Dish's Sling TV announced on Tuesday, Nov. 29, a new cloud DVR service, which will offer conflict-free TV recording along with the ability to pause, rewind, fast-forward, and even store recorded contents online for later viewing. Sling TV is beefing up its offering streaming services, adding a new feature to better compete with rivals in the streaming market.
According to TechCrunch, the new cloud DVR service will initially be available as an invite-only beta for those users who watch Sling TV via Roku streaming devices. Sling's new service has been announced on the same day that rival AT&T is planning to reveal details around its newly launched DirecTV Now, at a press conference in New York City.
However, Sling TV is not just aiming for AT&T's DirecTV, it also targeting Sony's PlayStation Vue, which also offered cloud DVR service but Sony allows only its users to keep content for 28 days.
In the company's website, Sling TV stated that users will be able to keep their content for longer than 28 days. To make enough space, the new service will delete the oldest, viewed content when the users run out of space.
While the beta version will be free for all Sling TV customers, the company did note earlier that the 100 hours of cloud DVR storage will come at no charge, leaving room for the new DVR service to charge a fee when it launches to all users. This also represents a new business opportunity for Sling TV, as customers could pay for additional features and more storage.
As reported by TheWrap, Sling will be listening to customer feedback while the DVR service is still in beta stage, with a focus on adding key features like upgraded storage. It also added that the DVR service will evolve through its beta period to include more important features in the future.
