- Status
- May 1, 2015
- 553
- 0
- 4,990
According to PS Vue's FAQ section: "The majority of available live programs and channels on PlayStation™Vue can be recorded to the cloud DVR. Due to streaming rights, however, select channels and programs cannot be recorded to the DVR."
Brad_53
Prominent
- Feb 24, 2017
- 23
- 0
- 510
Sling works great for me, at the right price for the few channels I want for sports, like ESPN and TNT. I rarely have any technical or buffering issues with Sling and my hardwired Roku 2.
Additionally, ESPN on Sling is so much better compared to ESPN's own app. ESPN's app often drops resolution and buffers.
Additionally, ESPN on Sling is so much better compared to ESPN's own app. ESPN's app often drops resolution and buffers.
Just my thoughts added in here.
I'm not sure about all of these, but I do know one thing. Direct TV now uses more bandwidth than Sling TV does.
I have used both for 2 months each. My bandwidth usage sored when I went from Sling TV to Direct TV Now. My wife and I watch the same programs and show's weekly with just a few movie exceptions.
Example. Sling TV December I used about 700Gigs of data streaming.
I then used Direct TVNow for January. I used almost 200 gigs more for January.
I then split February. 10 days Direct TV and 10 days Sling TV
Direct TV Now used about 270 gigs.
Sling used about 200gigs.
Now with Sling, I can choose to lower the usage of bandwidth and I did not. I left it at max. It still did not match what Direct TV Now uses.
Direct needs to offer settings for use of bandwidth to quality like Sling TV does.
I'm still using Direct TV Now, but for those with data, caps Sling may be a better choice.
I'm not sure about all of these, but I do know one thing. Direct TV now uses more bandwidth than Sling TV does.
I have used both for 2 months each. My bandwidth usage sored when I went from Sling TV to Direct TV Now. My wife and I watch the same programs and show's weekly with just a few movie exceptions.
Example. Sling TV December I used about 700Gigs of data streaming.
I then used Direct TVNow for January. I used almost 200 gigs more for January.
I then split February. 10 days Direct TV and 10 days Sling TV
Direct TV Now used about 270 gigs.
Sling used about 200gigs.
Now with Sling, I can choose to lower the usage of bandwidth and I did not. I left it at max. It still did not match what Direct TV Now uses.
Direct needs to offer settings for use of bandwidth to quality like Sling TV does.
I'm still using Direct TV Now, but for those with data, caps Sling may be a better choice.
I recently signed up for Sling, prepaying for 2 months ($80) in order to get a free Roku Express. Unfortunately, Roku (who processes the shipments) refused to accept the validity of either my street address or my PO box. I went through many weeks of near-daily contacts with Sling and Roku (and multiple "escalations") to try to get delivery before finally giving up. Sling refused to refund my $80 (for service that I was unable to watch) and to truly cap things, they also charged me ANOTHER $40 . . . because by the time I finally cancelled my service, things had gone one day into a THIRD month.
Needless to say, I will have no future dealings with Sling (or Dish) in this lifetime or any other. An outright refusal to correct errors caused by a company (or their marketing partner) is NOT is a good policy.
Needless to say, I will have no future dealings with Sling (or Dish) in this lifetime or any other. An outright refusal to correct errors caused by a company (or their marketing partner) is NOT is a good policy.
cerickso88
Honorable
- Oct 30, 2012
- 2
- 0
- 10,510
2 things very important to me that were not discussed at all are 1) subtitles 2) ability to skip commercials. I would like to see both of these features discussed on any of these articles. I did try out SlingTV for a week and found that you could not FF and skip commercials. Deal breaker for me.
- Apr 13, 2018
- 1
- 0
- 10
- Apr 27, 2018
- 1
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- 10
YouTube TV updated their UX just about the dateline of this article. YouTube TV now limits most shows to VOD versions almost immediately. This is driven by the networks but it essentially voids the value of the DVR except for pausing live TV or after the VOD version expires, in which case you get back access to your DVR version. (Briefly we had the ability to search for DVR versions, but that loophole was quickly closed.) I wonder if this is going to come to all platforms eventually -- Perhaps you know. It has quite a few of us subscribers feeling they've been victims of a bait-and-switch scheme. The ad experience on all VOD versions is terrible because the breaks are not predictable in length or quantity. For cord-cutters used to a true DVR experience, it's frustrating.
arpanet1981
Reputable
- Jun 1, 2017
- 15
- 0
- 4,520
Have Sling TV Orange+Blue at $40 just because we wanted good sports coverage-- basketball and baseball, mainly. The sports availability is exactly what we wanted. We have excellent sonic.net DSL (no AT&T or Comcast) and can run multiple streams with total more than 30 Mbps with no drops. Everything works well from Mac and PC web, and iPhone IOS app.
HOWEVER, we like to mainly watch using our LG TV w/WebOS. Commonly available channels, e.g.CNN, work flawlessly, but, less common channels, e.g. TBS and TNT, work less well on the LG/WebOS. Note that LG/WebOS works well on most content, and, the TV works at 25 Mbps 4K, 16 Mbps 4K with Netflix, and also, the PC we can use works fine with e.g. TNT. So, the problem is not bandwidth, and, doesn't affect, eg., CNN. But, the LG/WebOS doesn't work reliably with less-common TBS/TNT-- which happens to be where basketball playoffs have been lately. :-( My guess is that Sling needs to devote more resources (network, server) to the less-common channels which happen to be busier when sports are on, AND, most importantly, Sling needs to fix the WebOS Sling client app to make it more robust and better recover from any packet drops or delays or out-of-order packets or whatever happens if a server glitch happens. If you have an LG/WebOS TV and want access to sports TV, be sure to tell the Sling sales rep when you sign up that you are a WebOS user and need a robust WebOS client.
HOWEVER, we like to mainly watch using our LG TV w/WebOS. Commonly available channels, e.g.CNN, work flawlessly, but, less common channels, e.g. TBS and TNT, work less well on the LG/WebOS. Note that LG/WebOS works well on most content, and, the TV works at 25 Mbps 4K, 16 Mbps 4K with Netflix, and also, the PC we can use works fine with e.g. TNT. So, the problem is not bandwidth, and, doesn't affect, eg., CNN. But, the LG/WebOS doesn't work reliably with less-common TBS/TNT-- which happens to be where basketball playoffs have been lately. :-( My guess is that Sling needs to devote more resources (network, server) to the less-common channels which happen to be busier when sports are on, AND, most importantly, Sling needs to fix the WebOS Sling client app to make it more robust and better recover from any packet drops or delays or out-of-order packets or whatever happens if a server glitch happens. If you have an LG/WebOS TV and want access to sports TV, be sure to tell the Sling sales rep when you sign up that you are a WebOS user and need a robust WebOS client.
- Jun 7, 2018
- 1
- 0
- 10
What about a comparison of picture quality? I giddily started the process of hopefully cutting the cord, but was horribly disappointed in the quality of live sports channels (TNT, NBC Sports Bay Area,...) when I did a YT TV trial on my TCL 55p series TV (250 mpbs Comcast internet directly wired to the TV's ethernet port from the modem, so tons of bandwidth). Ended up switching back to Comcast since it was simply unacceptable.
- May 1, 2015
- 553
- 0
- 4,990
We're looking into doing a picture quality section, but for now, your best way to figure this out -- unfortunately -- is to check out our reviews:
https://www.tomsguide.com/us/playstation-vue-online-tv-service,review-2698.html
https://www.tomsguide.com/us/sling-tv-online-video-service,review-2608.html
https://www.tomsguide.com/us/youtube-tv,review-4309.html
https://www.tomsguide.com/us/directtv-now,review-4073.html
https://www.tomsguide.com/us/directv-now-problems-persist,review-4145.html
https://www.tomsguide.com/us/directv-now-longterm,review-5288.html
https://www.tomsguide.com/us/hulu-live-tv,review-4373.html
Brad_53
Prominent
- Feb 24, 2017
- 23
- 0
- 510
In my limited experience, I found ESPN to be awesome on Sling TV. In fact, it was way better than ESPN's own Apps. However, while the picture quality on Sling TV was often as good as I recall from DirecTV, it's still not as consistent or reliable. It was very good, but I think it'll be awhile before live-transcoded streaming video is as good as satellite and cable.
- Jun 7, 2018
- 1
- 0
- 10
Sling is OK if you don't mind horrible customer service and dishonest discount offers.
I was a Sling customer for 4 years.
I've referred several friends to Sling in the past, where neither of us received the $15 referral credit each, which they advertise on their website.
I referred another friend to Sling yesterday and attempted to use their website to sign her up. We were each to receive a $15.00 credit. I did it myself to make sure.
The website would not accept her credit card, so I called Sling. They signed her up and accepted the same credit card with no problem. Then, they refused to honor the $15 credits.
It's not really about the $15.00. It's the attitude of the employees and the principle. When a company doesn't provide good and honest customer service, the only way to force them to change is to make it cost them far more money to provide lousy customer service than it would cost to provide good customer service.
I was on the phone with them for 1.5 hours, and then for another hour this morning. The only thing they would do is cancel her account and walk her through signing up again - which we had done last night, and which didn't work.
So, I told the person this morning that I was going to cancel my account and switch to DirecTVnow, but that I would like to speak to a supervisor first. The Sling representative refused to connect me to a supervisor until she had canceled my account. So, I canceled my account.
Of course, the supervisor refused to do anything, When I asked to speak to her supervisor, she said that the supervisor was in a meeting, wouldn't give me the supervisor's name so that I could call back, and refused to have the supervisor call me.
Now, that my Sling account has been canceled, I will help my friend cancel her account and both of us which switch to directvnow. I doubt DirectTVnow will have better customer service, but my goal is to cost Sling far more money in customer service costs and revenues than the $30.00 they cheated us out of.
So, to summarize: Sling was willing to spend 2.5 hours on the phone, and willing to let me cancel my account ($38.00 per month) and my friend cancel her account ($32.00 per month) over a $30 credit to which we were entitled.
I was a Sling customer for 4 years.
I've referred several friends to Sling in the past, where neither of us received the $15 referral credit each, which they advertise on their website.
I referred another friend to Sling yesterday and attempted to use their website to sign her up. We were each to receive a $15.00 credit. I did it myself to make sure.
The website would not accept her credit card, so I called Sling. They signed her up and accepted the same credit card with no problem. Then, they refused to honor the $15 credits.
It's not really about the $15.00. It's the attitude of the employees and the principle. When a company doesn't provide good and honest customer service, the only way to force them to change is to make it cost them far more money to provide lousy customer service than it would cost to provide good customer service.
I was on the phone with them for 1.5 hours, and then for another hour this morning. The only thing they would do is cancel her account and walk her through signing up again - which we had done last night, and which didn't work.
So, I told the person this morning that I was going to cancel my account and switch to DirecTVnow, but that I would like to speak to a supervisor first. The Sling representative refused to connect me to a supervisor until she had canceled my account. So, I canceled my account.
Of course, the supervisor refused to do anything, When I asked to speak to her supervisor, she said that the supervisor was in a meeting, wouldn't give me the supervisor's name so that I could call back, and refused to have the supervisor call me.
Now, that my Sling account has been canceled, I will help my friend cancel her account and both of us which switch to directvnow. I doubt DirectTVnow will have better customer service, but my goal is to cost Sling far more money in customer service costs and revenues than the $30.00 they cheated us out of.
So, to summarize: Sling was willing to spend 2.5 hours on the phone, and willing to let me cancel my account ($38.00 per month) and my friend cancel her account ($32.00 per month) over a $30 credit to which we were entitled.
I really wish these guides would take into account commercials.
I got youtube tv a while ago, before the price increase, and then got hulu with live tv last month and tried them both simultaneously. Youtube TV literally has NO DVR at all, it automatically forces you to watch every show that is dvr'ed as a 'ON DEMAND' and you are stuck watching 20 commercials per hour (mostly the same one over and over) average break time is 3-4 minutes, without the ability to skip them. When I started on Youtube TV it would switch to ON DEMAND only after 90 days or so, but now it does it as soon as it is recorded. About a week before I cancelled it, it started putting unskippable commercials in its live runs (for instance, you pause your shows from live for 10 minutes so you can skip through the commercials) Nope, not anymore, at least on many programs.
With Hulu, on the other hand, I did not have their extra fee DVR, but I used its service to binge watch the final season of 'the americans' (a show that is not normally on Hulu). When you have the live tv on Hulu, there are tons of shows that are available that you lose when you remove the live tv option from your account. Long story short, 'the americans gave me a 10 second ad prior to the show and one after, and it is just an ad for 'the americans'.
In this respect I would choose Hulu with live tv, over Youtube TV. I wound up getting rid of both, as I'm so far backlogged on shows to watch, I felt it was sort of a waste for me, at least right now. I can't keep up with netflix, HBO, showtime, etc as it is, so watching commercials is not part of my watching workflow.
I got youtube tv a while ago, before the price increase, and then got hulu with live tv last month and tried them both simultaneously. Youtube TV literally has NO DVR at all, it automatically forces you to watch every show that is dvr'ed as a 'ON DEMAND' and you are stuck watching 20 commercials per hour (mostly the same one over and over) average break time is 3-4 minutes, without the ability to skip them. When I started on Youtube TV it would switch to ON DEMAND only after 90 days or so, but now it does it as soon as it is recorded. About a week before I cancelled it, it started putting unskippable commercials in its live runs (for instance, you pause your shows from live for 10 minutes so you can skip through the commercials) Nope, not anymore, at least on many programs.
With Hulu, on the other hand, I did not have their extra fee DVR, but I used its service to binge watch the final season of 'the americans' (a show that is not normally on Hulu). When you have the live tv on Hulu, there are tons of shows that are available that you lose when you remove the live tv option from your account. Long story short, 'the americans gave me a 10 second ad prior to the show and one after, and it is just an ad for 'the americans'.
In this respect I would choose Hulu with live tv, over Youtube TV. I wound up getting rid of both, as I'm so far backlogged on shows to watch, I felt it was sort of a waste for me, at least right now. I can't keep up with netflix, HBO, showtime, etc as it is, so watching commercials is not part of my watching workflow.
You do a disservice to the readers by not mentioning free TV. I bought a HD Tv antenna for $40 and it gives me over 20 high definition stations including the major broadcasting ones. No ongoing monthly charges. Also, if you want a movie, rent it from Redbox for a couple bucks. Why waste hard earned money on those services that you covered?
DirecTV Now menu system is kind of wacky still. It's also very inconsistent service. Lots of outages and doesn't support original FireTV box. So that's out for me now
Sling is very good, but no real local support. Not buying an antenna.
PS Vue is excellent. Great quality, Decent Menu. Hate the Guide, but I've gotten used to it
One thing not mentioned in all of this is Hulu's huge library of content that is easily accessible. If there is nothing on TV you can count on Hulu to have something to watch. That's why I switched to Hulu Live
Sling is very good, but no real local support. Not buying an antenna.
PS Vue is excellent. Great quality, Decent Menu. Hate the Guide, but I've gotten used to it
One thing not mentioned in all of this is Hulu's huge library of content that is easily accessible. If there is nothing on TV you can count on Hulu to have something to watch. That's why I switched to Hulu Live
This comparison was super helpful. After more than 10 years with Xfinity we just cut the cord...not without a lot of hesitation but can't say we miss it at all. We picked YOUTUBE TV for live news, unlimited DVR, and shows on Bravo, Disney Jr, and AMC (Sling doesn't carry AMC which was a deal breaker for us), and HBO NOW for Sesame Street and Game of Thrones. We had Netflix and Amazon Prime even when we had cable and we still use those services a lot. After seeing how easy it has been to get the same content as cable for a ton less money, we feel pretty dumb for not cutting the cord a lot sooner.
Maybe there's a glaring difference between X1 and the above mentioned services, but the only downside I see would be the two-year service agreement. Wouldn't the X1 Starter Double Play package trump everything? At the end of the day, one would need internet to utilize any of the above services. Internet from ATT, Xfinity etc... typically costs around $40-60. If you add one of the above services (Hulu, Sling TV, YouTube Red etc...) at $40 / month...that equates to roughly $90/month and you're only getting 50 channels. To my knowledge, the X1 Starter Double Play includes download speeds of 150 mbs, 140+ channels, free Starz, showtime and Cinemax for 12 months for $79.99. That's 100 more channels and very high speed internet for less than any of these streaming services. That internet package alone costs $50.00 / month...so for an additional $30 you'd get everything mentioned which is well below the cost of any of these services.
Playstation vue is hands down the best option if you want most cable channels for like $80 to $100 less than the cable companies, unlimited dvr saves in cloud( 28 days) and any reruns resets your time which is a plus. And it's the only streaming service with the ability to stream on 5 tvs simultaneously at no extra cost. The dvr is with no extra cost, and you can watch all your dvr content away from home with no extra cost.
- Aug 27, 2018
- 1
- 0
- 10
This article is way old, when I left Vue in July they informed me that Core was going up to 49.99 and I think their DVR has issues. CHRIS411 hit the nail on the head with their DVR issues. I went to YouTube TV for 42 bucks and don't have issue 1 with their DVR and lets you start a program over or go live.
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