How to preview a Sling TV
How Sling TV works
Like many other streaming video services, Sling TV works through an app that you can install on multiple devices. At launch, Sling TV should work with streaming media players from Amazon and Roku as well as with the Xbox One, Google Nexus Player, and smart TVs from LG and Samsung. It should also work on Android and Apple iOS devices.
If you want to watch Sling TV on your television, you might need to spend $40 to $100 for a streaming media player, but that’s still a significant savings over the multiyear cost of a DVR or a Cable box.
We tried Sling TV on a Roku 3, an iPad 2 and an iPad mini. We also wanted to try it on an Amazon Fire TV, but the apps for Amazon devices weren’t ready during our trial.
Navigating Sling TV is a bit of a departure from the standard-issue cable and satellite service numerical channel guide. On Sling TV, channels have no number and instead are grouped by type (Sports, Family, News, etc.). The organizational logic makes a lot more sense than assigning arbitrary numbers to channels, but its difficult to know how it would scale beyond the dozen or so channels currently on Sling TV.
How does it compare with cable and satellite?
Our TV testers set up Sling TV in a side-by-side comparison with our in-house Optimum cable feed using two identically calibrated TVs. During lab testing, they saw a noticeable downgrade in picture quality of the Sling TV feed relative to Optimum cable. Sling TV seemed more heavily compressed than cable, causing the images on Sling TV to look softer and less detailed. They also noticed more banding (course steps from dark to light parts of the picture where ideally you should see a smooth transition) and jagged edges around text and other rounded objects.
How Sling TV works
Like many other streaming video services, Sling TV works through an app that you can install on multiple devices. At launch, Sling TV should work with streaming media players from Amazon and Roku as well as with the Xbox One, Google Nexus Player, and smart TVs from LG and Samsung. It should also work on Android and Apple iOS devices.
If you want to watch Sling TV on your television, you might need to spend $40 to $100 for a streaming media player, but that’s still a significant savings over the multiyear cost of a DVR or a Cable box.
We tried Sling TV on a Roku 3, an iPad 2 and an iPad mini. We also wanted to try it on an Amazon Fire TV, but the apps for Amazon devices weren’t ready during our trial.
Navigating Sling TV is a bit of a departure from the standard-issue cable and satellite service numerical channel guide. On Sling TV, channels have no number and instead are grouped by type (Sports, Family, News, etc.). The organizational logic makes a lot more sense than assigning arbitrary numbers to channels, but its difficult to know how it would scale beyond the dozen or so channels currently on Sling TV.
How does it compare with cable and satellite?
Our TV testers set up Sling TV in a side-by-side comparison with our in-house Optimum cable feed using two identically calibrated TVs. During lab testing, they saw a noticeable downgrade in picture quality of the Sling TV feed relative to Optimum cable. Sling TV seemed more heavily compressed than cable, causing the images on Sling TV to look softer and less detailed. They also noticed more banding (course steps from dark to light parts of the picture where ideally you should see a smooth transition) and jagged edges around text and other rounded objects.
