I’ve been thinking about cutting the cord with my cable service and switching to SlingTV now that it offers DVR too. But how easy is it to use on an iPhone or iPad?
Sling TV has been testing the “Cloud DVR” (digital video recorder) feature for a few months now and it’s quite easy and straightforward to use from a Sling TV app. The app is available for iOS (iPhone, iPad) and Android, but there are a number of other ways you can get to SlingTV too, including AppleTV, Roku, Chromecast, LG and AirTV. You can even get a Sling TV app for Xbox One, Windows 10 or MacOS X. The full list is online, of course.
Not every single version of the software knows about the DVR feature, however. As of this writing, the company tells me that “Cloud DVR is currently available on AirTV Players, Amazon Fire TVs and Fire tablets, Android mobile devices, Android TVs, Apple TVs, iOS devices, Roku streaming players, Roku TVs, Windows 10 devices and Xbox One consoles. Therefore, you will be able to record content on Android devices, but not MacOS.”
Fortunately, I watch Sling TV on my iPhone (which you can easily plug into a TV in a hotel room, by the way!) and that version of the app now includes Cloud DVR functionality. Let’s have a look! To start, here’s the main “On Now” screen:
I’m always interested in watching BBC World News but can’t at this moment, so I’ll use the CloudDVR feature to save it for later.
To do that, tap on the specific program to get more details:
You can see the “Record” button. That’s all you need to record a currently running program. Watching a show during your commute and it’s time to power down and get to the office? You’d do exactly the same thing; a tap on “Record” and you can catch the rest of the show later.
Sling TV will show you the active Cloud DVR recording with a couple of subtle button changes:
Note also that there’s a red circle just to the left of the program name. I somehow expect that this indicator will become more overt in a software update, but that’s the basics of making a recording of a live show.
Much of the value of a DVR, of course, comes from being able to see some programming that isn’t on yet and have it record automatically without you being online at the time. To demonstrate that, I’ll switch over the Epix Drive-In and check what movies are coming up:
The film Sleepy Hollow, with Christina Ricci and Johnny Depp, directed by Tim Burton sounds like it might well be worth a watch later.
A single tap shows me more about the film:
More importantly, this also reveals the Record button. One more tap and my recording is scheduled.
Really, how easy is that?
To get to your Cloud DVR recordings, simply head to the “My TV” menu option:
You’ll find that the programs you’ve already recorded or are currently recording (remember, the BBC World News was recording while I was showing how to program Sleepy Hollow in the previous pics):
To get to your scheduled recordings that haven’t triggered yet, tap on “My DVR” and you’ll see everything you’ve recorded, along with what’s scheduled, etc:
Notice also that it indicates how much space I have out of my 100 hours of recorded content allotment. That’s a lot of space, actually, about 40 movies or a whole lotta South Park!
Hope this helps you understand how too work with Sling TV. We’re fans and use it on our mobile devices, AppleTV and on the road to sidestep bad hotel TV programming. And tons of sports…
Disclosure: Sling covers our programming subscription costs in return for occasional media coverage.