If you’re a pay-TV subscriber, there’s another way to watch some of your channels away from home. FitzyTV provides a nice selection of free channels, including four possibly out-of-market local stations, after authentication through your provider.

Based on its domain’s whois information, FitzyTV is a product of James Fitzgerald of San Diego. It’s currently available in the Google Play App Store, though its web site promises that the iOS version is coming soon. (The Android version, published by Fitzgerald Technologies LLC, is still in beta.)

That App Store description reveals its main emphasis. “FitzyTV turns your Android phone into a DVR for the online TV channels you have access to as part of your cable or satellite subscription.” Although watching live channels on an Android phone (or tablet) is free, the cloud DVR is $5/month for 20 hours of recordings.

Even without a DVR, FitzyTV’s free version has its uses. It includes Chromecast, even for channels that don’t otherwise support it. Four full-time local stations – WNBC and WABC New York, plus KNTV and KRON San Francisco – are available even for pay-TV subscribers outside those cities. There are also primetime feeds for Fox east and west, though CBS is absent.

The other channels in FitzyTV are: ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPNews, HGTV, MSNBC, CNBC, FX, FXX, FXM, AMC, Bravo, E!, Oxygen, USA, Food Network, Disney, Disney Junior, Universal Kids, Syfy, Comedy Central, TV Land, MTV, NatGeo, Olympic, Golf, NBC SportsNet, and a few NBC RSNs. If the associated pay-TV subscription doesn’t include the channel, FitzyTV won’t play it. For example, when I logged in with my Sling Blue account, it wouldn’t play ESPN or ABC, but both were available when I logged in under my cable subscription.

As a Mountain Time resident, I’m really surprised that my locals would be okay with me watching the earlier east coast feeds of NBC and ABC. FitzyTV seems like a helpful service, but I wonder how long it will last.