Sling – Yet Another Site for US Users to Watch US TV and Videos

Today the world has seen public launch of Sling.com, yet another video portal where users can stream episodes of television shows and movies for free same as they now do on Hulu, Joost or Veoh. The website offers visitors to choose and stream videos using a Flash player right on the site.

The selection of videos available is pretty good as the site has partnerships with a number of major networks and labels, including Sony, Warner, and MGM. Sling offers content from CBS, NBC, Fox and many cable channels as well.

The website is launched by the company that already has notable presence in a related industry - it manufactures popular TV-streaming device Slingbox. This device allows you to take your home TV with you when you are on the go and watch it online even in another part of the country. And this alliance with Slingbox is actually the major advantage of the Sling.com website as it will allow you to stream content directly from any Slingbox you own that is connected to your account on the site - no matter where you are if you are connected to the internet.

It is also notable that Sling are has certain social features as you get to add friends and the channels you are subscribed to will be visible to your friends.

But of course there are disadvantages here as well. First, the somewhat limited support of Mac machines: while a user on a Mac will be able to browse and stream videos on the site, live streaming is not available to this user yet (though the functionality is promised to be in the works). Another limitation is also related to live playback functionality - even on Windows machines it will still require a user to download a browser plugin to be able to watch TV live.

And of course you should not expect to be able to watch videos available on the site if you don’t live in the US - this is the usual limitation with free video sites and the majority of international users don’t even hope to ever be offered some free videos to watch - even though this luxury for us may sound natural for an internet user in the US. So it is quite understandable that the comments section on the initial review of Sling on TechCrunch is full of unhappy international users demanding that someone finally offer us a legal way to watch video content same as people in the US now do.