials that I use to access my work files. It also makes sharing login information with friends and family a little difficult, though Google has a workaround for this that I’ll talk about in the next section. All in all, I think this is a pretty minor complaint. It’s not all that tough to just create a new Google account if you’d rather keep your YouTube TV login separate (That’s what I did).

There was one missed opportunity here, in my opinion: YouTube TV doesn’t seem like a perfect use of the YouTube brand. I’m a big fan of YouTube (you know, the regular one), and I have the YouTube app on a lot of my devices. I found myself selecting the wrong YouTube icon surprisingly often, loading YouTube TV when I wanted YouTube, and vice versa. It was a silly little problem, but it kept reminding me that these two services share a name and not much else. Other than the YouTube original series and movies, there wasn’t much connecting the YouTube experience to the YouTube TV experience. I certainly couldn’t hop seamlessly between cat videos and live TV. Maybe Google doesn’t think there are many people who want to do that, but there’s at least one: me!

YouTube TV Features and Streaming Quality

YouTube TV offers some nice quality-of-life features. I already praised the DVR in this YouTube TV review, but let me say it again: I loved YouTube TV’s take on the cloud DVR. YouTube TV gave me the best of the cloud-style DVR by treating my recordings more like bookmarks or a watchlist (I could record as much as I wanted because I wasn’t really recording anything at all) without giving me the downsides, like short-term limits on saved content.

YouTube TV Accounts
Up to six Google accounts can use your YouTube TV subscription, provided you add them to your “family group” (screenshot from YouTube TV’s web app).

YouTube TV also had subscription-sharing options for use within a household. I consider this to be a pretty important feature for YouTube TV in particular, because the service is set up with a Google account, and most of us aren’t super keen on sharing our Gmail passwords with family members or roommates. Happily, it’s pretty easy to add other members to your virtual household. Connected accounts can log on with their own credentials and access the YouTube TV service that you pay for through your account — no password-sharing required.

Let’s talk about picture quality. I’m used to getting a certain level of picture quality out of a live TV streaming service, but YouTube TV exceeded my expectations. Most services like this top out at 720p HD. That’s the sort of “high definition” picture that might have excited me back in 2005, but it has long since been beaten by 1080p HD and, more recently, 4K Ultra HD (the numbers in these terms refer to the number of pixels on the screen: 720p and 1080p have 720 and 1080 rows of pixels down the side of the screen, respectively, while 4K UHD has roughly that many columns of pixels across the width of the screen).

The 720p HD norm makes sense because these services already have to move a lot of data very quickly in order to stream live TV. A service like fuboTV doesn’t have the luxury of preloading lots of data about a video stream the way that Netflix would. You can’t buffer out five minutes ahead on a live TV stream unless you have a time machine!

Somehow, YouTube TV seems immune to the limitations of live TV streaming. Unlike its competitors, it offers 1080p HD streaming. This picture quality isn’t available on every channel or on every device, but the fact that it exists at all is really impressive. I’ve never considered the 720p norm a deal-breaker for live TV streaming, but I was nevertheless thrilled to get the 1080p quality instead.

Picture quality is important, but it’s not the only factor in great streaming. Frame rate matters too. YouTube TV does pretty well here too, thanks to its 60 fps (frames per second) frame rate. That’s more or less the industry standard, though not every streaming service can match it. Having 60 fps is key for watching things like sports, where fewer frames would look more noticeably choppy.

At its 1080p and 60 fps best, YouTube TV was a joy to watch. But I didn’t find the service to be complete without streaming issues. In my trials, my YouTube TV feed occasionally cut out for a moment — presumably to catch up with its buffering — before starting again where it had left off. You won’t miss anything when interrupted like this (the feed is briefly frozen, not playing “behind the scenes” while you miss it), and these incidents were relatively rare (once every few hours or so), but I’d obviously have preferred not to have encountered this issue at all.

Another thing that’s important to remember with services like this is that they operate on a delay. I mentioned earlier that live TV streaming services can’t buffer as much as on-demand services can because the next five minutes of video quite literally don’t exist yet when the feed is live. But these services can buy themselves a bit of breathing room by running on a short delay. This can have minor consequences — for example, I was chatting with my Dad while watching Monday Night Football, and I heard him react to a touchdown before the play even started on my screen.

By and large, this sort of thing comes with the live TV streaming territory, but my testing did find that YouTube TV’s streaming delay was typically a few seconds longer than the delays on fuboTV and Sling TV. There’s a lot of variance at play here (for example, high-traffic times for internet might result in a longer delay), so I don’t assume that my findings are strictly scientific, but they do pass the common-sense test: A longer delay would make sense given that YouTube TV needs to move more data in order to deliver the 1080p HD feed, whereas its competitors are dealing only with 720p streaming.

Youtube TV Homescreen
YouTube TV running on iOS

YouTube TV Platform Support

I can remember a time not so long ago when YouTube TV seemed like it would never arrive on platforms like Fire TV. Thankfully, Google has managed to work some things out with tech rivals like Amazon and Apple, and YouTube TV is now available on every major streaming platform — even Amazon’s Fire TV and Apple’s Apple TV (tvOS).

I’d pit YouTube TV’s platform support against that of any competitor service. Like its biggest rivals, YouTube TV works on all of the platforms and devices we’d recommend, including our two favorites: Roku and Fire TV. This doesn’t necessarily set YouTube TV apart from the competition, but this at least means it keeps pace. I’m giving YouTube TV full marks here.

YouTube TV Value

I thought that YouTube TV’s channel selection was really strong, but that doesn’t automatically make YouTube TV a fantastic value. Philo, for example, is missing a ton of the sports and news channels that YouTube TV has, but it still offers great value because it’s just so darn cheap. YouTube TV has all of these channels, but it’s not exactly cheap.

YouTube TV costs $64.99 per month for the first three months, then the price increases to $72.99 per month. That gets you all of the channels in the main bundle, and you can choose to pay more if you want to snag add-ons like HBO.

This isn’t a bad deal. In fact, it’s right in line with the prices I’ve seen from fuboTV and Hulu + Live TV most recently (I say “most recently” because prices can change — usually for the worse, I’m afraid). Since YouTube TV’s channel selection looks better to me than fuboTV’s, I’m inclined to say it offers a slightly better value at the same basic price (generally speaking, anyway; fuboTV pulls ahead if you’re craving certain RSNs or more interesting add-on options). YouTube TV’s value doesn’t quite measure up to Philo’s or Sling TV’s, though, since those services are so lean and cheap (though here, again, it matters what you’re after; if you want certain types of channels, like the four major networks, then these cheaper options aren’t good options at all).

Youtube TV Live Player
YouTube TV streaming — complete with commercials (screenshot shows the service’s web app)

YouTube TV's plans and pricing are pretty straightforward: There's just one main plan, take it or leave it. There are a few add-ons to consider, but the main subscription plan doesn't change.

YouTube TV Review: Our Verdict

YouTube TV was an easy service for me to review. It’s a straightforward live TV streaming service, so it’s easy to see what it’s trying to do and which services are its competitors. It’s also easy to see where YouTube TV has the competition beat — though it’s also pretty easy to identify where it’s weaker.

YouTube TV costs about the same amount as some of its most direct competitors, but it offers arguably the most comprehensive channel selection available for that price — with the significant exception of RSN coverage. YouTube TV also offers 1080p streaming, which really helps set it apart from the competition.

But YouTube TV also stumbles at times. Its sudden loading-screen interruptions, however rare and however short, were frustrating to me. In my trials, YouTube TV seemed to stream on longer delays than I’ve grown used to seeing from competitors like Sling TV. The lack of certain RSNs might be a deal breaker for you too.

Put it all together, and I think you have a flawed but extremely exciting service. YouTube TV accomplishes what most live TV streaming services aim to: It effectively replaces cable at a lower price. I can think of a lot of specific sorts of TV fans who might find fuboTV, Philo, or Sling TV to be a better deal for their particular interests, but for a typical live TV viewer, I’d say that YouTube TV is one of the best and most straightforward cable replacements out there.

73 thoughts on “YouTube TV Review

  1. Jeff Wylie says:

    As a long time DirecTV customer, when I cut the cord, DirecTV Now seemed like the logical choice. I was an early customer and got the special introductory pricing which represented a significant savings compared to the regular price of the Go Big package. I gave it a good long try, waiting through the promises for a DVR and the outages that seemed never to be resolved. I even signed up for the beta and tried to contribute to the improved experience. The thing that kept holding me was that introductory price that I just didn’t want to let go of. But alas, I could wait no longer. Eventually I simply did not see why I should continue to wait for DirecTV to release a stable and feature rich product with the other options available. So a few months back, I switched to YouTube TV.

    I live in the Atlanta market and the channel selection is great. All the locals, tons of sports (including the Big 10 Channel – go Blue!) and I would say 80% of the standard cable channels I want. The only content that I feel I’m missing is the Discovery bundle of channels. But in the end, that was not a deal breaker.

    The other main reason I switched was the user experience. The Apple TV app for YouTube TV is really nice and, in my opinion, the most user friendly layout and navigation of live and recorded content. While I believe that many of the challenges faced by the design teams of these services for Apple TV lie more in the Apple TV remote itself, I think YouTube TV has the best overall feel for how to make that sub-par remote work in a reasonable way.

    While I have not tried PS Vue, of all the other major players in OTT content, I cast my vote (so far) for YouTube TV.

    1. Cordcutting.com says:

      Thank you so much for your insights, Jeff!

      1. Mark M. says:

        Your review was quite complete. I thank you for it. I’m wondering why the comments very so much. I’m thinking about signing up for YouTube TV but I’m also wondering how much do you actually save if you also have to pay for internet access. I seems to be a wash.
        Where I’m at only satellite is available but if it snows or dense rain clouds come our signal goes.
        I don’t watch a great amount of TV but would like to when certain shows come up and would like to know I could watch them without breaking the bank.

      2. Donna says:

        I’ve had YT TV for 1.5 yrs. I have 2 different brands of smart tv, and 1 Android phone. About 4 months ago, service on my Samsung TV stopped working 30-40% of the time. When you turn on the app, there is no sound, when you click on a show the screen goes black. I’ve been told by YouTube TV, to sign out of the app on the TV. If that doesn’t work completely delete the app and reinstall. Sometimes this takes as much as 30 minutes to do. As I need to unplug the TV as well. I have complained many times, I get no monetary retribution for this annoyance, and they say they do not know when this will be resolved.
        I was just looking online and I saw on a review site that your Samsung should be 2016 or newer. Mine is.
        Beware!

    2. Connie says:

      Not user friendly at all

      1. Bob says:

        I totally agree! You Tube TV is AWFUL!!! I have experienced numerous problems that seem to be getting worse. For example, last night every channel could not be viewed because of the recurring “playback error”. Also, you don’t know what’s on because of “no info. available”. Last night, it even said “your USB doesn’t have adequate power”. The picture quality is sometimes good and many times terrible. I never know what problems to expect every time I turn the TV on. It’s beyond me how You Tube TV gets good ratings.

        1. Deb says:

          I agree. There are way too many technical glitches. Settings don’t work, constantly cutting out, buffering and freezing. I pay more for the same channel lineup as cable and I’m finding myself watching it less and less because it gets frustrating. Don’t know how much longer I’m going to keep this subscription. It’s not worth what we pay.

          1. Chuck says:

            YoutubeTV is falling apart piece by piece and I am convinced that google does not really care. I have had the service on and off since 2016 and the same glitches from then are still occuring and new ones seem to crop up all the time. I never get a response when I complain. I have already decided to leave, just waiting to find its replacement. Way too expensive for the constant daily disfunction.

    3. Cmc says:

      I have $64 a month youtube tv but want to watch OP Live/Reelz. How can this be done?

    4. Merle Mcdowell says:

      We are just past trial period. So far,I dont like all of the commercials w/ several strung together & some of which advertise shows that YouTube is already showing and last 5 min. Why the need to advertise yourself? Suggestion: shorten/cut commercials. There is also playback error. Cant watch for an hour or more as I have experienced. These 2 issues will make me & others cancel.

  2. John Porter says:

    We’ve had YouTube TV for about a year. Generally pretty happy with it except for one small issue (no local PBS channel is included, but we’re PBS members so can we stream their shows from the PBS website) and one big issue with the “Library” as they call their DVR service. It’s essentially unlimited storage, which is great, but the user interface to it leaves a lot to be desired. You can’t schedule just one episode of a series to be recorded, you have to record ALL episodes, even if some of them are repeats. And you can’t delete an episode after you’ve watched it. In the case of a series like Jeopardy which airs 5 episodes per week times 52 weeks per year, you end up with 260 episodes in your “Library” to wade through when you want to find the next one that you haven’t watched. Similarly, recording your local baseball team’s games gives you 162 games to wade through. I don’t know why they just don’t make it work like a DVR – give you more scheduling options and let you delete a show after you’ve watched it.

  3. Steve M says:

    As of Nov-2018, the youtubetv ad behavior was frankly unusable for me. If you FF through an ondemand program when you resume play you have to watch all the ad’s you FF through. I wanted to watch the music during an SNL episode. It’s about 2/3’s of the way through. I FF to it and then when I hit play had to watch 11 commercials! Many of them repeats, it’s crazy. To make this worse they age your recordings out when the ondemand recording becomes available for that show. Which means they are replacing your recordings with this horrible user experience.

    1. Stephen S says:

      Agreed

  4. Randall Donnell says:

    I had YouTube TV for a few months and at first was very impressed. The problem was that the service was hit-and-miss, meaning that when starting up (using Roku) I would get a blan black screen about 50% of the time. Also when changing channels I would get the same same blank black screen about half the time and would have to reboot the app. Signed up for HULU Live TV and have had ZERO problems. I prefer YouTube TV but until thry get their service to be reliable I won’t be a customer.

  5. Rick LaMarche says:

    I have been a YouTube tv customer for about 2 weeks and am very happy with with the service and the content. The only channels I wish they had are A&E and History.
    Previously I had Hulu and had major problems with buffering. They always inferred the problems were due to poor internet or modem/router connections. Since switching to YouTube tv I have no buffering issues. I am totally satisfied.

    1. Tammy says:

      The home page is not user friendly and is slow. If you are watching tv and want to change channels, you have to go back to homepage, then scroll through the whole list of channels to find what you want. Much easier to type in a channel number….. very annoying

      1. Anonymous says:

        I agree. I wish you could just punch in a number or at a minimum have a recall button to toggle between a couple of shows. Also wish they had the History channel. Otherwise very happy with it and cutting the cord and saving >$100/month.

  6. Kenneth Fuller says:

    When I first subscribed to YouTube TV I was able to watch programs without commercials. YouTube TV policy states when a program is moved to in demand commercials are included. This used to talk about a week. Now it takes about an hour.

  7. Matt says:

    I’ve been a Youtube tv subscriber for about a year and we are totally satisfied. We went from a Verizon bill of about $240.00 per month and constant interruption in service, to YouTube TV streaming via the free Chromecast connection plus free Netflix for a year, for $49.99 a month and about $80.00 buks a month for the fastest internet we could buy. The connection is amazing, YouTube TV’s interface is perfect, I would highly recommend the service. A++

  8. Ken Weyand says:

    I started with YouTube TV a couple of months ago because Direct TV customer service has been almost non-existant since purchased by AT&T. YouTube TV has been great until just a couple of days ago. Suddenly we are experiencing extreme buffering problems which will not improve no matter what we do. I called the Help Line at YouTube TV and spent the better part of an hour with someone on line and we tried all kinds of different fixes but nothing worked. All of my other services work fine, such as Amazon Prime and Netflix.

    Has YouTube TV done some work on their system and it still needs some tweaking? please let me know.

    1. Sebastian Zimmardo says:

      I a having problems with you tube tv and spectrum its a buffer problem

  9. Jay says:

    Please add detailed reviews of cloud DVR services. I’ve been using YouTube TV for a few days and the HORRIBLE amount of commercials (four sets of 5-7 minutes) in a one hour show are unbearable. If the show is recorded, I expect to be able to FF through the commercials, BUT YOU CAN’T.

    1. Anonymous says:

      Youtube
      Hi Sam

    2. Anonymous says:

      once u add a show to ur Library, to be recorded like a DVR, you will be able to fast forward through commercials. but if the show is archived and you have not yet added it to your library, then yes you will go through a lot of commercials. same goes if it is live. but that would be the same on any live Network

    3. Donna says:

      once u add a show to ur Library, to be recorded like a DVR, you will be able to fast forward through commercials. but if the show is archived and you have not yet added it to your library, then yes you will go through a lot of commercials. same goes if it is live. but that would be the same on any live Network

  10. Sebastian Zimmardo says:

    I a having problems with you tube tv and spectrum its a buffer problem

  11. Charles says:

    Terrible tv guide in ruko app. Way to small to read, the guide doesn’t sync with correct time. The guide has no live station present. The dvr function records the wrong shows at the wrong time. Youtube tv needs alot of work before trying to compare to cable or dish tv.

  12. Tod Don says:

    We can’t even get a free trial. Said welcome back on new account created just for u tube and we never had u tube on any account before. Chat and phone support are total drones. ” the system makes the decision and we cant changes it” wonder why there are even there. With customer support like that might as well eat the extra $10 a month on Hulu.

  13. Tod Don says:

    We can’t even get a free trial. Said welcome back on new account created just for u tube and we never had u tube on any account before. Chat and phone support are total drones. ” the system makes the decision and we cant change it” wonder why there are even there. With customer support like that might as well eat the extra $10 a month on Hulu.

  14. Tim C says:

    Boy, it sure is difficult to find negative reviews about youtube tv using google (imagine that) but I have plenty of negative things about the service.
    1) One of the biggest problems is if you have other family members you want to add, they have to have their own email account. That means if your little ones who typically are too young for email accounts must have one to have their own home account with this service.
    2) Another thing is even recorded (or DVR) service have ads, way too many ads. CBS is one of the worst but there are many other channels making you watch ads despite being touted as DVR service.
    3) Once you watch something, even briefly , it is lost if you try to go back to it. When we want to watch something again or pick-up where we left off, we often have to use the search feature to find it again and this can be more time consuming than you can imagine.
    4) The guide only goes for only several hours ahead. For example, if you want to see who is playing in Sunday/Monday night football games, you have to wait until 5:00 PM to find out the details, forget about planning ahead like a day or two.
    5) Then there are the little things like no previous channel (or recall)
    6) This past Christmas, Rudolph was blacked out to youtube tv viewers for some strange reason.
    7) every-time you want to change the channel, you have to go back to the guide to do so.
    8) When you fast forward, you cannot see what time you are at in the program.
    9) Very primitive media/TV player.

    I really could keep going but I think I would start sounding petty, but when so many petty things adds up, it becomes a real issue. I think you have to want to cut the cord and be without the conveniences of cable/satellite that we have grown accustomed to over the years that youtube tv has failed to provide to like this service. Unless your willing to setup a email account for each family member (which other streaming services DO NOT make you do) you are going to have a lot of programming to fish through to find what you want to watch each and every night. Bottom line, I feel like I am using late 80’s or early 90’s technology.

  15. Jerry says:

    UTube live tv is very bad due to always down loading and vey slow

    1. peter says:

      I’m using the free trial now and it’s loading is nothing I can live with. when they get that corrected than maybe I’ll try, but this is a joke.

  16. Jerry says:

    Why is your live tv service is always loading and skipping and your service is very very bad. It’s a joke. It’s a big issues and it needs to be corrected in order for your company say in business right now your tv service rating is -0

    1. peter says:

      I’m using the free trial now and it’s loading is nothing I can live with. when they get that corrected than maybe I’ll try, but this is a joke.

  17. Ray Rosato says:

    I’m writing about Youtube Premium…don’t have YT TV…if it’s as lame I have no interest…the Premium is just a glorified version of free YouTube…if you have money to spend, go for it…but it’s just an “oh, I gotta have this” waste of time and money…me, personally, can do without spending the extra cash for this “can’t do without” nonsense…

  18. Leslie Kim Bock says:

    I loved YouTube TV it had my locals, other channels I love but there’s 18 sports channels which I will never watch and just as many news channels that I will never watch. So out of the 70 channels they offer there’s almost 40 I will never use. Hopefully that changes. I wish there was a way you didn’t have to have all of them sports channels or news channels.

  19. Jeffery Avery says:

    Have had YouTube TV for a few months. For the past four months the service has inexplicably been billing me twice per month for the same service. I have found no method to communicate with them. There is no one to directly speak with about the problem, and their support team doesn’t even address issues like this. So am getting charged over $100 per month for their basic streaming service. I could cancel, but would still need to recover the $200 they’ve overcharged me. Would like to keep the service but there is no one on their end to communicate with to resolve this issue. Does anyone have a solution?

    1. FL says:

      If they will not stop overcharge…cancel credit card and get a new one.

    2. Henry Winokur says:

      Find the president of the company at ceoemail.com and write to that person. Explain the problem. Chances are you’ll get responded to, and maybe even a phone call. I bet you get it fixed inside 30 days.

  20. Anonymous says:

    No where to leave a review for you tube tv.

  21. idie says:

    None of these you added are on our “watch” listings.
    which includes 8 of your favorites: BET, CMT, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Network, TV Land, and VH1.
    You have done nothing for us to increase cost and thinking we would go…… “whoopee”.

  22. Anonymous says:

    None of these you added are on our “watch” listings.
    which includes 8 of your favorites: BET, CMT, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Network, TV Land, and VH1.
    You have done nothing for us to increase cost and thinking we would go…… “whoopee”.

  23. N Humphrey says:

    Not Happy With YouTube TV anymore! I am very disappointed with Google and YouTube over another price increase. I have been a subscriber for over 2 years. Now the price has increased again. That’s 62.5% increase in 2 years. YouTube TV has added more channels with low viewership and exchange we get a bloated bill. They are starting to feel a lot like Comcast. The price goes up every year. I guess when you have a strangle hold on search and video, your customers satisfaction isn’t important anymore. Do no evil! I forgot that Google/YouTube already removed that from your corporate culture. I am looking for a better alternative.

  24. DAVID A KREIDER says:

    YouTubeTV, now bringing cable prices to streaming services. This from a long-time subscriber who just canceled his membership.

  25. Raynman says:

    I left cable TV, cut the cord, went with streaming various apps and found the YouTube TV app to be awesome for the cost of $39.99 in January 2019. Since then it went up to $49.99 and added channels I did not ask for or wanted, fine!! Now they are going up to $65 a month, justifying it by adding more channels I didn’t ask for, I didn’t miss and don’t want. Don’t even watch half of whats on there now, like cable TV. YouTube TV has turned into cable TV by forcing channels on the viewers and raising the monthly service cost. So disappointed and upset. Why didn’t they come up with the idea of packaging different bundles? I would have stayed with the original $39.99 package!! I am leaving YouTube TV.

  26. Time to cut the stream? says:

    I am almost thinking of going back to cable. The price is almost as much as cable. I hate the way I have to change channels it is almost as painful as when we had to get up and change the tv channel. I wish they would create a way to work with tv remotes that work with tv numbers or even an up and down button. There is also very little info online with the best smart tv remote to use with tvs. Also, finding because of changes or having to change from AT&T Tv to Youtube tv to the next tv system that I constantly have to buy new tvs because my 2 year old tv does not work because no app was created to work with it. Plus now I have 3 or 4 other streaming services so I am probably paying more. Sure more on demand but to be honest because it is hard to find things I feel like a 1000 channels with nothing to watch. Do I really want to spend 20 minutes trying to find something to watch. So realistically, I watch about the same 5 channels. I rather watch repeats then the painful time it takes to find something. So far my antenna tv is probably the best and economic system because I don’t pay for all the crap I don’t want to watch.

    1. Fran L says:

      I agree… go back to cable. I do not see the value of cord cutting. I cancelled Spectrum cable and subscribed to their streaming. It went well for 3 or 4 months then it started freezing. I did some tweaks in my router and its only the first day however no freezing, so far. I am at 100.00 for streaming and internet at 200mps, That will increase July 2021 by $30.00. These cable companies throttle and lower band with. They say they do not, however they do!

  27. Cathleen Walkley says:

    I got YouTube because it had my local sports channel and Sling did not. I also got a few extra channels I would watch and the price was decent ($49). The TV app is horrible – I am forever pushing buttons to get anywhere. The show doesn’t automatically show – I must push the back key on my RoKu remote to remove all the channel overlay. Many times my DVR selections don’t play – they just hang. Recently, the price went up for channels I don’t want and my local sports channel has been removed. Once baseball season is over, so is my relationship with YouTube.

  28. Jill says:

    It is now $71/ month and they are having a dispute with fox, so you are not getting local sports??? Rip-off bigly

  29. Sam says:

    Service started great in June and ever since service is going down hill. Now it’s 50/50 if you can see a content or get through the program without the service hanging or having problems with sound. I would not recommended it. I am now looking for an alternative even at $49 it not a good deal.

  30. Anonymous says:

    Youtubetv sucks for movies not only commercials but adds while watching movies in between commercials. Sucks!!!

  31. Eric says:

    There are picture quality issues lately. YouTube TV is trying to say the quality problems are everything but their own. I am a previous programmer and tech worker. I know how to trouble shoot issues.

    YouTube TV worked fine until a week ago for me. Now the picture is grainy at times and blurry. Sound does not match the picture on a few channels. No issues with Netflix or Hulu which I also have. My internet speed is also fine. I can watch in UHD with no issues.

    With YouTube tv now charging almost as much as traditional cable that will have a better picture, I am thinking about going back to cable or finding another streaming service.

    My guess is the bandwidth on YouTube tv’s network in some markets may be a problem with their growth. They will try to say it is not their issue when it clearly is a problem on their end.

  32. Mars says:

    I thought I would just turn on YT TV like cable and watch programs…no, no, no!!
    They are always asking for location even when you are going through a stationary Roku Ultra device that has a ethernet cable into high speed internet. They want to know location only through your mobile device, plus your location must be open so they can check it . What a pain. What about people that need to keep location off the phone for security reasons? Said only mobile phone has GPS so they can’t use your computer or the Roku? something doesn’t seem right with that answer…..

  33. Anonymous says:

    Do not get YouTube tv, this stream wants your private information now! They have changed their format where it says we are not in our area! Therefore we cannot watch it. We are home and this comes up now! It’s like YouTube tv is saying we are lying and not in our area! I don’t need or desire this anymore! It wants me somehow to prove I am at home. Crazy! Too much money and too many privacy issues for me

  34. EM says:

    YouTube TV is a piece of crap!! When I put the show that I’m watching on pause, and then I go back to resume watching, it goes back to the beginning of the TV I was watching! I’m not sure if it’s only with black movies, but YouTube TV starts the beginning of the movie like 20 or 25 minutes later into the movie, starting the movie where there’s 20 or 25 minutes of the movie missing, really! I’ve seen it happen more than once. While it showing commercials, it sometimes goes into a dark screen where it shows, commercials break with music on it! YouTube TV use to be good when I first started using it a few years back, and now it’s garbage.

  35. david gunderson says:

    I signed up yesterday with YouTube TV, and was hopeful that it would be a good alternative to cable tv. The experience of trying to watch a college football game was comically, ludicrously bad, so bad it was surreal.

    First of all, YTTV is energetically monetized–the number and duration of ads is staggering. But wait! when they cut away from the game to the ads, should one expect to continue with the game when the ads are finished? I did, fool that I am. Instead–and this is the surreal part–YT began an endless loop of the same ad sequence (all self referential, hawking their own products!!) and any attempt to get back to the program resulted in the ads beginning again. So it was sometimes turn the tv off (a new smart Samsung), or go back and back and back until you find that YTTV had switched me to a version of a football streaming app, but the one that only plays ads. The ads would continue to play while the live action continued. Eventually the game was found again, but the same thing happened at the next commercial break.

    Then the broadcast itself terminated altogether, saying there had been “policy violations.” By whom? Not by me–from one of their providers? Why should that be my problem?

    Conclusion: I would stay as far away as possible from YouTube TV even if it were a free service. If it were not so frustrating to use, and ugly to see corporate greed so nakedly at work, and so painful to see the path of media’s evolution, it would be funny. But it’s not funny at all. In the end, I think the word “ugly” is the best, so cluttered with audio and visual junk, so dishonest. I’ll stop watching all TV before I would ever think of using YouTube TV again. Now the question: will I actually be able to cancel my subscription, or will I have to enter again into their sleazy carnival tent to take back my credit card?

  36. Gary Jay says:

    Here’s my dealbreaker question: ALL of these I have researched, all of them, avoid the reason I pay $300 a year for DVRs in the house with my cable at $80month: FAST FORWARDING THROUGH COMMERCIALS. If this isn’t as easy and simple to do with YouTube TV, et al, it’s a dealbreaker. So can you? I don’t care about the technology on whether it’s actually recorded or not. Blah blah blah. Can I watch something I have saved to watch later and FF through commercials? Can I pause a live show for ten minutes (or a tennis match for example, and then fast forward through instant replays, commercials, etc? I often will watch a tennis match in 30 minutes. Maybe I want to get to the last game? Maybe get to the tie break. CAN I DO THIS with the DVR awesome cloud? Or not?

    1. Keith Goodman says:

      The answer is yes you can at least on the sports and shows I watch. This is the main reason we switched from hulu (and hulu cost is ridiculous now).

  37. Dave Dennett says:

    I was really happy with it. No glitches, 4K sports, worked on all my devices…then they screwed me.
    I had 4K for $9.95 for a year, and a $10 off for a year promo from Tmobile.
    Guess they didnt like losing money, because the first bill they charged my Google Pay account instead of my credit card on file I used when I signed up. I do not have a google pay account. Went to watch TV, and it was turned off. Left a voice mail and they called back and apologized for the mistake and said they would start billing my credit card, but unfortunately they were unable to restore the promos, so they wanted $25 a month more with tax. I told them where they could shove it, and went to Sling. BEWARE.

  38. Christopher says:

    Do NOT GET YOUTUBE TV. Google owns gmail and YouTube tv. A gmail account is required to get YouTube tv. So when google locks you out of gmail for updating your phone number and password, you get locked out of YouTube tv. Google won’t help you with gmail. It gave me zero recovery questions and just sent codes to the locked out gmail. So it takes six days to get someone at YouTube tv to help. All they can do? Cancel your YouTube tv. That’s it. That’s the fix. If you want to sign up again, you need to get a new gmail, that you can be locked out of again. Customer service sent the email about my call to my locked out email. And kept calling me the wrong name. Now we have no tv for Christmas, because I wont go through this again if customer service isn’t willing to at least compensate me for the time it took me to do all that. And I still have to fix a ton of accounts linked to that email. I’ve lost years worth of stuff. And google doesn’t care. And YouTube tv doesn’t care. They don’t help with login issues – that’s on you! At least cable companies make sure you can access the content you pay for. AVOID YOUTUBE TV!!!’

  39. Andy Frew says:

    I watch the news on YouTubeTV and as a regular thing, they run a “Commercial Break”
    with no commercials. Instead, during the “break” there is an annoying soundtrack featuring someone on a keyboard who only knows two chords and someone on percussion who is struggling with the conic;pt of rhythm. The resulting groan/moan is one of the most irritating things I hear on TV. They have choices, e.g. their “zen” feature. As it is, I have to mute the TV to avoid the drone, meaning I miss the ads and programming they, I assume, are supposed to be broadcast over their platform. Watch out.

  40. Keith Goodman says:

    Thanks for this article. I live in NE Ohio and love my sports. Still the cost savings despite RSN dispute is very much worth it to me. I have become used to watching on ESPN on my computer the score and play by play while watching a TV Show. For me the 70 dollar a month savings is worth it. Also they knock 20 bucks off your bill monthly if a referral signs up! I give this a 5 stars.

  41. Susan Smartt says:

    Tried this for a week or two and find it VERY underwhelming! Lacking the ability to only record new episodes makes the viewing experience hideous for those who want to avoid commercials and enjoy shows that are in reruns. Not to mention a clunky interface that takes a lot of clicks to get back to home. Audio gets out of sync sometimes. And darn if they don’t miss episodes you ACTUALLY WANT while filling the DVR new section with old reruns you have to sort thru to find new programming. Way too high priced to have all these shortfalls and they do not care one iota for customer service

  42. FRED MURTZ says:

    TERRIBLE SERVICE!
    code does not activate..endless loops….always asking to verify code.
    error mesages.
    spend more time trying to setup this worthless servise than watching!!!!!
    waste of time effort and money!

    get another tv provider

  43. Jon Kruse Sr says:

    YouTubeTV is terrible!!!

    Programs don’t get added to the library, they disappear when partially watched, or you can’t remove them even if you’ve watched them???

    I have to go to the iPhone “Entertainment” app to mark them as watched. Even then, sometimes, they remain in the library??

    Why isn’t there an option to mark shows “Watched” in the Library directly from the remote rather than having to go to the app? You can stop recording a series entirely but you can’t mark them “Watched” – doesn’t make sense!

    So disappointed – wish Google TV was still available! It was so much better than YouTubeTV!!!

  44. Scott says:

    I’ve been using YouTube Tv for only a month, but experience frequent intermittent playback errors when watching live TV. For about 10-15 minutes I can’t get rid of the error. Overall I love the service and the content it brought for the price, but it’s very frustrating when these playback errors occur. I’m at a crossroads whether to keep the service or switch to Hulu

  45. Brian says:

    I used to love youtube tv, but I am considering getting rid of it. The latency is so bad between the voice and the actual lips. The video is faster, there is no way to fix. It is ONLY with youtube tv library when using my super expensive sound system. What is the point? I am finding that Google is not Apple. Google just buys companies an does not figure out how to make them integrate with their product.

  46. Anonymous says:

    Junk! Waste of money. You will spend most of your time teathering off your phone. Youtube technicians have been to my house multiple times and nobody can fix their equipment. You will have to reset their equipment anywhere from 1-5 times a day to get any type of service. There will be days Youtube will never work. Make sure you get a good phone plan because you will be using your phone as a hotspot to watch TV most of the time. I cannot stress how frustrated we are with the service. Nothing will get fixed and they will not offer to make anything right.

  47. Ronald says:

    You need to change your rating to a 1. YouTubeTV app is horrid to use on Apple TV. The video and audio do not match up! It is very hard to get anyone live involved to solve the problem, their “customer service” is horrid and non-existent! Why give such a company a good rating? When a company makes it almost impossible to contact them for a resolution, they are trying to hide something and shows no effort on their part to stand behind their product!

  48. Tammy Gilmore says:

    I subscribed to YouTubeTv with a 30 day free trial, they gave me 2 days free trial and then charged my account full price. How is that a 30 day free trial? That is false advertising! And there is NO WAY TO GET AHOLD OF A LIVE PERSON!! In the help/contact us section I just keep getting sent back to the same place I started. This is a rip off, a scam and false advertising at the very least.

  49. Tammy Gilmore says:

    I subscribed to YouTubeTv with a 30 day free trial, they gave me 2 days free trial and then charged my account full price. How is that a 30 day free trial? That is false advertising! And there is NO WAY TO GET AHOLD OF A LIVE PERSON!! In the help/contact us section I just keep getting sent back to the same place I started. This is a rip off, a scam and false advertising at the very least.

  50. Ed says:

    What a scam they are with all the money that Google has they gave me a 14-day free trial I canceled in 10 days and Low and behold there’s a full charge on my credit card now I got to deal with calling the credit card company to get this remove
    Google YT TV are thieves

  51. Jo says:

    Youtube TV sucks. ZERO live support, app doesn’t work properly, etc. Set up was a nightmare. FUBO is way better.

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