I wish there was a way that i could "try" out the interface. I talked to one of the DN tech support guys tonight to see if i could get my money back, if i didn't like it. He said "no". So, basically, i guess I'd better be sure before i buy it.
Lets be honest ... there are downsides to the sling adapter. and unless someone says otherwise I would presume they are the same or simliar on the 922's.
First downside .. Lag ... while it seems the current version of the sling web player has overcome *some* of the lag (from 2 to 3 seconds down to 1 or 2) from the time you activate a button (like skip, or fast forward, pause, etc) the next big negative might overshadow lag..
Second downside, pause, skip, and play functions combined have unpredictable results. I compare this to my 625 receivers ... they seemed damned near bullet proof. I never had an issue with base functionality ... I had dying hard drives on a new unit 4 in 1 year, where as my older 625 was 5 years old and replaced only because we upgraded to HD ... but in their ability to Skip forward or back, to fast forward and play/pause/stop nearly on a dime... they were ... again.. damned near bullet proof.
I have 722k's now.. and while their "forward" skip usually works, their pause, in combination with skipping back, or with stepping forward is not something to go into unless you're preparred for any combination of wrongful behaviors... THIS issue is even worse when attempting to control the 722k via Sling connection. So much so.. that unless I'm really trying to squeeze my time out of watching remotely on the 722 ... I will just let the commercials play ... let alone that there seems to be no keyboard control for skip forward/back .. and no publically endorsed posting by Dish as to known keyboard commands ... which are necessary when using the web interface full screen.
3rd, Dish is still highly disjointed in their "watch" initiative. This in part because of the full on aquisition of Sling ... We have a different interface in Dish Remote Access, than we do in DishOnline.com than we do in Watch.sling.com ... They all access the same web sling player.. but the controls are different, there was even a problem with one of them (for me) watching online offerings where the content overlay (think of a picture frame's "matted" area) was covered in part by the dishonline.com outline, and so to see parts of the content in a window in the web browser, meant that you had to use scroll bars ...
oh and that's not to mention that there's still the Stand Alone Sling Player that Sling first had created for use with SlingBox devices, and the stand alone interface has a few superior features to the websling players ... the most significant of which would be the DVR like 1 hour "buffer" so that if you missed something you could go back upto an hour in the live TV stream you'd be watching via their stand alone, with a slider rather than attempting to issue a "skip back" or "rewind" to the DVR itself ... and this stand alone player... until they make changes will not work with Sling Adapters (older versions did.. and so some of us run them ... haven't tried their newest in a month to see if they've added the functionality specific to sling *adapters*)
But let me also counter all the negatives with ... had I to do over again.. I would have still bought my Sling Adapter. I might have purchased a stand alone slingbox pro ... and a sling adapter.. but I would not have gone for the 922 ... and the two reasons for that is the 4 dollar a month extra fee, and requiring 200 dollars up front for the 922. If my choice were 922 or no sling adapter ... I would have chosen a 722, and put the 200 toward an external sling box pro.
The 100 dollars I paid for the Sling Adapter added a functionality that works.. with features that *can* improve, even if right now it is only slightly better than hulu because its *my* content and can be current the same night its recorded...
Things that could be much improved.. allowing the UHF remote to control playback functions once Dish Remote Access is opened. ie.. I'm in the same household ... but don't need the expence of another TV when I have a second computer monitor that sits idle unless I'm doing soo much multi tasking that I need the extra space.. and the HD isn't there yet without heavy tolls on system resources (I'm on a 2.1 gig dual core amd system with an nvidia 8500GT video card, and 2 gigs of ram, I can stream full 1080p hd from Youtube, but can't get an HD feed from my sling, and the sling pushes 7 to 9 megs of network traffic in house just to do higher quality <non-hd>)
The new Sling Extender ... that should be out very soon, will be something to see and experience.. unfortunately with it not being a fully released product, there's not enough hard data on it to know which receivers it will work with from the start, and how well it would perform..ect..
So there you have it.. 99 dollars ... not much of a price to pay ... for the sling adapter ... and of course you can re-sell it on Ebay for 50 bucks.. the alternative.. PC Tuner card...
The mention about the HD and PC Tuner cards ... is because none of the dish boxes default with putting out an HD coax output ... if you have an OTA Module (Over the Air tuner add on) that may allow ATSC through ... but I don't know that for sure..