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Sling tv app windows 10 dish network3/24/2024 It includes some good specialty channels, such as the Food Network, the Disney Channel and Travel Channel, as well as the more broad offerings of TBS and TNT. Having said all that, the first consideration for anyone considering Sling TV should be the limited channel line-up. The sooner Sling includes on-demand access to its programs, the better. In the TiVo era, though, the inability to record one program while you watch another - or even just to a record a show - is a pretty big oversight. One other minor complaint: it took a few seconds for the picture to appear when tuning to a new channel, and at times it took a few more seconds for the image to settle into its full glory.ĭespite the shortcomings, Sling TV’s channels looked good on devices large and small, and its bare-bones functionality was more than adequate for anyone who doesn’t need to time-shift their shows. The one exception was ESPN, where the wide-angle shots during the Pro Bowl weren’t always as smooth and sharp as the close-ups. The channels were in full-screen high definition to the extent the programs they carried were, and to my eyes the images were every bit as good as the ones on over-the-air TV. The picture quality on the Roku box was quite good too. Starting a stream on the smartphone app automatically causes it to pause on the TV, and vice versa. So much for Sling TV on the plane.īy the way, the service allows only one stream per account at a time. Nor did it offer a way to download programs so they could be watched later, offline. One clear shortcoming, though, was Sling TV’s lack of a recommendation engine. The prices, too, were pretty standard - $3 to $4 for standard definition, $4 to $5 for HD. The movie selection, by the way, wasn’t noticeably different from any of the other major movie-on-demand services’ libraries. That’s a data-cap-busting pace, and subscribers would be well advised to make sure their smartphones are connected to a Wi-Fi network before they start watching a movie. That translates into 1 gigabyte for every two and a half hours of viewing. My streaming took a bite out of my data allowance: about half an hour on Sling TV consumed 200 megabytes of data. (Sling says it plans to give subscribers access to ESPN’s WatchESPN mobile app, which may solve the smartphone blackout issue.) If the smartphone blackouts are routine for major events, that could prove problematic for consumers who like to watch TV on the go. One disappointment, though, is that I couldn’t stream the Pro Bowl on ESPN to my phone - viewing was restricted to TV sets and computers. There, the picture quality was consistently first-rate, whether I was watching a movie or a gymnastics tournament on ESPN2. There were no such hiccups when I connected through my Wi-Fi network at home. I had a similar experience with a movie I rented through Sling TV’s on-demand library. When I tuned to a college basketball game on ESPN while riding the train, the picture was pixellated briefly before settling into a crisp image. The streaming quality on the phone was quite good, provided I had a 3G or 4G connection. Then again, with only about a dozen networks in the basic service, that’s not much of an issue. Nor does the Sling TV app let users create a specialized program guide populated just by their favorite channels, so that they don’t have to scroll through the ones they’re not likely to watch. That’s a big deal for sports and news, not so much for other types of programming. What makes Sling unique is that it offers live streams, which Hulu et al. The designers of Sling TV also expect subscribers to combine it with other online services, such as Hulu, that provide on-demand access to programs after they air. The company says it plans to offer more programs on demand, which would compensate for the lack of recording capability. The main features missing are the ability to record shows and to program the app to tune to a program when it comes on. On several of the channels - but not ESPN - Sling TV offers the ability to pause, rewind, start over and skip ahead through commercials. Both versions I tested benefited from a simple, intuitive user interface that made it easy to call up a program guide and jump from channel to channel. The service also works on Apple computers and mobile devices, Windows computers, Samsung and LG smart TVs, Amazon and Google set-tops, the XBox One and several other devices. I tested Sling TV on an Android smartphone and a Roku 3 set-top box connected to my TV set. For $20 a month, Sling TV offers major sports programming (ESPN, ESPN2 and TNT) and 24-hour news (CNN), among other things HBO (not yet priced) will provide some in-demand original shows in addition to commercial-free movies. The two offerings aim to fill distinct programming gaps experienced by cord-cutters. That makes me the target audience for Sling TV, as well as HBO’s forthcoming streaming service.
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