bd_lin's Full Review: Sling Media Slingbox (SB100-100) TV Input
The Sling Box allows you to take control of your television and watch it on the internet. By taking control of your television, this usually means that anyone watching the TV at home will watch what you watch or vice-versa. This device is good for people who travel a lot or are living in a foreign country. However, if you live in a foreign country, you need to have a TV that you want to control in the country you want to view.
Setup
The slingbox connects to the output of the cable box or Tivo. I connected mine to a direct tv Tivo, which has 2 outputs. One output goes to the sling box, the other goes to the TV. The slingbox also has an infra red emitter that you set next to the IR port of the cable box/Tivo. This IR emitter acts like a remote control and you can control it from the internet.
You also have to connect the slingbox to the internet via your router. It does not come with wireless internet capability, but you can spend more money to buy something that will give the slingbox wireless capability.
You then have to setup slingbox software on the computer you want to watch. The slingbox comes with a setup disk, but that is not needed. You should go directly to the slingbox website and install the most recent version of software.
Setup is not too difficult if you follow all the instructions slowly. My hardest problem was remembering the password to my router. If you have a newer version router, the setup has some universal plug and play that will automatically configure everything for you.
Once you have setup your slingbox, you will be assigned a slingbox finder number and be able to put a password on it. With the password and finder number and with slingbox software setup, you can now control your TV.
Using Slingbox
The slingbox was able to find the version of direct TV tivo I had and everything worked properly. There is a little lag, but I was able to control everything on the tivo like I would with my normal tivo control. In fact the user interface you use on the computer looks the TIVO controller, so it is easy to use.
The sound that you get from the TV is very good. The viewing is kind of jerky, unless you minimize the screen. If you minimize the screen to about 2 inch by 2 inch, then the video is watchable with minimal jerkiness. I have the basic cheap Yahoo/SBC DSL so my upload rate is probably not that great. It might work better if you have better internet upload speeds.
Limitations on the Slingbox
The slingbox streams the video, so you cannot record the video unless you have some third party software that captures the stream. However, if you are using a TIVO, then you can stream whatever is on your TIVO hard drive to you.
Only 1 person can use the Sling box at a time. So you can setup the sling box to view on multiple computers, but once one computer is used, the other computers will be locked out.
As I mentioned before, if you are viewing the output of a cable box or Tivo, when you change the channel, the channel is changed on the actual TV at home. This could be a problem if someone else at home wants to watch something at the same time.
You can tee the slingbox onto analog cable that does not require a cable box or antenna. So I think the slingbox probably has an internal tuner for analog cable/ antenna. If you use the slingbox on analog cable, then you can probably set up the slingbox without taking over the TV.
Conclusions
I think the best technology would be a device that recorded the show you wanted and lets you download the file. Sort of like bit torrent. However, that probably is unlikely due to copyright issues and you would have to wait to watch a show.
Setup is not too bad as long as the cable box and router are near each other. I think you need to have a little technical savvy to put everything together, but it isn't that hard.
So overall, the sling box does the job, but the main gripe is that the video quality is not the best.
The Slingbox is a compact and elegantly designed, state-of-the-art electronic device that connects to the back of your TV. It redirects, or placeshift...More at eBay
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