Sling TV
 

My son bought me Chromecast for the tv. He came for Thanksgiving and we figured how to hook it up to my older flat screen, have to go thru my laptop. Anyway I think I have decided to go with Sling and Netflex. Sling has the stations that I watch. I have dish, no other options where I live, and have been with them since 2000 so no contract. I am on a fixed income and can save $40 a month doing this. Do any of you have Sling tv and do you like it? Pulling the plug on dish is like giving up smoking, it,s become a habit that I need to break :o.

We dropped Direct TV after 18 years and went to Netflix and an outdoor antenna. We liked Netflix so much we didn't miss Direct TV except for DH sports addiction. We have thought about adding Sling TV but every time I research customer and techie reviews I see everyone has the same complaints: freezing of picture, taking a long time to load, poor quality in picture and poor customer service. We had been hoping to find someone we know who has Sling TV so we could ask them how they like it but no luck so far. Would love to get your feed back in a couple of months on your experience.

I'll stick with dish for the sports and ability to prerecord everyhting and play back to skip commercials.

We ditched DirecTV a bit ago and now use Netflix and Sling TV--primarily so my husband can get his UK sports. We are very pleased with it. We went with the basic $20 plan and added the $5 sports package so we could get what he wanted. It sure beats the almost $120 we were paying for DirecTV. You do have to have a good high-speed internet connection for it to work good.

We also use TIVO so that we can record the shows we like to watch that we have to miss for one reason or another. We rarely use Netflix-I pay for it but our daughter watches it at her house.

I just signed up with SlingTV a couple of weeks ago after dropping cable and have had no issues.

You mean we could use our TiVo with Sling?

No, we don't record on TiVo from Sling--we use it to record shows off the antenna. I don't think there is a way to record the shows you receive on Sling--I honestly haven't checked it out that much. We wanted it mainly for the sports.

Okay, that explains it. Our problem is we can't get much with an antenna, and we are used to the convenience of Tivo.

We really like TIVO. We got a digital antenna at Walmart and he has it mounted on one of our porch posts and it picks up close to 20 channels. We use it just so we can record shows that come on too late or when we aren't at home. I like being able to tell it to record even when we are away and I realize I forgot to set it.

Hmmm. I think I'll do some research into antennas to see if we can get something here. Didn't know we could use Tivo on those channels. Would be nice to get rid of cable.

Best thing we did was drop cable. We have Netflix ( had that already) and tried Sling. We have an antenna and get plenty of local channels. I am considering Hulu for winter only.

I have never heard of Sling TV but will check it out. We pay $99 a year for Amazon Prime and there are many advantages such as Free Kindle books, free shipping but the best of all is the TV/ movies we watch on our TiVo. The movies we watch are all free and just fabulous. Check it out.

I went with HuLu what you need is a good antena I have little trouble when the weather is bad

Ditto!!!!!! 8-)

If you like British shows try Acorntv, Lots to choose from comparable to Netflix

I have seen sling commercials and wondered how good it is.

We saved over $100 a month dropping down to the most basic cable, which more or less just gives us the local channels. We added Netflix and Acorn TV and already had Amazon Prime. We are glad we did it!

over a year ago our "main" local cable company came out with these boxes you had to have in order to see anything other than snow. You were aloud to get only 2 without paying, which bites when you have 5 TVs set up. I get only basic cable for about 33 a month but only a handful of channels are worth watching, most are music or selling channels, I decided to check out antenna's needing to cut back. The one that I really like is the flat one that they sell on TV for 1999 for 2, I got one from the exchange here and can see all but 2 of the channels I get on cable. I called the cable company to cancel the TV part and they said that I had a bundle and if I have internet only then my bill will actually go up 61 for both to 64 for just internet, its low level internet. I had gotten the firestick but you need internet to use it. While I enjoy my internet but don't use it that much I now have to decide to cancel all and return my firestick since I won't have internet to get the extra channels. Plus the cable company says they'll start charging for those little boxes in Jan so now my bill will still go up another 10. You can't win for losing. But at least I can get local TV, the Create TV, Ion and Grit and a few others if I cancel internet. Which is what I think I may have to do.

I think the cable company came up with these boxes as a way to have more control on us. When the government passed a law that all TV had to be broadcast over digital which gave access to more via antennas the little boxes allowed them to control what we could see. You have to have them sync your box to your TV, you can't move it to a different TV in your house and you only see what they want you to see. By the way, with that little antenna, I was amazed that the picture was so clear, not like it used to be, snowy on the old antennas

I want to go to Sprint this week and see how their hot spot works on the cell phones. I already have my house phone thru sprint, its 20 a month, unlimited, where as our local was 30+ and it had no caller id and no long distance. I'm bound and determined to do away with this company before I pay extra for these little boxes that do not help anyone but the company control me and what I can see.

Do any of these new tv add ons get animal planet and discovery channels? I have Verizon Fios and the monthly fee is killing my pocketbook.
Clmay

Update, have been doing some more research on Sling TV. Not very good reviews and apparently hard to drop them. Anyway, have decided to go with Netflix and buy an antenna (indoor) to get the local channels. This will save me a lot more and the antenna is a one time buy for around $60. My son has Netflix and no problems with them. Now only will have to pay for that service. Yea, more money saved :D

Wow, catsden. I decided to do some research after your post and Sling indeed is getting a lot of negative reviews. Here are some comments I found on Cnet: https://www.cnet.com/products/sling-tv/user-reviews/

Yes, those BUNDLES will get you every time. We only need internet, but have to have the bundle to get the price down!!!!!! Go figure. More $ for less!!!!!

Yep, they are all bad for the most part, in one way or another. shame. I had Comcast for years but here we have Dish. I had Netflix for DVDs mailed to my house but stopped that. Now back home i get online and watch things on Amazon or Worldview t.v. channel for $3.99 a month i think. there i get European detective shows that are sub-titled. I love them.

CINDYB, well, I have finally gotten my solution. I contacted Sprint, I have my cell phone and my house phone thru them. I can get internet on my tablet (plus I qualify for a free tablet) for 25 a month, 20 if I do autopay, its unlimited minutes and has 5gb of free hotspot. That gives me my internet and I can Bluetooth into my smart tv and watch things from the internet on there. I'm also going to check to see how much their data cards are. They have a traveling one that is for your car, one that hooks up in your house and will support up to 10 devices and one that plugs into my laptop. I'm going when I get off work today to check out the options and the monthly cost. At the least I know that I can my laptop for 20 and that'll save me 45, then 55 next month when the cable company starts charging for those boxes. I'm going to BJ's and will check out the antenna they have, its more pricey but is supposed to pick up more, this one will be for my main TV. Then I'll just get a few more of the cheap ones that work so well for the rest of the house.

I'm so happy to be getting rid of this cable company. Especially when I called to cancel jus the TV and she just sounded smug on the phone saying well then you'll be paying more. Like she thought she had me over a barrel. Bye-bye cable company and that extra money that I shouldn't have to pay.

What kind of tv shows are available on Acorn. How about their accent, is it very thick, sometimes it can be hard to understand.
I have a Roku box and Netflix, plan to cancel my Dish in a few months. I only watch the Hallmark channels and the DIY shows, does Acorn have anything to compare to those channels.

I do have an outside antenna for locals and PBS. The secondary channels have a good choice of older shows to watch. Really like seeing the Little House on the Prairie shows again, also Murder She Wrote.

Any more input on shows and movies would be most helpful.

What kind of shows/movies are available on HuLu. I do NOT watch any of the main network shows or new movies, prefer the older family shows with some westerns thrown in. Like family holiday movies also, NO sports. Have an outside antenna for all locals.

Does one sign up under Roku or HuLu.

farmquilter, you can probably add subscriptions right on your Roku. Go to the Roku home screen, find the Roku Channel Store (I think you just scroll down on the left side of the home screen), and click on Hulu or whatever else you want to add. Or you can go to hulu.com to sign up. I think you can also go to the Roku Channel Store online and sign up there: https://channelstore.roku.com/browse after logging in with your Roku ID.

My dh and I don't use Hulu, but my daughter and her boyfriend use it. You can see what shows are on it here: http://www.hulu.com/start/content (note there are 191 pages there! be sure to check the "currently on air" filter to get it down to 11 pages). Unlike Netflix, Hulu shows include commercials and there's no easy way to fast forward through them.

My dh and I really like Acorn, which is only $5/month. There are quite a few different shows and the accents vary. You could try it out for a month and cancel if you don't like it. We found a lot of shows there to watch, including some from New Zealand and Australia (those accents tend to be harder to understand than British, but we got used to them). Acorn does not have anything like what is on the Hallmark channel or the HGTV, though. I think you would have to subscribe to Sling to get those channels.

I love Acorn TV. All British shows and movies.

The main thing is you have to have great wi fi reception and fast streaming. If you don't, you have freezes, buffering and constantly being kicked offline.

PBS channel is free also about a hundred more channels are free. Anything you are interested in there is a channel for it. Amazon Prime and Roku has all the premium channels you can subscribe to, HBo, Starz, Showtime, Acorn, Hallmark, etc. Also with Amazon Prime you can rent the new releases if you don't want to wait for the free viewing.

I just wanted to clarify that Hulu and HuluPlus are different things, or at least they were when we subscribed to HuluPlus. Hulu is free on the internet, but HuluPlus requires a paid subscription and offers much more than Hulu.

Prism99, checked out Hulu and that has nothing for me. Limited number of channels on Sling and will have to check Acorn. Guess I am living in a different world, here on the family farm in the middle of nowhere. Might just keep Dish and Netflix to call it good.
They are putting more and more good 'old' tv shows on my local sub-channels. In the mornings one has Nanny and the Professor and the Jimmy Stewart show follows that. Also see the Ghost and Mrs. Muir, those are what I really want to watch.
Thank you for the links and added information on what is available.