Dish aggressively pushes OTA agenda with official AirTV rollout

[bluegras]

After introducing its device that blends over-the-air broadcast television with its Sling TV vMVPD, Netflix and other streaming apps, Dish Network has officially launched its AirTV box.

Listed with an MSRP of $119.99, the AirTV package includes a player device and adapter that connects to an OTA antenna. Users can set up the device anywhere in their homes that has the best OTA reception. Using the AirTV app, users can then stream their local broadcast channels as well as programming from Sling TV, Netflix or any AirTV video app obtained via Google Play, on Roku, Amazon Fire TV, and iOS and Android phones and tablets.

Dish aggressively pushes OTA agenda with official AirTV rollout | FierceCable

 

[navychop]

Can it use PSIP? Can it be used for OTA even if you don’t get SlingTV?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Yes you use the AirTV app if you are not subscribed to SlingTV.

I don't know where it gets the guide data from. But to me it does not appear to get it from PSIP as I have two channels without guide data.

 

[navychop]

No ongoing fee for EPG data? How far out does it go?

 

[nelson61]

more details

Dish's new AirTV broadcasts over-the-air channels to all your devices

 

[primestar31]

No ongoing fee for EPG data? How far out does it go?

Has Dish EVER failed to monetize some feature? Pretty sure they'll find a way to charge for EPG data. Though with that deal they made with Rovi/Tivo back some time ago, maybe they get it for free.

 

[Peter Parker]

Yes you use the AirTV app if you are not subscribed to SlingTV.

I don't know where it gets the guide data from. But to me it does not appear to get it from PSIP as I have two channels without guide data.

Well DiSH is involved.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

No ongoing fee for EPG data? How far out does it go?

Just looking now it appears to go out 2 days. (That is using the Sling TV client not the AirTV client as you can only use one or the other.)

 

[jscud]

How would you rate the sensitivity of the AirTv tuner for weak OTA channels?

 

[LQQK]

Dish DBS Officially Launches AirTV Maybe redundant, for yer reading enjoyment!

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

How would you rate the sensitivity of the AirTv tuner for weak OTA channels?

It is probably one of the most sensitive tuners I have ever owned. When scanning it often picks up channels from New York City, which NONE of my other tuners pick up. The bad part however is while I can watch those channels in setup mode fine after setup is complete those channels are not shown in the guide since they are not listed in my zip codes dma.

If it would keep those stations this would be an AWESOME AWESOME tuner! Before this box I was never able to pick ANYTHING up from New York City!

 

[Cheddar_Head]

Sounds an awful localize the TABLO.TV OTA DVR that has been around for a while. Many people complain about the lack of an home port and having to use an app to watch TV, but I love mine.

 

[jerryez]

Is it a dvr or can an EHD be connected.?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Not yet.

 

[mwdxer1]

This interests me, as all of my OTA tuners seem to have an EPG of the current program, and the next, except for one box that goes out to 12 hours. The issue with the OTA EPG using the 211k, several channels have no guide. The regular OTA tuner in the TVs, have the guides, even though they only go out an hour or so. Does this have an EPG for all or our channels then? How far does the EPG go out?

 

[Foxbat]

I think I'd rather go with the SiliconDust HDHomeRun CONNECT DUO or QUATTRO boxes for in-home OTA distribution, assuming I ever cancel our Dish Network service. But something like that won't happen until ATSC 3.0 is more wide-spread, and these boxes would need to be placed anyway. So I'll wait...

Interesting to think you could buy a couple of these, set them up at a location near the transmitters (say at a friend's house) and use the received channels at a distant location (the other side of the mountain?) where OTA isn't feasible.

 

[comfortably_numb]

Does it come with the apps “baked in” or can you add other apps to it? I see it has Netflix. Can you add the YouTube TV app to it?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

There are no apps. It’s basically a dual tuner OTA tuner sling box.

Their other AirTV is an Android TV box and you can load apps on that from the google play store. It’s a very good box and does 4K as well.

 

[comfortably_numb]

It looks basically like a Slingbox M2.

If it’s basically an M2, then maybe that’s good news for those of us wondering how long Sling would keep its servers alive.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Yup that’s it.