New DVR geared for Sling TV customers
Sling TV announced today the AirTV Anywhere, a new DVR for free over-the-air channels.
The new hardware is a follow-up to the AirTV 2 that was released a year ago.
The AirTV line of DVRs are geared for Sling TV subscribers that also rely on a TV antenna for local broadcast networks. Local ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and PBS stations are available for free in most of the U.S.
The AirTV Anywhere has a 1TB hard drive for recordings. A product description says the AirTV Anywhere lets “customers to stream free local broadcast channels from an OTA antenna to anywhere in the U.S. alongside popular networks from SLING TV.”
It went on sale today for $199.99 at the AirTV store.
“Too many people continue overpaying for TV because they think cutting cable is too complicated,” Adam Kucera, director of sales at SLING TV said in a statement. “With SLING TV plus AirTV Anywhere, Americans can unlock the best kept secret in TV — free local channels that add up to hundreds in annual savings — all while making the switch to streaming with SLING TV at the best price.”
The AirTV Anywhere can be put anywhere in the home for optimal antenna reception.
AirTV Anywhere has four tuners, meaning customers can watch and record up to four programs at once. The new DVR comes at an opportune time for Sling TV. There has been growing interest in the OTA DVR market in the last few years while the cable TV business continues to suffer from an economic landslide.
The Dish-owned streaming service is now one of the cheapest options for a cable TV replacement at $30 per month. YouTube TV and fuboTV recently raised its entry-level channel bundles to $64.99 per month.
Both streaming services carry larger channel lineups. YouTube TV now has 85+ channels. fuboTV has more than 100+ and recently added ESPN and Disney networks to its standard package.
AirTV Anywhere Features
The quad-tuner will let at least one person watch channels outside the home. The 1TB hard drive stores up to 150 hours of local HD content without having to connect an external hard drive.
Since the AirTV Anywhere integrates with a Sling TV subscription, customers are not charged a fee for channel guide data for local networks.
AirTV Anywhere Technical Specs
App support: SLING TV app (AirTV Mini, AirTV Player, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Android (mobile, tablet and TV), Amazon Fire TV, Roku)
Connectivity: Internal Wi-Fi 802.11ac 2×2 Dual-Band
Memory: 1 GB of DDR3
OTA tuners: 4 ATSC 8VSB
CPU: Pixelworks XCode 5591
Flash Memory: 2 MB NOR SPI Boot Flash
Ports: USB 2.0 and Ethernet
Power: 12V 2.54A DC
Dimensions: 180mm x 45mm x 110mm (W x H x D)
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The Air2 dual tuner RF sensitivity gets poor reviews, is this AirTV quad tuner (I assume a new tuner chip is used) any better?
Does AirTV output native (non-transcoded) video? Are closed captions supported?
Can you tell I’m looking for reasons to replace my old iView DVRs with something new.
Not that big of a deal to add an external HD to the Air2. Other than the four stream feature what would be any important upgrades over the Air2?