Dish’s sling TV to be available on Fire TV

Dish joined the masses and announced at CES 2015 that they will launch a new service called “sling television”. This is a new service which would cost $20 for consumers to have access to stream a number of what has traditionally been known to be cable / satellite channels such as ESPN, TBS, TNT, CNN, HGTV, food network, Disney and more. Fire TV is one of the confirmed devices which will support sling TV.

This is likely in response to so called ‘cable cutters’ who ditched their premium cable and satellite service and use antennas as well as streaming services such as Netflix. This would also attract people who want to watch these premium channels but simply didn’t want to pay for the high costs associated with cable or satellite.

There is no DVR service, but you will have access to the live content up to 3 or 7 days depending on the source.

You will also be limited to one stream per account. In other words, you will not be able to stream ESPN while the kids watch Disney on another device.

Fire TV Require Subscription like Netflix?

There seems to be some confusion as to what Fire TV and Fire TV Stick offers in terms of content such as Netflix and other subscription based streaming services. First of all, Fire TV and Fire TV Stick is a streaming device produced by Amazon. The device enables your TV to stream thousands of TV episodes, movies, video clips, and music. It also enables you to play games by installing apps and using your remote.

Technically, you do not need any subscription to any service to enjoy the product by itself. All you need is an Amazon account to sign in. If you do not have one, you will need to create one. Through Amazon’s appstore, you will be able to install apps which have free content and services. However, without any subscription, you will be limited to services such as Youtube, certain Watch ESPN clips and games, Pandora, and apps such as Twitch.

In order to get the most out of your Fire TV / Stick, you should have at the minimal Amazon Prime. With Amazon Prime, you get hundreds of TV episodes and movies for free. They also recently launched Amazon Prime Music where you can add songs or playlists and simply play. Alternatively, you can use Amazon Cloud and add pictures and stream them to your TV as a large digital photo frame during a party.

For paid services such as Netflix, Hulu plus, HBO Go, and others, you will need a paid subscription in order to enjoy those content. If you are not sure if the app you need is there, check out this link from Amazon and search it.