Sling TV Debuts Enhanced DVR, Availability on More Devices

Sling TV’s DVR is one of its more attractive features to consumers, and the company just rolled out DVR enhancements, as well as the option to record TV shows on more devices and channels. The company reports it took customer requests into consideration in tweaking the DVR, which now also protects recordings from deletion, a feature found on hardware-based DVRs. Being able to protect against deletions, however, is not commonly found on cloud-based DVRs for streaming video services.

TechCrunch notes that PlayStation Vue, for example, saves recordings for 28 days after air date whereas YouTube TV “offers unlimited DVR storage, and saves shows for a healthy 9 months, but you may end up watching commercials for shows you DVR’d,” because YouTube TV plays the on-demand version.

CES_2015_Sling_TV_Dish

DirecTV still doesn’t offer a DVR and Hulu’s DVR will save recordings indefinitely, but only until more space is required, at which time it overwrites recorded content.

Sling TV offers less DVR storage — 50 hours for the $5 per month subscription fee — than Hulu, which has a 200-hour enhanced option, and YouTube TV and Vue, which both offer unlimited storage. Still, Sling TV’s recordings never expire and “the ability to protect recordings from deletion give users more control over how their Sling DVR storage is to be used.”

Another new Sling TV DVR feature lets the user “record a show or series from its franchise screen.” An additional feature, initially available only on Roku but soon to roll out to other platforms, is the ability to “group episodes from one series into a folder for better binge sessions.”

With regard to its availability on more devices, the Sling TV DVR now works on Xbox One, Amazon Fire TVs and Fire tablets, Android mobile devices, Android TVs, Apple TVs, Roku streaming players and Roku TVs. Sling TV also plans to roll out support for Windows 10, AirTV Player and iOS devices “in a matter of weeks.”

Sling TV also inked an agreement with Fox, meaning users will now be able to record from local Fox networks (where available) as well as Fox Sports 1 (FS1), National Geographic and FX. Part of the Fox agreement is that the DVR will record from Fox on-demand if that is available.

No Comments Yet

You can be the first to comment!

Sorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.