As liberating as cord-cutting will be, it may possibly additionally introduce some frustrations.
The stay TV streaming service you’re paying for won’t allow you to document sure channels or skip by means of commercials, or its TV program information may be much less intuitive than what you had with cable. Meanwhile, subscribing to multiple stay TV service means juggling separate apps with their very own DVRs, and mooching a pay-TV login from a pal or member of the family means watching stay TV by means of dozens of separate apps.
FitzyTV is a free app that offers with these annoyances by pulling all of your stay streaming channels into one viewing information, whereas additionally providing its personal cloud DVR for a further payment. For cord-cutters in sure conditions, it may very well be a useful gizmo, and on the very least it’s fascinating as a proof of idea. But it additionally rests on shaky floor—if not legally, then at the very least technically—that leads to a number of main limitations. Even as FitzyTV alleviates some streaming TV complications, it introduces new ones.
What is FitzyTV?
FitzyTV is a free app you’ll be able to obtain on Amazon Fire TV units, Android TV units, and Android cell units. Once put in, it enables you to log into your present pay-TV package deal—whether or not it’s cable, satellite tv for pc, or streaming—and stream stay channels by means of a easy grid information.
FitzyTV funnels pay-TV-authenticated channel streams right into a single grid information (in case you’re already paying for them).
To be clear, the one content material FitzyTV offers by itself is a handful of free internet-based streaming channels, akin to Cheddar and Buzzr. To watch some other channels by means of the app, you have to be getting them already by means of an present pay-TV package deal.
Why hassle with FitzyTV, then? If you’re nonetheless paying for cable or satellite tv for pc TV, you would use the app on a Fire TV or Android TV machine to keep away from renting a second or third cable field. And in case you’re sharing someone else’s cable-TV password, the app will spare you from needing dozens of “TV Everywhere” apps to observe stay TV.
More importantly, FitzyTV provides a cloud DVR service that prices $5 per thirty days or $50 per 12 months for every 25 hours of recording capability. You can entry these recordings from anyplace at no extra price, and there are not any limits on how lengthy the recordings are saved, which channels you’ll be able to document, or whose business breaks you’ll be able to skip.
By comparability, most stay TV streaming providers have completely different rules and restrictions on recording and ad-skipping, and cable field DVRs typically price much more for entry throughout a number of televisions. If you’re annoyed by the bounds in your present DVR service, $5 per thirty days isn’t loads to pay for a workaround. (Just remember the fact that FitzyTV’s DVR is separate from any recordings you make straight by means of a stay TV streaming service or cable field.)
Jared Newman / IDGIn addition to offering stay TV, FitzyTV can document streaming channels for $5 per thirty days or $50 per 12 months.
FitzyTV even works with Locast, a non-profit service that streams free over-the-air broadcast channels in 13 U.S. cities. If you’re in a market that Locast serves, utilizing the 2 providers collectively successfully creates an over-the-air DVR with out extra hardware costs or an antenna setup.
Big restrictions—and questions—stay
Unlike an precise pay-TV supplier, FitzyTV has not partnered with any TV networks to ship its stay streams. Instead, the corporate makes use of an internet crawler to seek out stay channel streams from TV Everywhere sources, then makes use of the authentication tokens related to prospects’ pay-TV accounts to achieve entry to the streams.
James Fitzgerald, the CEO of the eponymous FitzyTV—and till lately its sole worker—argues that this service is authorized as a result of it’s accessing streams which are freely accessible on the web, and that customers are already entitled to obtain. As for recording these streams, Fitzgerald cites Cablevision’s landmark court victory over TV networks a decade in the past, permitting it to construct a network-based DVR.
Legal or not, FitzyTV’s method has some main limitations, the largest of which is that some apps—together with Nick Jr., Science, History, A&E, and Lifetime—don’t supply stay streams of their TV Everywhere apps. Because FitzyTV doesn’t have a video on-demand aspect, it may possibly’t play or document content material from these channels in any respect.
FitzyTV additionally doesn’t pull in broadcast streams for native affiliate stations. Instead, it grabs the closest stream from the networks’ “owned and operated stations” in main cities, which is why I acquired native channels from Detroit and Chicago whereas utilizing FitzyTV in Cincinnati. The service doesn’t assist Fox Sports regionals, both, but it unusually confirmed me some regional sports activities channels that weren’t included with any of my pay-TV providers I examined, akin to SNY in New York City.
Frustrating as that may be for customers, I’m involved that FitzyTV’s tendency to serve these out-of-market streams may poke a gap in Fitzgerald’s authorized argument that customers are solely getting channels to which they’re entitled. He has not but responded to my request for touch upon that matter.
Even if FitzyTV addresses its channel entry points, it’s nonetheless on the whim of no matter every TV Everywhere supply offers when it comes to video high quality. While some stay TV providers, akin to YouTube TV, now ship 60-frames-per-second video throughout the board in their very own apps, Locast streams and lots of cable channel streams are caught at 30 frames per second in Fitzy TV.
Other tough edges
Setting apart FitzyTV’s authorized grey areas and channel limitations, the service has another tough edges to work out.
On the stay TV aspect, channels generally take a very long time to load, and the TV information offers no program data past episode titles. Stranger nonetheless, the app seems so as to add all channels to your favorites checklist once you login with a TV supplier, which implies it’s essential to take away channels to make the favorites checklist manageable.
For DVR, FitzyTV provides solely a 24-hour channel information and no search or browse features, limiting your capacity to seek out exhibits to document. Meanwhile, the recordings themselves solely assist quick forwarding in 30-second increments, with no visible preview of what you’re skipping by means of. And whilst you can watch recordings which are nonetheless in progress, leaping to the top of them routinely triggered lengthy buffering instances.
Jared Newman / IDGBasic recording works nicely sufficient, however you get no visible preview when quick forwarding.
The larger lacking piece, although, is app assist. Fitzgerald instructed me that an iOS app is coming quickly, and {that a} Roku app may observe inside a pair months, however that also leaves out Apple TV, Chromecast, recreation consoles, sensible TVs, and the net.
Having stated all that, it’s sort of miraculous that FitzyTV works in addition to it does, given the service’s unorthodox nature. The information itself is quick and easy, you’ll be able to pause and rewind stay TV channels, and I had no hassle accessing my recordings. And even for stay TV, no different service makes TV Everywhere streams really easy to entry.
All of which provides as much as essentially the most cautious of suggestions for FitzyTV. For a sure subset of cord-cutters, it may very well be simply the correct software for the job, nevertheless it’s a non-starter if it doesn’t serve the channels you truly watch, or work on the platforms you utilize. And if networks take umbrage with FitzyTV’s out-of-market streams, that might put your complete service in jeopardy. FitzyTV is definitely an fascinating product, nevertheless it’s not prepared to alleviate all of your cord-cutting annoyances simply but.