Streaming Television
 

We're probably going to streaming television. Would appreciate recent experience from folks who are doing this already.

Between Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV, is one clearly better than the other?

What is the minimum internet upload stream for successful streaming?

Thanks.

I think YouTube TV is the way to go. But, there is a website, "suppose.tv" where you can enter all the channels you want to watch, and it will show you which streaming services or combination of services will provide those channels and the cost for the services. I highly recommend checking out that website.

They both seem to be in a race to the top. Hulu just raised it’s price to $75 a month.

We had Hulu and it kept going down, same experience a relative had with them. That was 2 years ago. Sling was a little better. Went to Dish and mostly satisfied.

I like youtube because it's the only one with all the major channels (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, ESPN for me)
We have CenturyLink and it's 40 megabites speed and on rare occasion there's a buffering. Quite happy with both.

Hulu+ Live has all those channels.

We're happy with Comcast for internet and Sling for TV.

You Tube
 

When I was investigating streaming services I found that YouTube was the only one that had our local PBS station. If you watch any PBS be careful to make sure the service you sign up for includes it.

Fubo
 

Tried them all and liked Fubo best.

We've had Hulu a lot of years and went to Hulu + Live TV 3 years ago or so up North. Our TV house has had it for almost 2 years now.

We tried Youtube TV but found Hulu hit more of our stuff. Both work fine.

As far as bandwidth, you need at least 15mbit down as we ran on that for years up north. Our TV house had the 25mbit xfinity starter package for a year and it was fine. Century link only offers 2mbit down in our Village. Upload doesn't need to be much so as long as you have 15mbit, you'll be fine for one to two HD streams as those require up to 8mbits but they will scale quality down if your bandwidth pipe is full. Hulu's top 4k stream requires about 16mbit, so even a basic 25mbit download package will be fine.

Thanks for that suppose.tv link. Very helpful.

We use YouTubeTV and are very happy with it. Gives us all local broadcast channels plus PBS and many more. It takes a little getting used to the format but once you've figured it out it's easy. We like the unlimited DVR capability and the ability to watch other channels that are normally an additional cost. We have 25 mbs download and that's enough for streaming TV and movies. If you're a gamer you'll need more download speed. Companies try to sell you massive amounts of download speed but you don't need more than 25 mbs.

Fire TV $25/month

We went over to streaming with YouTube TV about 5 months ago and wouldn’t go back. I cut my monthly bill down by $150 and I can still DVR all the shows I had before and all the stations I watched.

You can split the bill with 3-4 people With You Tube Tv . Perfectly legal .. it's been out for years so you need to get on the bandwagon! Our slowest internet speed is plenty sufficient for Streaming. Get rid of cable , it's expensive

Just saw HULU has a Black Friday special 1.99 per month. Don’t know details worth checking

I believe they raised their monthly fee from $54.99 to $64.99 not $75 al least not yet!

I use a hybrid of an OTA antenna with Sling TV. 69 channels OTA + 50 channels from Sling. Total 119 channels. Sling basic package costs $30/mo. 25 mps internet works fine for 3 TVs.

I changed from You Tube TV because of the DVR - when you set a program to record the DVR will record all episodes on at the time new and old. Hulu DVR can be set to "new Only". That was important to me. Of course you can stream on both but I like the DVR feature. I think You Tuve TV allows unlimited DVR storage and Hulu 50 hours before they delete. I delete as I see the shows so not an issue at all.

Very helpful answers.

Thanks to all.

Yes, you are correct. Mine would have been $74.99 with the regular no ads Hulu service included.

Tell us more about your OTA? What part of TV do you live?

I had HULU however it would buffer quite a bit. Since Hulu is raising the prices I moved on to Comcast , It still beat Direct tv with the storms here they are not a good choice as. you lose the signal during the storms.

Hulu
 

I use Hulu. It has all the network channels. I’ve heart You Tube is great also.

we use comcast for internet, & streaming we use prime & hulu. if you have a smart tv., u may find this feature already built in. i LOVE the free streaming channels, especially Pluto-tv. they have subject specific channels of ALL kinds of programming. i use this the most, for newsmax, james bond channel & i'm STILL addicted to the carol burnett channel, lol.
prime is VERY good for any type of movie-they have many foreign and/or obscure titles i don't find anywhere else. good luck! let us know which 1 you go with, & why.

We cut the cable cord several years ago. We used streaming tv in our home when we were using it as a rental and provided Hulu Live streaming for our guests. When we made a permanent move to our home back in May, we cancelled Hulu Live and then logged on with our AT&T Now streaming account. We used it while we were living in Georgia and it works well here also. We have also tried Sling TV in the past. We like AT&T Now because of the sports networks we can get. We pay $75 per month.

If it weren’t for my husband and I both enjoying the sports networks, We might cancel our account altogether. There are so many other options for watching tv and we rarely watch any network tv programs or news. We also use Amazon Prime, Roku TV, Pluto, and Disney Plus to watch shows and movies. We have found an app for local news stations and we watch Newsmax on Roku TV.

My suggestion is to compare what each company has to offer and determine which company has package/channels that best suits your wants and needs. It’s definitely becoming more competitive.

Hands down streaming best
 

The best stream service is YouTube TV. Quality, Channels, use on multiple tv’s within home, ability to share service with family member located in different states and unlimited DVR that enables programming of unlimited number of shows at the same time slot.

You Tube TV 70+ channels including local Orlando, $63/mo. Amazon Prime, Netflix $13/mo., PBS $6/mo. Everything we want and more and we never lose the TV during rains, storms or thick clouds.

First I got a moderately priced Roku. Then I got YoutubeTV. At that point I was all set, but if you're used to the ease cable TV, streaming can seem cumbersome. I missed some of my favorite Christian programs from not having DirecTV, so I added that and kept Roku and YoutubeTV. I'm very happy. Also by keeping YoutubeTV I can still watch TV even though a storm can disrupt DirecTV.

We like YouTube TV.

I had Directv for 120 a month and Spectrum Internet for 80.00 a month... so was paying $200.00 a month. I dropped direct, and went with Spectrum cable.... which bundled my Internet and now I'm paying 90 something a month for both Internet and cable. I'm happy.... I also have a Firestick on each TV and watch Prime and Netflix. I really like Spectrum cable.

Does this include DVR?

I use youtube tv and LOVE it. $65 /mo and you can share it with 2 other users. Unlimited DVR space. Customizable guide so you only see the channels you want and in the order you want. Tried it with free trial and never went back!!! I have 100 mbps with Xfinity (Comcast) - not sure if that much is needed but I have never had an issue.

We have YouTubeTV over Comcast internet (200mb service) and have been very satisfied.

Also have and use Netflix and Prime Video extensively. Enjoy Pluto for Johnny Carson channel/ shows at night.

TV has a Cord Cutters club. I tis also a website. Lots of information.

Get all the major networks OTA. NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, FOX. Plus The CW and a lot of sub channels that carry old movies and TV shows. I’ll tell you if you’re not into cable “news networks “ or a lot of sports OTA and free streaming networks like Pluto TV and Crackle is the way to go. Total cost: $0.

I'm not the morality police - trust me.

But I think you need to be upfront about what you're recommending here. Sportziptv is known as an "iptv" service that carries "streams" of what would ordinarily be premium-based ($$$) content. In other words, for a small monthly fee, the home viewer would have "free" access to tons of content regular users would have to pay the normal subscription fee for. If a content provider (movie studio or company that owns the distribution rights to premium content like movies/tv shows/sports) finds people have been accessing it in this way, those people could be on the hook for a lot money in damages.

Now, will users of such a service get caught? Probably not, if they take the proper precautions. Even the sportziptv web page warns people should get a "VPN" (virtual private network) that masks/hides one's real internet address. No one needs to do that for legal services.

You're also posting your own affiliate link here - the "aff=1044" part of the URL you're linking to, which means you get some kind of cash back or free access or whatever their affiliate relationship is. You should be making that obvious, too.

A lot of people are newbies where it comes to streaming online services. Throw out a "you can get everything you want for $9.95 / month" to new people looking to cut costs and they think they've found TV/Movie/Sports nirvana. What they've found is "theft of service", and common sense would tell anyone that if these services like YouTube TV or Hulu or Disney+, etc., are charging up to or over $60 / month what you're promoting for $9.95, something's not kosher.


If people want a "service" like iptv, go for it. But know in advance exactly what it is you're going for, because there is some potential legal/financial jeopardy in doing so. What I'm concerned about is uninformed people who just think this is some kind of crazy "secret" legit deal that just happens to get them the viewing options they want much, much cheaper than their neighbors. "If it's too good to be true..." applies.

For a comparison of channel lineups between youtube TV, philo TV, fubo TV, sling, AT&T TV and Hula Live as of November 2020 go to this link and scroll down.

Hulu vs. YouTube TV vs. Sling TV vs. AT&T TV Now vs. more: Channel lineups compared - CNET

In streaming, youtube TV appears to have the most offerings, the only real omissions would be the NFL Network and A&E, since A&E dropped their show Live PD I don't care to support them anyway.

I have Hulu + Live TV streaming thru a Roku ultra. I'm very happy with it. I don't miss cable TV one bit.
Each person needs to figure out what is right for them. The channel offerings are a little different between the different streaming services. Look at what channels each streaming service offers and what one fits your needs the best.
25MHz internet bandwidth is enough to stream a 4K signal. But if the 25Mhz bandwidth occasionally drops, you may experience buffering, or if you want to stream to more than one device at the same time you will probably need more than 25Mhz of bandwidth.

OTA antennas
 

OTA antenna's won't work for most parts of TV due to the distance to the closest tower, which is in Orlando.