Last year, I tried most of the major live TV streaming services. No one service is perfect and they all have their pros and cons. Which service is best for an individual may simply come down to what “must have” channels you “need.”
In terms of interface and content, I initially thought Hulu’s Live TV was the slam-dunk winner. This was the case until I started using the Hulu DVR. It is simply terrible. Every live sports event I record always starts playing near the end of the broadcast! There have been a few times I knew the outcome before I could even watch the game! There is no option to start watching from the beginning. I am forced to fast rewind to the beginning.
Worse, Hulu’s DVR does not resume where you left off. If you accidentally go back to the main menu, returning to a DVR’s show may or may not resume, but in my experience, I am stuck again either at the beginning or the end (see above).
Even worse, the DVR may even literally choose at times to “skip” key sections of a broadcast. As an example, I was trying to watch the recent PBA Tournament of Champions. I could not watch it all in one setting and was hoping to watch at least one match at a time. Whenever I left and returned to the DVR (e.g. the next day), the ToC resumed at the end of the next match. Again, this is terrible, essentially jumping to the end of the next section. Three times, I got to watch Jason Belmonte finishing up winning his latest match, including the finale.
Hulu also seems to have a knack for forcing you to watch commercials, which I did not notice in any of the other services’ DVRs.
Hulu has a great library of on demand content, and coupled with the Disney Bundle including ESPN+, is the best live TV streaming value right now, in my opinion. But man, the DVR is beyond terrible.
