We first tried Sling about a year ago…and also weren’t thrilled with the quality. BUT. We are using it now…and it is excellent!!
@Silpat with YouTubeTV you can click on the “+” on any show and it will save it to watch when it works for you. No storage limit. Not sure if that answers your question!
With HBO not available through Dish, we started to explore other options since much of our regular shows can be streamed through Apple Tv. Between a stand alone streaming subscription for HBO and discovery that we could get local channels through a $60 HD antenna that works great, I called to cancel Dish, excited by the prospect of ending that monthly expense of $85+. Dish rep offered us $6 month total, for 2 receivers, HD etc. and “welcome package” programming, which includes pretty much the non-premium channels we had been getting, other than ESPN. The “catch” is a 12 month commitment. I figured that for $72 year, we can hold onto Dish and re-evaluate where technology is in a year. While I don’t get the satisfaction of cutting the cord now, I am pleased to have saved about $80 month for a year.
There’s no 4K content with Sling TV, so you can’t max Oled’s potential. If you want the highest PQ, then you don’t want Sling. Sling’s advantages are: 1) a la carte live TV streaming, and 2) most economical choice among all streaming services. I’ve heard that using Roku Ultra enhances the PQ, but I’ll find out its veracity when I receive the unit that I just placed on order from Amazon.
We have Dish for $30, Uverse Internet for $45, and a landline that runs around $45. We watch a few shows through Dish, but primarily watch Netflix and Amazon Prime at night. We only get one network channel with a flat antenna so have kept the Dish so far.
@arisamp - “What do you need to get Sling Blue or Orange? Do you need any special streaming device or just a smart TV? We have cable primarily for the sports channels, but if we can get that via sling, I’d love to get rid of comcast.”
If your smart TV already has Sling TV app built into it, then you don’t need any streaming device. If your smart TV doesn’t, then having something like Roku does the job. You can get a free Roku Express ($24.99 value) upon subscribing to Sling, by the way, by simply paying two months of fees in advance. I’m getting one free Roku Express this way to be used with my old HDTV in the kitchen. I ordered another Roku for another old Sony HDTV in the basement, and another one, Roku Ultra, for my master bedroom LG Oled TV. Don’t need it, but the Ultra edition allows me to better manage the streaming content, voice command via the remote, and it comes with a JBL earphone that plugs into the remote so I can continue to watch the TV while my wife sleeps. For $84.99, it’s worth getting it, in my opinion.
We have a Smart TV…but the use of Sling on that was a PITA…so we have a Roku stick as well. I know I’m not the only one who has felt this way.
Your son can watch NBCSN from his college location. Just share the username and the PW with him as I’ve with my son who likes to watch the Tennis channel (Australian Open just started!). With the “Blue” package, it allows 3 different devices to simultaneously stream. Can’t do that with the “Orange” package, though.
@VeryHappy - “What does a Roku stick do?”
Here are all Roku line up:
First issue is that different areas have different carriers available and those
can have different pricing. Worth mentioning cuz it explains some core $ differences among posters.
We have Sling Orange and Blue because I wanted a bunch of cable channels. No issues. Customer service is excellent, ime. Of course, via Verizon, cust svc is terrible, one fab advantage to changing. Internet and house phone are a bundle from V.
Prior costs were $208 for Fios, phone, internet. Dropping Fios, current is about 85 plus 45 for Sling. So you can see I save almost $1k annually.
No interest in sports. I got the free AirTV interface (by adding a flat antenna, less than $20, i can pull in all the usual local.) Like any package deal, we get cable channels we have no interest in. But we get what we want.
Our Xfinity bill always goes up in January as our 1 yr promotion always ends. I usually call to cancel unless they can give me back my “promotion” rate and inevitably after putting me on hold, they always find something. DH doesn’t like changes either. Our total bill comes to about $130 and that includes a lot of junk broadcast, HD fees.
I play the same game with Sirius and WSJ subscriptions.
Thanks, @whitepicketfence . I’ll tell dh we may have a good alternative.
@thumper1, thanks, I’ll make a note to ask about bundling with a landline. We used to have one and I just turned the ringer off the phone so we wouldn’t be bothered by telemarketers.
@thumper1 - yes! I posted above. The built in app is crappy. The Roku stick (or any other streaming device) runs Sling seamlessly.
@TiggerDad Amazon has Series that are in 4K and/or have HDR (High Dynamic Range) which makes even a more noticeable difference than just 4K itself. iTunes has many 4K movies. I assume Netflix has its share too. These can be pretty spectacular. I used to worry we’d always have to settle a bit because you could tell it was streaming, but no more. We want all the local channels because an indoor antenna doesn’t get them for us, hence our preference for services such as YouTube TV and DTVN that have them.
I went cable less several years ago and tried Roku and various streaming services. Because I hate commercials and never watch live regular tv channel shows, I found Amazon Prime and Netflix to be best. I even cancel Netflix for several months if they don’t have good additional programs. I used to find Netflix better but now would choose Amazon Prime if I had to choose one. Youtubetv is good but too expensive. Hulu no good for me. I love non-American sports such as La Liga, EPL, UEFA and tennis — in fact would prefer sports only service — but don’t like to sit long time, so I just watch highlights from YouTube. As a result, I don’t know any current tv shows or stars. I don’t watch NBA because refs’ calls are too inconsistent and favors star players.
Love Liverpool, Barcelona and Tottenham. Like ManCity also. Hate ManU and Mourinho. Love Djokovic, like Nadal but don’t like Federer.
When the World Cup or Olympics roll around, I subscribe to Sling TV for one or two months. Otherwise, I am busy traveling. Went to live NBA and other sporting events but prefer TV to live events due to traffic and parking hassle.
I have 70 inch Smart TV. Very convenient.
What would you guys recommend for time-shifted (i.e. recorded or streamed) network tv shows from ABC/NBC/CBS? Right now we’re used to recording all our shows on the cable “box” which is a DVR with a 1TB hard drive. Since we need to time-shift, an antennae by itself wouldn’t do the trick. D also needs tennis, which is typically one of the many ESPN channels along with the Tennis Channel.
YouTube TV.
@VeryHappy , you know how some TV’s have Netflix already built into the TV? All you have to do is signup, go through the instructions and it starts streaming?
Well, all these other streaming apps, Hulu, Amazon, etc, aren’t built into your TV. There has to be some physical way for them to stream to your TV.
The ROKU stick has multiple apps on it. You can’t use them until you sign up for the service. So you plug the stick into your TV and then I believe have to do something to activate the ROKU stick. You’ll see all the streaming apps show up, including Netflix.
Then you just subscribe to what you want and that’s how it streams to your TV.
We had the Netflix app on our large TV, but the TV in our den wasn’t a smart TV. We had to go buy a ROKU stick to put in that one to use Netflix.
We cut the cord 2.5 years ago & are very happy we did so. At the time, we lived in a house in the suburbs and got our local channels through an indoor antenna, and subscribed to Sling. (We already had Netflix while we still had cable). S1 and DIL gifted us Amazon Prime for the first year and we’ve continued that on our own. During college basketball season, we add Sling’s sports package & then cancel it when the season ends.
When we moved to a high-rise apartment in a more urban area, we weren’t sure how the indoor antenna would work, so we got a cable package we could cancel within 30 days. To our surprise, we got more local channels with the antenna than we did in the suburbs. Even with cable, we were only watching the channels we’d gotten used to watching since we cut the cord, so we cancelled cable TV.
Black Friday weekend, we signed up for Hulu for a year at .99/month, but will probably cancel that when the year’s up.
In terms of time-shifting shows, we go to the network’s website and watch shows there (when we don’t have Hulu). CBS and NBC shows are available the next day. ABC and Fox shows are available in 8 days.
Regarding Roku “Stick,” it’s for those who want to use it while traveling for business or vacations or otherwise want it for portability. For this convenience, you pay more ($47.89 - Amazon) than Roku “Express” (free when subscribing to Sling and paying 2 months of fee in advance or $24.99 at Amazon or Best Buy), which does the same but for home use. With the Stick, it works like a thumb drive except you use an HDMI port on your TV. With the Express, you use an HDMI cable (provided), but both are for those who own HDMI TV, NOT 4K smart TV, i.e., both are good up to 1080p.
Then, there’s Roku “Stick +” which does exactly the same as the Stick except it’s for smart TVs with 1080p HD, 4K UHD, HDR10 and HLG capabilities. It’s $59.99 at Amazon. Both Stick editions offer dual-band Internet connectivity whereas the Express edition is 802.11 b/g/n.