If you want to signup you will need to live in San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago. You will get 50-plus channels, for the $35-a-month service YouTube announced in February. The one major update since then: It will be adding channels from AMC Networks, including BBC America and IFC.
That makes AMC the only cable TV programmer in the bundle; the rest of the networks in the package are either broadcasters (CBS) or owned by broadcasters (ABC/Disney’s ESPN).
Sadly I do not live in a market that has YouTube TV so I can not get in on this. Yet we are working to do our best to get a review account and will post a full review when we can.
Here is what we know right now:
Channels
With YouTube TV you will be able to watch the top four broadcast networks—ABC, NBC, Fox, and CBS—and 35 or so of their affiliated cable channels including ESPN, Disney Channel, MSNBC, National Geographic, and Fox News. Subscribers will also get a DVR to record shows and unlimited storage in the cloud. The only catch is that shows are automatically deleted after 9 months. (We do not know at this time what markets will get live local channels.)
Sadly many popular channels are still missing. Viacom and its channels, such as MTV, Spike TV, and Comedy Central, are all missing. So are Time Warner-owned channels such as HBO, TNT, and CNN.
The price point of $35 does lead us to believe that Google may add more channels to this lineup because DIRECTV NOW offers 60 channels for $35 and Sling TV offers 80 channels for $35 a month.
You will also be able to add Showtime and Fox Soccer Plus to your plan.
Devices
YouTube TV subscribers will be able to watch YouTube TV on smartphones, tablets, and laptop computers. Although YouTube did announce that you will be able to cast to devices they are assumedly devices such as Chromecast and maybe Android TV.
Sadly Roku, Fire TV, and Apple TV are all missing from the list of supported devices. Google seems to be focusing on this as primarily a mobile service. Having it mobile is nice, but I still find that most cord cutters really want the ability to watch TV on the big screen. If it does launch without support for Roku, Fire TV, and Apple TV it will likely negatively impact the service.
Number of Streams & Profiles
In the YouTube blog post about YouTube TV it said you will be able to have three streams at once. You will also be able to make six profiles each with its own recommendations and personal DVR.
DVR
What may be the most attractive feature of YouTube TV is the DVR. You will get unlimited DVR storage and the recordings will be saved for 9 months.
App Sign In
The biggest missing feature is lack of any mention of sign in support for apps such as WatchESPN and Fox Sports Go. The lack of any support for even basic apps, such as WatchESPN, is a huge omission.
Source: Engadget
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