{A Sling TV review}
Well, after a couple days of trying out Sling Blue plus their Total TV package, our experience so far has been hit and miss. All of DW's desired channels are there. The other priority, video quality, is in the plus category. No video or audio breakups. The video (limited to 1080p) is better on most channels than our current service with AT&T U-verse (limited to 720p/1080i).
The Roku Ultra LT is a bit faster than the Roku Streaming Stick 4K, enough so that if we stay with a streaming service, I likely would get us another Roku Ultra. Our monthly cost w/taxes, if we switch permanently, would be $66/mo vs $195/mo with U-verse (we've been declined a promo twice now since the last one expired late last year). Definitely a big plus to save $129/mo. Even if we added a couple of extra services, like Discovery+, we'll still save over $100/mo.
The general listing of channels in the Sling guide are all over the place. This may not be unique to Sling, but compared to U-verse, it takes a while to get used to. With U-verse, some "common" channels, especially those under the same umbrella (i.e. the Discovery family of channels) tend to be clustered together. With Sling, they are all over the place. This one is a bit of a miss, although if you are staying exclusively in the favorites menu, once set up, this is probably less of a nit.
The favorites in the Sling guide are alphabetized by channel name. This may be a bit better than U-verse's sort by channel number, but it would be nice to be able to set our own sort order. The fact that DW's favorites list is not too long (less than 20 channels), this is probably an even tradeoff.
The DVR, which for us is 200 hours instead of the base 50 hours because we chose the Total TV package, is less than U-verse's 360 hours, but it should be more than enough. Compared to a lot of the other streaming services, Sling's capacity is quite a bit lower, but Sling doesn't have an expiration on the recordings. Most services are 9-12 months. If you've recorded something you can't get anywhere else and isn't repeated, being able to save the recording indefinitely is nice. Doesn't happen all that often. We've kinda neutral on storage and duration.
Recording shows is where Sling gives DW fits. With U-verse, you can pick a show *and* a channel, and only that channel will be searched for that show. With Sling, you can only search for the show title. My DW is notorious for binge-watching a show by recording what's available. The problem is a few shows are being broadcast on more than one channel. She usually sticks with one channel because they'll typically have the shows in episode order when they have several on the same day.
Without a channel filter, some shows will appear many times in the scheduled listing to be recorded over multiple channels. This requires going into the DVR schedule and deleting the extra recordings. This leads to a few more nits. Deleting a specific recording takes several seconds. We are used to this being near instantaneous with U-verse. A miss. Once the recording has been deleted, you are taken back to the top of the DVR scheduled recording list. This requires scrolling down through the list to find the next scheduled recording to delete. Rinse and repeat, and I want to throw the remote at the TV. A definite miss.
Maybe what we're experiencing is common to the streaming services, or maybe some of them are better at it than Sling. DW will muddle through this, if only to pitch U-verse to save some money and for a few other reasons.
steep.
