Sling TV on Roku 3 and iOS
Sling TV has a lot of promise. After spending a few hours with it in my house and on the road this past weekend, that was all I could think.
It's more promising than Time Warner Cable's TWC TV app or Comcast's Xfinity app will ever be. And that sounds bold, but unless the money-first, consumers-second cable giants have a change of heart, those streaming apps will always come second to the live service.
You see, both companies will always prioritize a traditionally expensive cable box - as there's more money to be made in hardware and services - while the app usually comes as an afterthought.
Sling TV puts customers (and its app) first. And although it has its own flaws, like lack of channels, content-to-dollar ratio and inability to pause or rewind on every channel, the proof of concept that Sling TV presents is an ambitious evolution of cable that is, above everything else, fair.
What is Sling TV? Is it the same thing as a Slingbox?
While there are some concepts borrowed from Slingbox - like the ability to watch live TV on a mobile device wherever you are in the world - Sling TV is in a different league when it comes to cutting the cable.
Sling TV is a U.S.-only service offered from DISH that allows you to watch the channels you'd typically find on basic cable for $20 a month without a contract, subscription to DISH or any pesky cable equipment on your roof or in your living room.
You create an account on DISH's website and use that info to login to the app on iOS, Android, Amazon Fire TV and Amazon Fire TV Stick, Google's Nexus Player, Xbox One and Roku TV. The service will also work on select LG and Samsung smart TVs, and on Macs and PCs via a website portal. The service is expected to come to Google Chromecast later this year.
Channels on the basic, $20-per-month plan so far include ESPN, ESPN2, TNT, TBS, HGTV, DIY Network, Food Network, Travel Channel, CNN, Cartoon Network, ABC Family, and Disney Channel. Two add-on packages are also available for $5 apiece each month: kids extra, with Disney Jr, Disney XD, Boomerang, Duck TV, and Baby TV; and news and info extra, which includes HLN, Cooking Channel, and Bloomberg TV. A sports add-on pack will be added shortly after launch.
Now, remember when you asked about Slingbox? Well, it's true, Sling TV and Slingbox share a few similarities beyond the first syllable.
Sling TV allows you to pause, rewind and fast-forward live TV on some channels (note the use of the word "some" there), and the ability to watch shows a few days after they've aired (I watched an episode of Cutthroat Kitchen at Noon, despite the fact it aired at 11).
Also similar to Slingbox, Sling TV lets you watch its service on most mobile devices anywhere in the world as long as you can establish and maintain a bitrate of about 1.5 Mbps for high-quality streams, 0.8Mbps for medium resolution, and 0.5 Mbps for low-quality.
Sling TV on Roku
TechRadar was given two platforms to test Sling TV. One was Roku (specifically on a Roku 3) and the other was iOS, which we'll get to in a minute.
By and large, the experience on Roku was everything I've come to love about a cable box: simple functionality, clean layout and crisp picture. Installing the app was as easy as going to Roku channel store, finding the Sling TV app and pushing it to my Roku 3.
Coming from the home screen, Sling TV's interface loads up In a matter of seconds. The time it takes to get from home screen to live TV is astonishing - it's leagues faster than the time it takes my DirecTV cable box to boot up.
Once loaded, the stream was crisp and clear. (This obviously is a YMMV situation, as my home setup isn't identical - or even necessarily in the same ballpark - as everyone else.) A quick test of my network showed I was pulling around 26Mbps over Wi-Fi, which worked fairly well at high-quality 1080p 99% of the time.
The only stark contrast to traditional cable, at this point at least, is the amount of content available on Sling TV.
Comparatively, the 12 channels offered on Sling TV are just a drop in the bucket compared to the over-800 I have available on DirecTV. And because you aren't able to record a show like you can on TiVo, you're limited to watching whatever's on or whatever's been on in the past few days.
Sling TV on iOS
Sling TV on iOS is a vastly different experience. Not only are you trading down to a smaller screen size, but you're also losing connection stability and clean interface of the set-top app.
Using an iPhone 5S for testing, I took Sling TV with me for a gauntlet of daily errands. As you might expect, over LTE the stream was nearly flawless. Dropping down to 3G, however, presented real problems as seconds slipped away to buffering screens.
Problematically, when you return home, continuing what you were watching on your phone isn't as simple as starting up your Roku. You'll need to go into the menu, find the show you were watching and rewind it manually.
Trying to use both a phone and a Roku at the same time won't work either. DISH is clearly (and rightfully) afraid of the account-sharing trap that has befallen HBO Go and Netflix, and doesn't allow two devices using the same account to run the service simultaneously.
Overall, I found the iOS experience less enjoyable than the set-top app, but still impressive. Being able to take TV figuratively anywhere is an appealing, practical proposition for morning commuters or long-distance travelers.
Early verdict
Sling TV is a great solution for users of a certain lifestyle, like restaurant owners who only use ESPN and CNN, or cord-cutters who know exactly the channels that they like.
If you don't fall into those groups, you're not out of luck. The service is just starting, and with more content packs en route your favorite set of channels may be just a few months out.
Curmudgeons, however, could easily quote Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet's famous line: "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
Yes, DISH is offering a $20 a month, contract-free plan that can be streamed to any mobile device and most set-top boxes. But that $20 could easily turn into $30 by the time you tack on the additional two packages. Add on a few more and you'll quickly find yourself paying the same amount you gave to the cable company before cutting the cord.
And $20 a month for 12 channels doesn't present the same content-to-dollar ratio that a service like Netflix or Amazon Instant provide, especially when you consider that you can only have on device active at a time.
Pending a change in pricing or device limitations, though, Sling TV could finally be the straw that breaks corporate cable's back.
CES Impressions
Dish Sling TV service is well-worth the buzz surrounding it. With Sling TV, Dish achieves what no other media company has done so far, successfully wrangling contracts from cable networks to make their broadcast content available via a streaming online service that requires no cable connection and no pricey cable service.
Look out, cable operators: You should be very, very afraid.
"It's not an issue of can you develop an app to show live TV, that can be solved," Dish Vice President of Engineering Dan Lloyd told me at CES 2015. "It's an issue of whether you can get the license to show that content."
This is a big deal. That Dish pulled this off is noteworthy unto itself; that Dish chooses to offer these services at a reasonable $20 a month price, no contract required, changes the game for television content. No authentication required to log in and watch something online. And if the big game is on ESPN, you can watch it for a fraction of what it costs to subscribe to your cable television. Live sports served up by no less than ESPN, and live news by the likes of CNN and Bloomberg add a legitimacy and immediacy to the Sling TV service that archive services like Hulu lack.
Dish says it is actively pursuing the cord-cutting audience with the Sling TV service, and no doubt the service will speak to those users. The service is completely independent from Dish's satellite offerings. That's a good thing if you want no part of a larger television service. However, if you already subscribe to Dish Network, the service may disappoint: You still have to ante up the $20 a month to have online streaming.
Sling TV is due out at the end of this month. The $20 monthly fee features 13 channels, including ESPN, ESPN2, TNT, TBS, Food Network, HGTV, Cartoon Network and Disney Channel. Two add-on packages will be available at launch as well, for $5 apiece: kids extra, with Disney Jr, Disney XD, Boomerang, Duck TV, and Baby TV; and news and info extra, which includes HLN, Cooking Channel, and Bloomberg TV. A sports add-on pack will be added shortly after launch.
Here at CES 2015, Dish demonstrated the Sling TV service on a slew of device, including a range of Apple and Android tablets, Amazon Fire TV, Google's Nexus Player, Xbox One and Roku TV. The service will also work on select LG and Samsung smart TVs, and on Macs and PCs via a Web site portal (Google Chromecast is due later this year).
Lloyd told me the app is compatible with Android 4.1.1 or later, and iOS 6 and later; those software requirements include whatever hardware needs the app has as well.
I spent some quality time playing with the Sling TV app on an Apple iPad, and found it a very compelling experience in spite of some of the glitches I experienced with this pre-production version. On the show floor, I experienced the full gamut of streaming quality, from pixelated mess to occasional macroblocking to surprisingly pristine content.
Lloyd noted the challenging network environment of the CES 2015 Central Hall show floor as one reason for the varying streaming quality, and he indicated I should expect better quality in the typical home environment.
The bitrate and quality will also vary depending upon the quality the network chooses to serve up, and the device you're viewing it on. For example, on the iPad, ESPN streamed at high quality at 1.5 Mbps, Medium quality at 0.8Mbps, and low quality at 0.5 Mbps.
"The limits will change depending upon the device used," explained Lloyd. "On a tablet or a phone, it will be these. On something that has a higher throughput with more memory and a faster processor, the profiles will adjust up a lot higher."
The network vagaries are actually one of the odd points I found while using the app. Lloyd mentioned that's because the different networks have different rights arrangements, which in turn means the user experience can vary depending upon what you're watching. For example, The Cartoon Network has a 10 second replay and a skip ahead, but ESPN lacks this capability. And how the app resumes after you put it into sleep mode will also depend upon the channel. Some networks, like HGTV, will resume where you left off; others, like ESPN, will resume playing from that new point.
In general, though, the Sling TV app was well designed. The main screen opens with the last channel you played, and a miniguide runs along the bottom third of the screen. A horizontal bidirectional scroll runs through the available channels. Select a channel and you'll see info on what's playing, and what's coming up. Some channels have a three-day lookback, and let you view content from three days ago; others, like ESPN, do not. You can access movies and video on demand content that leverages Dish's other VOD offerings; this adds an extra dimension for current content.
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