Hulu with Live TV (cont'd)

11. Any other extras I should know about?

You can combine the “Enhanced Cloud DVR” and “Unlimited Screens” add-ons together for $20 a month. That saves $10, but it still raises the monthly cost up a good amount.

On a higher level, Hulu with Live TV is the most ambitious of the current live TV services, in both scope and design. Its interface is a radical departure from Hulu proper, so it may take some time to get used to. It is entirely focused on shows — there’s not a channel grid in sight — and it relies heavily on algorithmically knowing which shows you’re more likely to watch.

In my time with it, that’s worked fine. Hulu puts you through a whole onboarding procedure to get a feel for your interests, and the service has since pointed me toward the kind of sports- and comedy-related programming I tend to like.

Since I’m already a Hulu user, it’s also done well to blend the shows I had been watching beforehand into those recommendations. It nicely calls up episodes I’ve started but not finished, too. And the dedicated "My Channels" tab, which cuts out every network you don't care about, is great.

If you want to just browse around, though, be prepared to do some swiping. The whole UI is gorgeous, with big graphics and clean text everywhere, but it splits everything up into many, many cards and tabs. Simply getting to your DVR takes eight swipes.

The search function could also use some fine-tuning. I had moments where searching for a particular show didn't bring up an episode that was airing live at that time, for instance.

Still, this is really the only service that successfully blends live TV with on-demand content. You can swipe to live shows specifically if you’d like, but by default your “lineup” (i.e., the main menu) swirls on-demand, live shows, and DVR recordings together, centering them on what kind of thing you want to watch, rather than where they originate. That’s significant, and it makes you less beholden to time than you are anywhere else.

There haven't been too many technical issues in our first week of testing, either, but it's not immune to the occasional stutter.