Streaming TV Services DVR Comparison

By now everyone who has cut the cord for any length of time has probably tried a streaming TV service or three. With the number of free trials being offered, many may have even chosen to try them all.

While many TV services may offer similar channels, it's their DVR service that truly sets them apart and can make or break the streaming service for many users.

The DVR is more important than ever once the cord has been cut because of the cable or satellite DVR is not an option any longer. Their DVR which let you skip commercials or pause live TV was really one of the best things about being a cable subscriber.

Now that we have a handful of live TV streaming services to choose from. We thought it would be great to rate them based on their DVR service.

Which Streaming TV Service Has the Best DVR?

Fubo TV, Sling TV, DirecTV, PS Vue, Hulu Live, Philo, HDHomeRun and YouTube TV all offer their subscribers a DVR to record and store recorded shows.

Each service does things a little different. Some like YouTube Live will give you an unlimited amount of recordings you can store for up to nine months. Others will limit how much cloud storage you can use for your recordings yet store them indefinitely.

These may not be as nice as the DVR you may have once used back in your high monthly bill cable TV days. It will still be a thousand times better than needing to watch all your shows live and sit through endless commercials without a DVR at all.

This table will give you an idea of some of the main features each streaming service provides when it comes to their cloud DVR.

Note: HDHomeRun recently began offering a streaming plan of their own which lets you record your shows to a hard drive or NAS. The rest all offer a cloud-based DVR where your recordings are stored on the company's servers.

Hardware-Based DVRs

As long as your subscribing to one of the services above that offer a cloud-based DVR, it probably does not make much sense to invest in a DVR like TiVo, or Tablo. These make much more sense if you only plan on watching and recording Free Live TV from an antenna.

These DVRs are still handy for recording local channels which your streaming TV provider may not offer. Here you can find a more in-depth look at hardware DVRs and watch free to.

DVR Comparison Table

Streaming Service	Recorded Hours	Time Limit For Recordings	Notes
Sling TV	50 Hrs	None
DirecTV Now	20 Hrs	30/days	Future plans to offer extra hours for an additional charge.
PS Vue My DVR	500 Episodes Max	28/days
Hulu Live	50 Hrs	None	Upgrade to 200 Hours for an additional fee.
HDHomeRun	Unlimited Recordings	None	Storage depends on your drive or NAS.
YouTube Live	Unlimited Recordings	9/months	YouTube Live Unlimited Recordings Recordings drop off after nine months.
Philo	Unlimited Recordings	30/Days	No restrictions on ad-skipping.

What About Skipping Commercials?

Here is something else to think about when using a cloud based DVR from a streaming TV service provider. Most of these streaming services actually substitute your recorded episode for the network's "on demand" session which doesn't allow you to skip the commercials.

The HDHomeRun Channels records the shows to a hard disk in your home. This makes it REALLY easy to skip commercials.

This is one really big reason why subscribing to the package offered by Silicon Dust and buying a HDHomeRun makes a lot of sense. Because being able to skip commercial is one of the best reasons to have a DVR.

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