Gadgetory

hey everyone welcome to a little segment we're gonna do answering all of your questions about sling TV I'm joined by David Katz my senior editor here at CNET reviewed sling TV you are TV reviewing guru this is right in your wheelhouse what other compliments would you like me to throw towards your direction I'll take whatever you got all right fair enough a washing slinger at chief slinger chief executive slinger that's all taker um so sling TV is a very big deal a lot of people have questions about it is it can I cut the cord finally who's it for so what I wanted to do is you know we asked people on Twitter send us in your questions about sling TV we got a few responses that I want to get to I got a couple at replies I want to get to people are sort of on the fence about this so real quick I know you did do a full review for sling TV but what exactly is it so sling TV is just a service that you can buy it's 20 bucks a month anybody with an internet connection and a credit card that's the United States can get it right the idea is it provides live TV channels so the big draw is ESPN and get ESPN and ESPN to live just like if you had a cable box you can also get TNT CNN and a few others there's 11 channels on the basic package they say 12 but course Cartoon Network and Adult Swim right right back to back on the same channel so who is sling TV for who is who this disorder sling partnership who are they sort of directing this at well they're saying Millennials people that haven't bought cable in their lives basically they're just used to watching YouTube and Netflix um but there's also an element of people who cut the cord in the past who you know have a little bit of money that can you know maybe afford cable that don't want to or want to save money on the share bill but still miss live TV and I think that's really kind of the key audience there's people who are used to watching live TV that want to get ESPN they want to get those channels have CNN on when breaking news happens things like that so those are kind of the core two people despite the marketing I think it's really applies the court cutters to okay like I said we asked people on Twitter using hashtag SC net let us know what you are confused about when it comes to sling TV obviously we encourage everyone to read Dave's a review at Morpheus XP says a sling and dish are they actively courting other networks to be a part of sling to be like us a sci-fi AMC I'm sure they are yeah one of the big things is this was a deal that was done last March between Disney and dish and and Disney's the big guys here they signed on gave them ESPN gave everybody the ability to you know provide the suite of channels there's also the Disney Channel a bunch of kids channels that come with this package and then you know Turner signed on with TNT and CNN and those channels so those are the two big guns here there's also scripts which has DIY and HGTV okay so that's a pretty good suite of basic cable channels there but like we said you're also missing Comedy Central you're also missing you know some of the real big guns out there like Fox like USA Network's that has some very popular channels AMC it's gonna be well I think before you get these guys on board because I'm sure that's slang and or dish talked to these guys beforehand and said hey here's what we're doing a lot of guys probably are gonna wait till roll up their own proprietary channels maybe Fox and you know things like the ABC networks are already on there but you know the big networks aren't so ABC NBC CBS nothing get on over-the-air antenna that you know area used to have before they went you know under because of the court ruling sure those guys aren't available on here either so you know you're basically getting a few channels of basic cable here so as long as you know what channels you're getting and you like what's on there it's still appealing right and that leads into a lot of the questions we got Joe do on Twitter says well there's no support for local broadcast right so if you're still someone who wants that you either need a standard cable subscription or you get yourself an antenna yeah and if you're a court cutter you purchase or you might already be familiar with the idea you plug in antenna and any TV and get live TV broadcast PBS is on that list obviously which is great and then of course there's live TV DVRs now you can buy four antennas tableau a channel master makes one we've reviewed them they're great products where you can basically turn your you know over-the-air antenna into a DVR and get you know the ability to pause and record channels which is really cool and a lot of people are used to it alright I want to pivot into a little bit about sports local broadcasting that is the massive caveat and I think the other one is live local regional sports there's none of that right and I know we could go on for hours talking about how jacked up the entire infrastructure currently is and we do in our private drive but you know first off I want to get to at Brown Minh says there he heard that there was rumors that the NCAA Final Four is going to be blocked is that true from sling TV so so we don't really know at the blocking situation is OK at the end of the day there's there's a lot of caveats built into this system already you know there's you can't pause on ESPN there's a lot of things you can't do with this system that you can expect you know normally the people can do but I don't really know how they're going to handle sports I think they're still working on it sling has said that they're gonna have what they call a sports add-on pack that's extra $5 a month they already offer a couple of them one for news and info and one for kids channels and add a few extra channels are not that compelling now but the sports one is the main thing because that's the real thing I think keeps people attached to their cable secure more than anything else is local sports so which is you know obviously owned by cable companies around here and across the nation and and those guys own everything the team the the the pipes you know the whole deal so those are the real kickers and I don't think you're gonna see those on these over-the-top services anytime soon because people know that that's why a lot of people keep driving to cable I mean I pay $180 to Verizon every month just to watch hockey really yeah you throw your money away and maybe like Bravo yeah you know let's see well there you go and Bravo's another that's basically sports for women sure and and you know what that's not gonna come here anytime soon because Bravo has such a lucrative deal and and you'd still have to pay you know $18 a season or you know $2 an episode don't ask me how I know for every Bravo you know that's on Amazon well we tried to cut cable in my family in between you know me like in the MSG and her you know Indian the Bravo it was it was difficult so you know those are the things that those those really specific channels that are really popular they are gonna hold on till the very end and get as much money as a Canada people before they go to something like this alright thanks so much for for spending some time with us and sling TV when are they saying it's me they're saying February 9th it's gonna come out we'll see they've been a little bit delayed with some of the stuff but that's what they're saying there you have it check out the full review on cnet.com david reviewed every last possible detail of sling TV and thanks for being here but anytime Jeff taking all right we will see you soon and thanks so much for watching