By way of The Donohue Report and Multichannel News, we seemingly learn that Slingbox will once again incorporate a tuner. While most folks hang a Slingbox off a DVR to meet their remote or mobile video needs, three prior models included tuners to placeshift unencrypted cable or over-the-air broadcasts. And it provided a real clean way to roll your own cloud TV service … long before “TV Anywhere” had entered the lexicon and cord cutting was a trend.
We first came across “AirTV” back in June and wondered if it might be some sort of Miracast solution. Given this new FCC-sourced “Slingbox OTA” label, it’s obviously something quite different. I doubt they’d incorporate DVR functionality given the additional complexity and expense, leaving those functions to the Echostar-produced Channel Master DVR+. As such, this really wouldn’t be a TiVo Bolt competitor. Pricing should be interesting — the new Slingbox M2 runs $200, but I’d think the sweet spot is closer to $150, even after dropping the mobile app fees (and adding ads to the experience).
Satellite Guys Scott G thinks it could also be a DVR with apps. Could explain the rebrand. Or it could just be wishful thinking, as he says.
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If you’re charging for a product that’s littered with ads, then the sweet spot is $9/month, $99/year. More than that and you’re basically barfing over your customer base even as you steal their wallets.
And make no mistake, Sling is littered with ads. I’m done with it.
Anyone who trusts Sling to support this product for more than a year or so is a fool. Sling changes their mind like it’s underwear.
If this is something that can be mounted in the attic, right off of the antenna, it might be a solution for some people.
If I use this slingplayer link, I get no ads:
http://slingplayer.slingbox.com/embedded/slingplayer.php
Of course, sling could change that at any time, and then I’d be sad. Because this is the only slingplayer that works with my chromebook. newwatch.slingbox.com gives an error saying, “We’re sorry, but your web browser, operating system, or the combination of both is not currently supported by the SlingPlayer plug-in. “