Can You Watch NBA, NHL Playoffs with YouTube TV’s Multiview?
Can You Watch NBA, NHL Playoffs with YouTube TV’s Multiview?
Cord-cutting sports fans were spoiled during the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournaments as YouTube TV debuted its new Multiview technology, which allowed viewers to stream up to four different games at a time. However, now that the madness of March has subsided, sports lovers are turning their attention to other postseason tournaments with the NBA and NHL playoffs taking center stage (or center ice) during the spring. So, naturally, YouTube TV subscribers are able to watch multiples games at once, just like during The Big Dance, right? ……….. Right?
Unfortunately, not right. Despite the fact that 2023 NBA Playoff games air on ABC, ESPN, NBA TV, and TNT, and Stanely Cup Playoff matchups are being broadcast on ESPN, ESPN2, ABC, TBS, and TNT, YouTube TV does not currently have a way to allow you to watch multiple games at once, let alone to mix and match games with other programs airing at the same time.
Related: How to Watch 2023 NBA Playoffs Live Without Cable
When the live TV streaming service made the announcement about the feature debuting for the basketball tournaments, it made it clear that the March Madness Multiview addition was just a beta test with the plan to launch in full this fall in time for NFL Sunday Ticket’s first season exclusive on YouTube TV. During the NCAA Tournaments, YouTube would preselect which games to feature, so viewers were unable to pick and choose the channels that they wanted to watch, and were restricted to only the basketball tournament games being a part of the Multiview experience.
In a day and age in which picture-in-picture is far from new technology, the lack of this type of functionality on most live streamers is difficult for many to understand. Sports-focused streamer Fubo has a feature that allows viewers to select up to four feeds to stream at a time, and the now-sunset PlayStation Vue did as well. However, those examples are fundamentally different than what YouTube TV is doing, and that difference explains why it is taking the Google-owned streamer so long to introduce its full product.
While Fubo does allow viewers to select up to four different channels to watch at any given time, this functionality is not available to all subscribers, in fact, it is only available to those streaming through an Apple TV device. Similarly, PlayStation Vue was only available via a PlayStation video game console. These two services were able to harness the extra power of the hardware to handle the four simultaneous feeds without sacrificing video quality or creating massive latency issues, but YouTube TV is attempting to do the same thing without customers needing any extra equipment.
Related: How to Watch 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs Live Without Cable
“Typically, when you think about a multiview experience, from a technical perspective,” YouTube TV engineering lead German Cheung explained when multiview was announced, “it requires a high-end user device to process and playback multiple streams at once and show them as one cohesive view on the screen. But the great thing about YouTube TV is that it doesn’t require any high-powered equipment, so we had to get creative in how we brought this to life.”
So what YouTube TV is doing is handling the major technical lift on its end, so that it can send a single, cohesive video feed to users for whatever mix of games they want, all while still streaming from whatever connected or smart TV they want.
“In the absence of relying on end user devices,” Cheung said, “we moved the processing requirements to happen on our side, on YouTube’s servers. This allows all subscribers to use the feature, regardless of their home equipment, because when it’s streamed to them, their device sees only one live feed, instead of two or four.”
While the fact that viewers don’t need additional expensive equipment to access the multiview function is a positive, the downside is that during the NCAA Basketball Tournament, they were not able to select which channels and games they wanted to watch. However, earlier this month, the streamer posted an updated FAQ about Sunday Ticket, and indicated that a customizable version could be ready by football season.
So, perhaps for the 2024 NBA and NHL playoffs, sports fans will be able to catch all of the basketball and hockey action with an episode of “Vanderpump Rules” thrown in for good measure, but, for the time being, sports fans will have to watch multiple games the old-fashioned way, by mounting four TVs on the wall and hoping that you did it properly so they won’t all fall and break when you start jumping up and down following a go-ahead goal.
YouTube TV
YouTube TV is a live TV streaming service with more than 60 channels for $82.99/month. This plan includes local channels 32 of the top 35 cable channels, and regional sports networks (RSNs) in select markets. The base plan includes more than 100 live channels, including major broadcast networks like ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC, as well as popular cable channels such as ESPN, CNN, FX, USA Network, and TNT. Local channels are included in most markets, making YouTube TV a full replacement for traditional cable for many viewers.