I thought I had made a post in this long-neglected blog about cutting the cord and switching to Hulu Live, but apparently not. So, to recap: Hulu came out with their "Live" service that lets you stream live TV. The real bonus for this service is that it includes a cloud-based DVR, so I can watch whatever I've recorded from wherever I happen to be at the moment. This is hugely convenient and duplicates much of Slingbox's traditional functionality.
However, a couple of draw-backs emerged over the year I've been using the service. First, their iOS app has an amazingly annoying requirement that it be launched every few weeks while you're at home so that it can connect to your home network. I don't watch content on my iOS devices while I'm home, though, and I almost always forget to launch the app before I leave for a trip, leaving me locked-out from both my DVR and the live streaming when I travel. (To be fair, this restriction isn't present on the web-based interface that I can run on my laptop, but it has bitten me a few times when I've traveled with only an iPad.)
Second, while Hulu has made it clear that they consider their service to be in beta, it's been plagued with small glitches and poor performance. Performance while skipping has improved greatly since the early days, but skipping around commercials still sometimes results in erratic performance. The advertising timer that appears in the upper left-hand corner of the screen is wildly inaccurate, and they've removed the thumbnail preview when scrubbing, making it a real guessing game when trying to avoid the commercials (which are still largely there even though I pay extra for "limited commercials").
Lastly, as a result of un-bundling my Internet service from my cable company's TV service, I'm paying about the same price for Internet-only service as I was for Internet plus TV. Then I have to add the $55/month for Hulu Live with the DVR and limited commercials, which means I've ended up doubling my cost for Internet and TV service just to get the cloud-based DVR functionality—not ideal.
I recount all this because motorsports season will soon be upon us, and it looks like all the motorcycle racing I enjoy watching is now being broadcast by a new network called beIN SPORTS. beIN isn't carried by my cable provider, nor Hulu, but it is carried by another live TV streaming service called Fubo. Fubo's focus is on sports, so they carry beIN as well as the Fox and NBC sports networks that carry the other motorsports I enjoy. They also carry my preferred news channels, which is about the only other TV I watch, and they have a DVR service as well. They charge $45 a month for their service, so I save $10 per month over Hulu Live, plus get access to all the motorsports I like to watch.
I've been using Fubo for free for the past several days as part of their "first week free" promotion, and I have to say I'm impressed. Their skipping and scrubbing functionality is much more responsive than Hulu Live's. They also include a thumbnail when scrubbing, making it much easier to skip to exactly the point I'm interested in. Their interface is straight-forward, but they do lack the ability to schedule repeating recordings at the moment—you have to click on each instance of a show and say you want to record it, instead of being able to say "record this show every time" once and be done with it. Also, you can only schedule about 10 days into the future, so every week or so I need to add whatever shows I want to watch to my DVR's recording schedule.
I haven't traveled with Fubo yet, so I don't know if any issues appear when using the service away from home. Regardless, what I've seen so far has convinced me to switch from Hulu Live to Fubo.