A Cord cutter's review of Sling TV

vanity posting ^ | November 3, 2017 | Company Man

[Company Man]

I recently subscribed to Sling TV. This is to report my experience so far.

[Company Man]

After going over the various "over the top" IPTV providers (there are several to choose from these days), and thinking it over quite a bit, I chose Sling TV. My reason for going with Sling was primarily to get a pretty comprehensive package without paying the Disney / ESPN tax, and over all value (more on that later).

Sling gives you two choices as your base level: Orange, for $20 which includes ESPN / Disney, and Blue, $25 which does not. Blue does include SYFY and a few others not found in the Orange package. I chose Blue.

To this you can add various mini tiers, called Extras, for diverse interests: Lifestyle, Comedy, Kids, etc. I chose the Hollywood Extra primarily for Turner Classic Movies, for $5.

Before going further, I would like to stop a moment and rate the technical quality of the HD content delivery: Excellent, better than anticipated. Zero buffering, ZERO pixellation, even during action sequences. The guide is very flexible and comprehensive, can be configured a number of different ways.

I'd like to wrap this up by listing my favorite "favorites". My actual Favorites list is about nine or ten times longer than what I am about to list here. This is some of what my $30 a month gets me:

AMC

A&E

HISTORY

SYFY

*TCM*

AXS-TV (Live concerts n' stuff)

Living In DFW, I am also provided with the local Fox and NBC affiliates. I assume other metro areas do this as well.

Now follows the downer portion of our narrative: What's missing? Not too much. Discovery (gonna miss the Gas Monkeys), Fox News (which is all over Youtube). That's about it. Not too bad for thirty bucks a month, huh?

My real reason for making this post was to let you all know how happy I have been with the technical presentation. It truly has been flawless.

[rightwingcrazy]

Cooking Channel? My wife demands it.

[P.O.E.]

No METV? That means no Svengoolie.

[Kirkwood]

You didn’t cut the cord. You just went to a different one.

[Terry Mross]

How is it done through a laptop? Or does it have be through a smartphone?

[RKBA Democrat]

https://www.cutcabletoday.com/cooking-channel-live-stream/

[Company Man]

Cooking channel is in the Lifestyle add on thingy. The Blue package does include Food Network, though.

[RKBA Democrat]

Gonna try out Pluto TV soon off roku. I hear its pretty good. Lotsa stuff, free.

[Company Man]

I have it on my Windows 10 desktop via a (free) Windows Store app, and also Roku.

[V K Lee]

Don’t forget to check their movies (LEFT SIDE OF GUIDE SCREEN)

Lot’s of choices listed there.

[rightwingcrazy]

Beautiful. Now if I can find a way of getting her HGTV, I might seal the deal. And a simple way to schedule recordings for later playback. And a voice remote.

[Rome2000]

$30 bucks is a lot.

For BS.

Content should be available ala carte for PENNIES!

GOYIM PROUD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[bigbob]

I’m about ready to do it, so very timely and appreciated. I’ll mix Fox News, but I can get the full audio on SiriusXM and usually I just listen to it anyway. In fact sometimes I’ve looked at the screen while the usual commercials are playing and realize I’ve heard them a zillion times but had no idea what the people in them looked like!

[mrsmith]

Getting intrigued...
Anybody use these “over the top” dinguses with DSL?
Like 3 Mbps download, Latency: 72 ms?

Netflix was usable but kinda rough.

[libertylover]

I have Sling TV Orange with the sports package ($25)/month. There is more sports than I would ever want to watch.

During peak Saturday football (I won’t watch the NFL anymore.) there may be some short pauses but not too bad. I’ve never noticed it on any of the other channels.

This year I got a Roku Stick for paying 2 months initially. It’s in another room but it seems to work OK. I drop Sling TV after March Madness and pick it up again around Sept. 1st.

I find the Sling TV website very hard to navigate.

[MarkL]

No METV? That means no Svengoolie.

I believe that MeTV is available in OTA broadcasts in a fair number of markets. You might check to see if it's available.

Mark

[vladimir998]

Sling TV is heavily marketed toward Spanish speakers. Their commercials - even when in English - send clear messages to Hispanics by who they hire as a spokesman:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFjRK6LW-Yo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In4bTfKPUWI

[Celerity]

“A Cord cutter’s review of Sling TV”

Obviously not a cord cutter. Lets call you what you are - an addict who is looking elsewhere for a fix.

Everytime I wanted to quit Facebook I didn’t because I couldn’t find an alternative that I liked. it took me decades to quit smoking because I couldn’t find anything to replace it.

“Cord cutters” are addicts. Think of it in this way and the solutions will be clearer.

[bigbob]

“Cutting the cord” is the term used in the industry to describe eliminating cable TV services. You need a high speed internet connection for any type of IP-delivered video, including Sling. My buddy uses Sling on DSL without a problem.

[Company Man]

I agree about the website. It’s part of what made the decision so difficult. Seems to have paid off though, as I am pretty happy with the service so far.