http://m.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/01/espn-is-the-heart-of-the-cable-bundle-and-now-you-can-watch-it-without-cable/384228/

Has anybody gotten an invite to this? Tried it? I'd definitely he interested in getting ESPN and a few other channels for just $20 a month...

1/8/2015 9:51:27 AM

Any word on picture quality? I don't stick with DirecTV because of access to certain channels (although Sunday Ticket is a major draw) but because they broadcast at the highest bitrates. The only thing better is a strong OTA signal.

1/8/2015 11:06:35 AM

not worth $20 to me, but I'd pick it up for periods of time for specific events.

1/8/2015 12:53:42 PM

http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/07/dish-sling-tv-hands-on/
http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/7/7510487/dish-sling-television-internet-tv-ces-2015

i wasn't sure about the channel lineup, but the wife likes it so we plan on doing this plus netflix (and I still somehow have a student discount for amazon prime) along with an antenna for OTA.

the thing i like about this is opening up into live tv, instead of the so-many-choices paralysis that I sometimes have with Netflix. a few comments I've seen on the internet think that's a minus, but I think it's a plus.

apparently the xbox one will have a free 1 month trial to try it.

[Edited on January 8, 2015 at 2:56 PM. Reason : .]

1/8/2015 2:48:58 PM

i'd be all over this if they could somehow add dvr. i rarely watch live tv if it is not sports anymore. it would be awesome if i could just record shows to my xbox one's hd.

[Edited on January 8, 2015 at 3:46 PM. Reason : ']

1/8/2015 3:46:33 PM

^^ I see it as a huge minus for a $20 service. I mean, I'm getting ready to drop my TV subscription soon once HBO becomes available on its own, but I pay $54 total for my current service (+$8 for netflix) when I am not getting HBO. that includes ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and of course WatchESPN as well as AMC, TBS, all of the network channels, discovery, etc. etc. All the normal stuff as well as a DVR accessible from 3 TVs.

Paying $20 for live service only of selected channels is just not worth it to me personally unless it is for a couple months of a World Cup or something. (Obviously everyone will be different here). They need to at least do something where a re-watch of some things are available for 5 days after or something. No replay feature is just stone ages even at $20.

I understand the premium for the sports which is also mainly viewed live for most people still but it's hard to justify $20 for live streaming only compared to the $24 you can spend to have all of netflix, hulu, and amazon on your own time. I'd be much happier if they shed all those other channels they're bundling with it and just offered an ESPN suite for $10 for live streaming or $15 if it included replay. As it is, it's a cool concept that I'm sure a lot of people will be happy to use, but I'll stick with my plan to ditch a subscription and do without ESPN. The only benefit I see is the ease to pick it up for a few months here and there with no obligation.


[Edited on January 8, 2015 at 4:12 PM. Reason : ]

1/8/2015 4:09:20 PM

I'm planning on getting it just for ESPN. For the last year I have been relying on Netflix/Prime/OTA. The lack of ESPN has driven me crazy. $28 is a lot cheaper than any cable package in my area, the additional channels I could be getting is a non factor as I won't be watching them anyway.

1/9/2015 2:47:11 PM

sling tv subscription will allow you to use WatchESPN, they hinted that the $5 sports package will include "more great channels from ESPN" among others

doesn't sound like a PS4 app is coming soon

DD 5.1 supported for most channels

Chromecast not supported at launch, but coming. AirPlay supported at launch.

There are user tools to lower bandwidth if you have data usage concers

1/14/2015 6:59:33 PM

if it comes with fox sports and cbssports for all my racing then I'll be all set

1/14/2015 7:12:15 PM

Got the invite yesterday. Not sure if I'm going to do it. Time Warner Cable says I can upgrade to their best TV package for only $30 more per month. That seems like a better deal because of all the extra content.

2/4/2015 4:24:09 PM

does the $30/month quote include the equipment fees? Each digital box you get costs money and DVR is even more (DVR has an extra cost for equipment and service).

2/4/2015 4:40:32 PM

biggest dealbreaker right now is only one live stream at a time

So you're wife, GF, kids,etc can't be watching on the same account at the same time

2/4/2015 5:39:04 PM

^^ Yes.

^ Agreed.

2/5/2015 1:20:41 AM

^I agree, the one stream at a time is a big drawback. However one thing I read was that this will also come with WatchESPN access, which is pretty awesome (only ESPN 1, 2, and 3 access though). So while you can only have SlingTV streaming to one device, you can have WatchESPN streaming sports to several other devices.

2/5/2015 9:10:37 AM

Just added AMC. Almost makes it worth it for TWD, BCS and Mad Men.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/9/8004187/sling-tv-now-available-adds-amc

2/9/2015 1:49:08 PM

Plus BBC America and others since they're part of AMC programming.

I'll be hopping on this as soon as they have Xbox/Amazon support.

2/9/2015 1:57:55 PM

Signed up today, we'll see how it goes. I was in the market for a Roku 3, and saw where you can sign up through SlingTVs website and get a Roku 3 for $49. The add said you would have to prepay for 3 months of SlingTV access, however when I checked out it only billed me for 1 month ($70 total) and said that I could cancel at anytime.

So if nothing else I got a Roku 3 which I was planning on buying anyways for $30 off and got a month of Sling access, so i'm happy. If I end up liking it, $20 split between my roommate and I a month isnt bad, but we'll see.

2/12/2015 2:16:51 PM

I'm now seriously considering dumping DirecTV for this. I think I'll wait for the Nexus Player SlingTV app and get both.

2/13/2015 7:03:50 PM

^Why the Nexus player over the Fire TV? They're so similar except for the extra gig of RAM in the FTV. Plus you can pick one up for $50 if you do 3 months of Sling TV service.

Edit: I guess it looks like Sling is doing a similar offer with the Nexus too. Still, I don't know why you'd want 1GB of RAM over 2 though.

2/13/2015 8:21:08 PM

I just haven't been that impressed with any of Amazon's hardware offerings and have no interest in locking any of my media into their ecosystem. However, it looks like the Nexus Player is kind of a pos prototype at the moment and it would be better to wait for the next iteration of Android TV boxes. One with a built in OTA tuner would be ideal.

[Edited on February 14, 2015 at 9:59 AM. Reason : :]

2/14/2015 9:58:58 AM

Who's signed on? Thoughts?

3/4/2015 11:35:56 AM

I tried it for a few days but decided on using the basic cable feed that comes with my internet

3/4/2015 11:46:53 AM

I have it. Loving it so far.

Added bonus is that you can restart any currently "live" show to the beginning.

3/4/2015 1:15:23 PM

^you can only restart shows on limited channels, not every channel.

So far i'm really liking mine. The biggest gripe I hear from people is that you can only watch it on one tv, however it comes with WatchEspn access, so while my brother may be using it on the main tv, I can use the WatchEspn app to watch sports on the other tv with the chromecast.

The Windows app is absolute garbage, which is annoying while i'm trying to watch it at work. I opted to get the Roku and so far its been working great, no problems in the week or so i've had it. With AMC added in, it makes a stronger argument to keep it.

I took a look at signing up for the Epix $5 package, but it seemed like alot of the movies they show are ones I can already watch on Netflix or Prime, so I dont think i'll be adding it in. I'll probably add in the sports package once college football seasons starts.

Overall i'm pretty happy with it.

3/6/2015 3:53:35 PM

Quote :

"I have it. Loving it so far."

So we can confirm invites are being sent then.



[Edited on March 7, 2015 at 6:35 PM. Reason : _]

3/7/2015 6:34:54 PM

You haven't needed an invite to sign up for quite some time now.

3/8/2015 1:39:52 AM

just added today A&E, History, History 2, and Lifetime. Paired with AMC that they added a couple of weeks ago, i'm happy with the content (although Discovery would be nice).

The roku app has gotten more stable over the past several weeks. Overall i'm happy with the service.

3/26/2015 7:17:09 PM

Quote :

" The biggest gripe I hear from people is that you can only watch it on one tv"

So if you have multiple rokus,it knows when both of them are active?

3/27/2015 2:44:59 AM

As soon as you can pay $5 extra a month for multiple streams at once, I'm all over this. Until then I shall wait

3/27/2015 9:19:29 AM

Yeah, that's probably my biggest gripe as well.

And I'm getting a lot of "You are not authorized to view this content" type messages. Happens right in the middle of some shows...mainly sporting events i've noticed. Kinda annoying. But typically closing/opening Sling fixes it.

3/27/2015 9:55:45 AM

http://www.techhive.com/article/2903140/sling-tvs-newest-channels-arrive-with-restricted-content.html

Supposedly certain shows are being blocked by their networks. This doesn't bode well for the future. They need to get their shit together if this is going to work. It needs to be all or nothing.

3/27/2015 11:07:49 PM

This really doesn't work that well on Xbox. It buffers all the time and there are some issues when a live event like sports overruns its scheduled time. It really messed up when the basketball games went over.

Glad I got a free trial. Need some work to become more mainstream.

3/29/2015 7:52:28 PM

http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/01/sling-tv-will-have-hbo-before-game-of-thrones-season-premiere/

Now you can add HBO for $15/mo.

4/1/2015 4:37:37 PM

Signed up over the weekend once they started with HBO. Working on a first free month through the XBone, and so far I'm pleased. I get some start/stop issues and the occasional resolution stutters, but for a fledgling app I'm okay waiting while they iron out kinks.

4/15/2015 12:49:59 PM

I have been using Sling through a Roku for almost a month now and so far it is worth the lower price for how little I watch tv. I also use an antenna and other free Apps on the Roku and PS4. $113 for DirecTV just seemed out of control. It is still roughly 4 months until football season though. That is the big test to see if cutting the cord will be sustainable for me.

5/14/2015 11:08:51 PM

basic cable starts at $19.99

5/15/2015 8:43:41 AM

between this thread and the google fiber one I'm starting to think dtownral is a plant for the cable companies

5/15/2015 9:57:14 AM

i cut cable entirely, I hate them as much as everyone else, but I'm not willing to pay more money to spite them

5/15/2015 1:48:23 PM

Is sling on a Roku better than the Xbox One app? I've been using the free trial but the Xbox One app is a little rough, is a Roku the solution?

6/19/2015 12:53:20 PM

the Roku app is pretty shitty too imho. Never used the XBONE app so cant tell you if it's worse. But as a UX web guy, the Roku app makes me want to claw my eyes out with a spoon.

[Edited on June 19, 2015 at 3:15 PM. Reason : .]

6/19/2015 3:14:41 PM

i'm more annoyed that it occasionally freezes and jitters and it has frozen the xbox a couple times

6/19/2015 3:50:07 PM

Roku app is stable. I've had no issues other than a few messages months ago that would randomly pop up "Your content is not available. Please try again later" or something like that.

But have been happy the last few months

6/19/2015 5:39:35 PM

I love service and it is worth the lower cost. My biggest issue is with the on demand stuff. I have kids and rarely watch the stuff when it airs. So i'll watch it on demand and during watching it there will be a playback error. Sometimes I cause it and sometimes it just happens. It doesn't remember where you were and you have to watch the show again up to that point because there is no fast forwarding. If they would fix that, I'd give it 5 stars.

[Edited on June 23, 2015 at 12:20 AM. Reason : add: This is for the Amazon Fire TV.]

6/23/2015 12:19:47 AM

^ This

I watch primarily on my XBone and the quality of the stream has gotten much better since launch (better quality, less skipping, fewer timeouts, etc). Definitely worth the $20, and the HBO addon was nice for GoT (though I'm thinking about downgrading now that it's over).

6/23/2015 7:31:24 AM

One thing to remember, if you are interested in HBO, is to get it separate if you can, via appleTV. That way it doesn't count as your one stream with Sling.

6/23/2015 10:17:26 AM

I keep waiting on these guys to allow multiple streams per account for a premium fee and to get a better on-demand/dvr solution going on. I really want to dump my satellite service and might wind up doing so before this happens at Sling, but it would make the decision an easy one if they improved those two things.

6/23/2015 3:19:46 PM

This was great for the NBA playoffs, but now that's over there really isn't anything good to watch.

6/24/2015 9:41:54 PM