Sling TV by Dish gives cord cutters more options, including ESPN

General Discussion
21

@davidvr - You are officially smarter than the folks in their booth. That makes sense. 

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You can sign up for an “invite” to try it out here: http://www.sling.com/

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we know the downside will be coming as internet providers will seek data monthly usage caps with additional charges for exceeding the limit.  Matter of time for sure as more of us make the break away from cable and satellite

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The goal of media producers (from years ago) was to have consumers pay for each watch/listen of copyrighted media.

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OK.. Here's the skinny I got last night from the lovely folks at Sling TV.

It's currently supported on:
Amazon Fire TV
Google Nexus Player
Xbox
Roku
Smart TVs 
iOS/Android
Mac/PC

Has ESPN, ESPN2, Disney, Maker (whatever that is... never heard of it), ABC Family, Food, HGTV, Travel, Adult Swim, TNT, CNN TBS and Cartoon Network. 

You can get a few extra channels for an extra $5 month.

No DVR option and everything is live.

They couldn't tell me how they actually do adaptive streaming on a live feed though. Logistically it seems impossible... 

They were showing ESPN last night though. 

And yes, we did chat about how we're a complimentary piece of the puzzle but no deals were struck

:) 


If anyone signs up let us know how you like it. 

Being able to use Tablo to record would be excellent.

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@pmosser - I don’t think the lawyers would like that too much :( 

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The lawyers would (billables and all). Judges might be a different story

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@BraveUpNorth - True! 

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FYI - the CEO of Sling TV is doing an AMA on /r/cordcutters tomorrow: 

 http://www.reddit.com/r/cordcutters/comments/2sax90/ama_with_sling_tv_ceo_roger_lynch_3_pm_est/

30

Did you pre-register for an invite? Invites start going out tonight at midnight.


http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/01/26/sling-tv-review/22330315/
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I did pre-register and I understand there will be a 7 day trial.  I am looking forward to trying it out.

32

I pre-registered for it.  Looking forward to testing it out also

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A review I read warned that there are holes in the availability of ESPN content. Some content, such as the Pro Bowl, is blacked out because of who owns streaming rights. Some of the channels can’t be paused or rewound and commercials can’t be skipped. Personally, I wouldn’t pay $20 for all the garbage channels that come in the package. Too much junk and too many limitations.

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If they had the Hallmark channel, we’d be in… (wife’s favorite)

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So, has anyone received an invite to try out Sling?

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They are sending out at 12ET

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Not seen anything here :frowning:

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All they are saying on twitter is they are sending out invites in batches.  No clue if this means it may take days/weeks for everyone to get their invite.  They need to be more specific.

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Anyone get their invite?


I get the feeling reading the news that is was initially released to the media and a select few for consumer beta (guinea pig) testers.

I am also reading about a few glitches like on-demand programming ending before the end of the program. The first few days of media reviews were all glowing love stories, this morning almost all the media reviews were talking about the lack of pause, FF/RR, and on-demand all but 3 of the less popular channels. They were especially critical of the lack of those features on ESPN. “How can you watch sports without pause and FF/RR”. You also get the same ESPN Blackouts that WatchESPN suffers from.
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Yeah, I suspect that the invites have been limited to media so far also.  The cool thing is that if you find that the lack of things like FF/RR bother you too much then it is a simple matter to just cancel.