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Sling TV's Cloud DVR Functionality Comes to Apple TV for $5 Per Month

Zorn said:
That is just an artificial restriction. There's nothing stopping on demand content from working with a fast forward button, other than silly licensing agreement nonsense.



Traditional cable providers charge you for DVR because the cable guy comes and brings you a piece of equipment, with a hard drive inside, which you agree to borrow from them to record your shows on. There's no DVR charge if you buy your own TiVo DVR, aside from the CableCard required for it to work on their system.
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Except for that $13 a month TiVo charges you!
 
Anybody try to add cloud DVR to there sling account yet? I login to there website then go to my account then to change subscription, there is no option at all for could dvr. I am on a 7 day free trial, so maybe that is why. DVR is the one thing I really want to try out though.
 
Wish YouTube TV would do a Apple TV App and it is a no brainer. You get unlimited tuners and storage with YouTube TV but really need a native App and hard to see why anyone would buy the other services.
 
justperry said:
I hate Online DVR, it's such nonsense, the content is already there, there is no need for a DVR, and the pricing, $5 for 50 hours a month LOL.

Edit: 30 channels for $20, I get 100+ for that amount, most of them HD.
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The difference is channels one actually has any interest in viewing.

Out of curiosity, with whom are you getting 100+ channels for $20?
 
avanpelt said:
I thought about trying PS Vue, but the inability to watch quite a few channels on a mobile device unless said device was physically located within the metro area where I live made it a total non-starter for me. I'm not sure why they have that goofy requirement and DIRECTV Now does not.
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I use the TV Anywhere apps to get live streaming and on-demand on the go (Disney, FX, AMC, etc). But I've worked it out so that my morning commute can include PS Vue on my iPhone if I'm already watching before I leave my wifi. Once the stream starts, it switches over to LTE fine and continues the stream. I do this every morning to watch (listen) CBS This Morning in the car. Basically just turn on my car, Bluetooth connects and routes audio to the stereo. I can pause and fast forward pretty well. Just don't turn off your phone too long or try to switch channels. But for my needs, it was better than paying for CBS All Access. And with DVR I can start the show over if I'm a few minutes late. And it doesn't affect the wife watching it at home (her own profile, her own DVR preferences)
 
justperry said:
I hate Online DVR, it's such nonsense, the content is already there, there is no need for a DVR, and the pricing, $5 for 50 hours a month LOL.

Edit: 30 channels for $20, I get 100+ for that amount, most of them HD.
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Like it or not, its "the golden rule"; he with the gold makes the rules. In this case the "gold" is the content, the "rule" is the DVR fee. Its all about convenience. If you want to watch what you want, when you want, and are not limited to what they decide is "on-demand", then consider the $5 a "convenience fee".
The problem I have with all of these online DVR's is that they really don't work like the physical DVR you now have in your home in the sense that some shows, for whatever reason dictated by the networks, cannot be recorded or cannot be paused/fast forwarded. If the online DVR operated just like the one now in my house, I'd gladly pay a convenience fee so I can skip all the God-Dammned commercials we are inundated with.
Of course, as Dennis Miller always says as he ends his rants, "That's just my opinion but I could be wrong".
 
tazinlwfl said:
I'm a fan of PlayStation Vue - their Cloud DVR feature is included, and an absolute must-have for these type of services. I use DVR mostly to catch up to a show I started late, or to pause and play back later (usually so I can skip commercials). The AppleTV app is much improved since launch, so I have few complaints. DVR and Profiles seem like a high-bar for live-tv streaming services, and PSVue handles both pretty well.
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I really like the DVR for PS Vue is not a separate cost. It looks like that is going to become the norm for streaming live TV apps (ie. Sling and Hulu, although the latter will give user some free DVR functionality).

Vue, in my opinion, is still the leader here with the live streaming TV services. Although I can see DIRECTV Now catching up whenever they decide to implement a DVR feature and improve on their VOD library.
 
Justice21 said:
Can you tell us more about 100+ for $20?
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willmtaylor said:
The difference is channels one actually has any interest in viewing.

Out of curiosity, with whom are you getting 100+ channels for $20?
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Ziggo (Provider) , The Netherlands.

I just took a look, 77 channels for €24
So I get a bit less (Channels) for a bit more (Money), but still a lot more than in the states for less.
 
A couple of months ago, I realized I could eliminate 99% of my DVR needs by subscribing to a couple of services. The CBS All Access commercial free plan and the Hulu commercial free plan. It allows me to watch my shows completely commercial free. It is just a matter of waiting until the day after airing. The Apple TV user interface (which stays in sync with iOS on your iPhone/iPad) tracks what you are watching through most tvOS apps and anytime a new episode is available it shows on the "Watch Now."

So for me, a DVR is not necessary for the majority of what I watch. The only thing that I need a DVR for is for live NFL and NBA sports watching to be able to pause when I want to and the CBS Evening news because the CBS app does not post that recording until a couple of hours after airing. Now that I have been doing this for a couple of months, there is no way in hell I would ever go back to DVRing my shows.

The Hulu app and the CBS All Access apps are available on many different devices and you never have to worry about forgetting to record something because you never have to record anything to begin with. Your shows are simply ready to watch on your preferred device on the following day of airing. I usually just watch everything via my Apple TV on my living room HDTV. And, I never have to fast forward through commercials because there are no commercials.
 
2010mini said:
Not true. Every traditional pay tv provider allows you to purchase authorized equipment outright and install it yourself. But you will still be charged for for their DVR service. Even TiVo charges for their service.
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Beg pardon? Not a single telco I've ever heard of allows this. Those boxes are perpetual rentals. If you know of a provider willing to sell you their DVR boxes outright, please link one because it would be pretty surprising.
 
2010mini said:
Not true. Every traditional pay tv provider allows you to purchase authorized equipment outright and install it yourself. But you will still be charged for for their DVR service. Even TiVo charges for their service.
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Perhaps you're confusing ISP's with TV providers.
 
Zorn said:
Beg pardon? Not a single telco I've ever heard of allows this. Those boxes are perpetual rentals. If you know of a provider willing to sell you their DVR boxes outright, please link one because it would be pretty surprising.
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FCC rules state all tv providers must allow you the choice of "renting" or owning your own equipment.
 
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2010mini said:
FCC rules state all tv providers must allow you the choice of "renting" or owning your own equipment.
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They may say that, but no one does it. The only way it's ever been applied is that you have the option to buy your own device, such as a TiVo, since that's the only one on the market anymore in a traditional sense.
 
2010mini said:
FCC rules state all tv providers must allow you the choice of "renting" or owning your own equipment.
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My recollection is that they're required to allow you to supply your own set top box (so yes, owning), in which case they are required to rent you a "CableCard" (so no, there's still renting involved) that plugs into your box to allow it access to / decryption of their signals.

I've heard a bunch of stories of the cable companies providing the worst possible support for the CableCards (e.g. a surprisingly high percentage are DoA, and if you need it replaced, they'll schedule a service call and send a truck out with _one_ CableCard, and if that one turns out to not work, oh gee, they'll simply schedule another service call - there are stories out there of folks getting a quad tuner Tivo and having 3 of 4 shipped CableCards be DoA, and taking _many_ additional service calls with those lovely half day appointment windows, to finally get 4 working cards - they _really_ don't want to offer CableCards but they're required to, so they drag their feet and make the customer suffer hoping they'll give up). It's not really a path that I'd want to go down.

But then, I signed up with Hulu and dropped cable TV and saved a bundle. It's enough "DVR" for me, in that Hulu has the last month or so worth of shows for on-demand watching, and all but a handful have zero ads, so I don't have any need to skip over ads - they're not there (except for Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., that's in that handful, so I see two ads a week on Hulu, one before it and one after).
 
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