Sling upgrades DVR, damages usability
If you watch TV over the internet these days -- and lots of people do -- you’ve got a plethora of choices like YouTube, Hulu, Fubo, and Sling. The last one is my personal pick. It’s generally been pretty good. The firm offered 200 hours of cloud DVR service, which was always fine, at least for me.
Recently, Sling upgraded that amount from 200 hours to unlimited, which sounded great -- on the surface. Unfortunately, it came with a bunch of problems.
First, actually trying to play a recorded show became hit or miss -- obviously not ideal. Then came issues with turning on a live channel, which also felt like a roll of the dice. Watching anything started to involve a lot of reboots. I found myself switching to other services like Netflix or Max just to watch something reliably.
Sling’s news page is rarely updated, and its blog seems stuck on March Madness -- assuming you can even watch the games.
It’s been a month since the DVR upgrade, and things are slowly improving, but at a snail’s pace. I gave Sling some time before writing this, and I really don’t want to switch services. Looking around, none of the alternatives carry all the channels I regularly watch.
Has it gotten better over the time I’ve given it? Yes -- marginally. Still not the level of service you’d expect.
And one last, bonus problem -- did you have a show or movie marked as “protected”? If so, it’s gone now. So, good luck with all of this.
It’s a good service… when it works correctly.
Image Credit: Anna Quelhas / Dreamstime.com