Yeah Doc, I have this recurring nightmare about redoing
our streaming services roundup over and over again.
What do you think it means?
Can't be good.
Wait, we're doing it again. We're doing it again?
We're doing it again. Okay!
We're doing it again.
Yeah, we're back because six months ago,
we ranked DIRECTV NOW number one among streaming
TV services because, frankly, we were ignorant hacks.
Okay, not really.
But things are changing really fast in the
streaming TV world, so we need to re-do these rankings,
it seems like constantly.
So, a year ago, Sling and DIRECTV NOW seemed unstoppable,
but now, they're stalling out or they're shrinking,
while YouTube TV and Hulu Live have been growing like crazy.
So, the question now is whether you should follow the
crowd and jump to one of those, or if the other services
are still just fine. So, let's dive in and find out.
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Now, before we get started, don't forget to
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because we're here every Wednesday and Friday
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So, we hope you'll join us for those.
Anyway, let's get started on this one.
In recent weeks, we've gone into some detail on the
state of Sling TV, DIRECTV NOW, YouTube TV, Hulu Live,
PlayStation Vue, and fubo.
I think I got them all.
Just check out this playlist right up here.
You can go into detail on any one of those
individually if you'd like to.
Anyway, today's comparison is all about live TV streaming.
So, we're not really talking about Netflix
or Amazon Prime, or regular Hulu,
or any of the other on-demand streaming services.
We're also not including Philo in this roundup,
even though it is, in fact,
another live TV streaming service.
But Philo is fundamentally different from the rest.
It may be the perfect stand-alone service for you,
but most of the time, what we hear
is people using it really well as a $16.00 add-on
to YouTube TV or Hulu Live.
Something like that.
Basically to get your Viacom channels
and a few others to fill out your channel list.
Anyway, now that we've surveyed the major players
in the current market, I think it's time
for some final recommendations.
Or at least as final as it can be in an
industry that's constantly, annoyingly changing.
Now, spoiler alert, this is basically gonna be a
tale of triumph, at least for the moment, for YouTube TV and
Hulu Live, and a tale of woe for almost everybody else.
But let's go look at the details.
If you follow me over here, I wanna talk to you about price,
because frankly pricing is one of the first questions
anybody is gonna have when it comes to these services.
So, let's tackle pricing.
The best pricing on the market right now
goes to YouTube TV at $40 bucks a month.
(record scratch)
I wrote this video weeks ago.
We are literally five minutes away from posting this
and just found out that, yes, today was the day
that YouTube decided to bump that price
to $50 bucks a month.
So, so much for whatever I was about to say.
The simplicity there is beautiful.
Now you can add on some premium channels,
but you don't have to worry about paying extra
for more simultaneous streams or a premium DVR.
And I can hear you saying already,
"Hey Craig, Sling is cheaper."
And that's technically true, you're right.
With the Orange and Blue packages on Sling at $25 bucks each
you can go cheaper.
But the channels at Sling are strategically arranged
to make you want the combo which is $40 bucks anyway.
And if you do any add-ons, it's going to be
just as expensive or more expensive than anything else.
Now Hulu is also really good on price at $45 bucks a month.
But while there's only one plan,
which we like, again, simplicity,
you have to watch out for the premium features there.
They can add up.
$10 buck a month for unlimited streams, $10 bucks a month
for premium DVR, $15 bucks if you do both,
plus $4 for the commercial-free version
of Hulu's on-demand service, it does kinda add up.
Now, DIRECTV NOW and fubo TV have both raised
their prices significantly,
just over the last few weeks,
so now they're in the $50 to $70 range.
And DIRECTV NOW even made good
on their promise to thin the content
in exchange for upping that price,
so I don't think they'll be winning many new converts.
PlayStation Vue continues on its merry little way
as an expensive service.
But, honestly, I should probably take that back
because now, compared to all the others,
it's not even that expensive anymore.
Certainly not the base package anyway.
Now let's talk about the DVR situation.
First of all, here's the deal.
Every time I give out a compliment
to a DVR on a streaming service,
everyone seems to come out of the woodwork
to tell me why actually, it's bad.
And, frankly, you all have a point.
Every one of these services comes with a DVR,
but each of those DVR's has some restriction
that will probably frustrate you.
PlayStation Vue, for instance, won't let you
fast forward through Fox channels.
Sling doesn't let you record Disney-owned channels at all.
Hulu and fubo make you pay extra
for a DVR with decent storage.
You see where I'm goin' with this.
Anyway, if I gave the DVR crown
to any of these services,
it would probably have to be
YouTube TV which, at no extra charge,
gives you unlimited storage and lets you keep
your recordings for nine months.
It does still sometimes swap in an on-demand recording
for your recorded one, so you have to watch commercials.
But, yeah, it's happening less.
So that's nice.
Anyway, I've been saying this with
cable and satellite providers for years now.
But now I'll say it with the streaming providers,
don't make DVR your deciding factor
when you're deciding between all these services.
Just think of it as a nice bonus.
Now if you're just watchin' by yourself,
you probably don't care too much about simultaneous streams.
But if you've got a lot of people in your household
who want to take advantage,
you're gonna worry about that.
So, let's start with Hulu.
If you've got a large family that wants to watch,
then Hulu is gonna be your best option.
They can do unlimited streams
for an additional $10 bucks on top of their normal price.
Otherwise, it's just two simultaneous streams.
PlayStation Vue technically gets five streams at a time.
But, honestly, that is so complicated,
like I talked about in that video, it's effectively three.
Sling gives you only one stream on the Orange side
and three on the Blue side and if you get the combo package
then you do get four simultaneous streams.
But, again, only one of those can be
from the Orange channels which,
by the way, includes ESPN.
So that's weirdly complex there.
Fubo and DIRECTV NOW both include
just two simultaneous streams
and you can use just one more
if you pay $6 bucks in fubo's case
and $5 on DIRECTV NOW.
YouTube TV allows for three streams end of story.
We could wish for more, but it's also
kinda hard to beat that simplicity.
Now let's talk devices.
Yes, you will need something like this Apple TV
in order to watch any of these services.
The good news is that you can assume
that with all of these services,
they're going to be available on most every device.
Even PlayStation Vue is available
on a variety of devices, not just PlayStations.
So, if you're using a Roku or an Apple TV
or an Amazon Fire, a smart TV,
whatever the case is, most of these services
will be available on most devices.
But there are a few exceptions to that,
that you've gotta watch out for.
First, if you're using an Android TV device
like the NVIDIA Shield or some smart TVs
then DIRECTV NOW and Hulu Live are out,
not an option there.
Regular old Hulu has an Android TV app
so I have to assume that they'll add one
for Hulu Live before too long.
But we'll see.
If you wanna watch on a game console,
the Xbox is gonna be spotty.
But the PlayStation, the device, the PlayStation
only allows you to watch PlayStation Vue.
So, go figure.
The biggest omission though,
in my opinion, is that there is no
YouTube TV on Amazon Fire devices.
That one's kind of a bummer.
But, here the exceptions kind of prove the rule.
Whichever device you wanna use,
you're gonna find something to watch.
Now, channels are obviously extremely important.
We wanna know which channels are on which service.
You guys are always talking in the comments
about which ones are your favorites
and where you can watch them.
So what I want to do is take all this
and rank these services for who has the best channels.
But frankly, that's impossible because
it's such a subjective thing.
You guys are all talking about different channels
and which ones are your favorite.
And the channel selection is all over the place
among these services.
But here's what I was able to do.
I took the top 10 most watched basic cable networks
just to see which streaming services
had those ones at least.
Now I looked at the $40 to $50 range
as close as possible for all of these services.
So, for instance, we have Sling's combo tier,
the Blue plus Orange at $40 bucks,
but PlayStation Vue's lower tier at $45.
That's the best I could do
for trying to compare apples to apples.
And what we see here is that they are
all over the place with their channel selection.
The last thing I will mention is that,
frankly, channel count doesn't matter
because what should matter to you is,
well, what matters to you.
So, whatever your favorite channel is,
here's what I want you to do.
Hit the description below and look in the channel section
and I'll have some links to each of these services
and all the channels that they provide.
So, if you wanna go check out whether your favorite channel
is included on whichever service,
we've got all those links there.
We've done the work for you.
You just need to hit that link
and check on your preferred channel.
All right, so the bottom line here.
Because of its simplicity,
YouTube TV might be the best all around service,
especially when you add Philo to the mix as well,
to round out its channel count.
Hulu has more add-ons to worry about
so price-wise it can get a little bit much.
But it's also a great choice,
especially if you want unlimited simultaneous streams
and Hulu's great on-demand service.
Honestly, those two are so close that next week
we're gonna pit the two of them against each other
and see which one comes out on top.
As for the others, Sling is okay
and if you wanna hang on to that,
I won't really fight you too hard
but DIRECTV NOW, fubo, PlayStation Vue,
because of their price hikes, the channel counts involved,
the device availability, they're gonna have to make
some pretty significant changes to get back into the fight.
But that's just my opinion.
I wanna hear what you have to say as well.
So head down to the comments below.
And, although I know you don't need this encouragement,
let me know where you think I'm wrong.
But also let me know where you think I'm right.
And on you're way down there, give this video a like.
Make sure you're subscribed and hit that bell icon
so you know when the next video comes out.
Like I said, we are here every Wednesday and Friday.
So we will see you on the next review.
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