YouTube TV is Finally Coming to TVs
- Paul Thurrott
- Oct 31, 2017
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34
Google’s YouTube TV is a great option for cord-cutters, but it’s suffered from one major and obvious flaw: There’s never been an elegant way to get that content on your—wait for it—TV. But that’s about to change.
“Since the launch of YouTube TV in April, you’ve streamed live sports, local and national news, and can’t-miss shows on your phone, tablet, and computer,” the Official YouTube Blog notes. “Now, we’re psyched to announce our new YouTube TV app, made for the big screen.”
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I know. You’re thinking, this doesn’t make any sense. How could Google launch a service called YouTube and not make it available on TVs? But that’s what they did: To date, you’ve been able to use a YouTube TV mobile app on Android or iOS, or the YouTube TV website on your Mac or PC. But if you wanted to get it up on the big screen—that HDTV or 4K/UHD set in the living room—you were on your own. You could use a technology like Chromecast (Android, Chrome on Mac/PC), Miracast (PC), or AirPlay (via Apple TV) to stream the content from the device to the screen.
Well, that nightmare is finally coming to a close. “In the next few days,” Google will issue YouTube TV apps for a variety of living room set-top boxes, including Android TV (including NVIDIA SHIELD), and Xbox One (all models). And “in the coming weeks,” Google will deliver YouTube TV apps for LG, Samsung, and Sony smart TVs, plus Apple TV. Frankly, Google should have led the way with these apps.
If you’ve been following along with my “tech makeover” series for Premium readers, you know that I’ve had a terrible time with cord-cutting apps like PlayStation Vue, Hulu with Live TV, and YouTube TV. And that the issue with YouTube TV, in particular, was the inelegant way it works with the TV: There’s no way to browse the guide with a remote or do any of the normal stuff one might expect from a TV-like solution.
So that’s about to change, which is great. But to give Google a bit of credit, it did rescue us on Sunday night when we wanted to watch The Walking Dead and discovered that PlayStation Vue, which I thought was good through the end of October, had been shut off. So we did use it, off my Android phone and a Chromecast to watch the show. And it was OK.
But here’s an irony alert: The cable guy is arriving today to install a TiVo-powered RCN cable box. My cord-cutting experiment, for now at least, is over. And these YouTube TV apps are arriving too late.
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Conversation 34 comments
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Stooks
<blockquote><a href="#211944"><em>In reply to Nicholas_Kathrein:</em></a></blockquote><p>Well actually there is…</p><p><br></p><p>YouTube</p><p>YouTube Red</p><p>YouTube Music</p><p>YouTube TV</p><p>Google Play Music</p><p>Google Play Video</p><p>Google Play Books</p><p><br></p><p>Each has its own app. </p><p><br></p><p>So yes there is confusion. I like these offerings but they seriously need to do some consolidation of apps and services. Potential customers that are not tech savvy just walk away. I would think they could collapse all of the video into one app and same for the music.</p>
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Stooks
<blockquote><a href="#212015"><em>In reply to Nicholas_Kathrein:</em></a></blockquote><p>Yeah I know you are a total Google fanboy so it might be hard to see that having so many apps and services to consume Google digital content (video, audio, books) is confusing to most people. It is even worse in some cases. If you subscribe to Google Play music you get Youtube Red and vise versa. Different apps, different target audiences but linked if you get one or the other. Explaining that to people is confusing enough.</p><p><br></p><p>At least Apple only has three distinct apps for consuming content, one for video, music and books. </p><p><br></p><p>iTunes is on its way out and is a hold over until they get there. You purchase songs or purchase/rent movies through it. Apple Music is a streaming service. I would imagine they will retire iTunes at some point and you will buy music through the Apple music app and rent/buy movies through the video app. That said it may be a while for iTunes on PC/Mac to go away. How many iPod's are still in use? That is a legacy problem Apple has from the success of those devices and only Apple has this problem.</p>
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Bats
<p>What exactly did Paul mean when he said "<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">There’s never been…" and "</span><span style="color: rgb(49, 50, 51);">YouTube TV has never offered…". The tone makes it seem as YouTube TV has been around for years rather than just 5 months. Lol…and I thought Paul Thurrott says he doesn't do click bait.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgb(49, 50, 51);">Google TV offers the best value of all the cord cutting services. All this channels including live sports, unlimited DVR, YouTube Red, family sharing, international use (VPN). </span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgb(49, 50, 51);">What's funny is that Paul quit too soon. With YouTube TV he could've shared his account with his family including his college kids. Not just that, but with all the places he goes to with Brad, he could brought his living room TV with him in his pocket. But…he didn't, all because of an HGTV show that he can easily get and cast to his TV? Tech is supposed to make lives easier, how the heck does Paul make it seem so hard?</span></p>
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