|
The latter has more DVR like features and appears to handle firewalls better than accessing the video from a browser. At home, you need a solid, high speed Internet connection and a router to make it work, which most tech savvy folks have in their home already. This product is wonderful to have if you like watching your TV and DVR recordings from anywhere in the world. The wire connections are easy to make; however the web setup is not quite as intuitive as it should be. The browser however will be your only resort if you are using a computer that does not permit software downloads.I've also downloaded the Slingbox mobile software on a free trial and it appears to work well on my Blackberry.The bottom line is if you have basic computer skills, between the written instructions, the Slingbox website and perhaps a call to their tech support folks, you can be ready to go in an hour on less. Also, the Slingbox website, though filled with good information, is not organized very well.You can access your video remotely over a web browser or by using the free Sling Player.
Just open your computer anywhere in the work with internet access and get caught up. This is for anyone who wants their TV programs portable. Well this is a really amazing product. You can watch the news sports or HBO any where in the world on our own computer. You can even watch in your own home in a room that does not have a TV. Why pay a premium in a hotel to see a movie or catch up on local news.
Slingbox, on the other hand, allows you to do exactly this. This is pretty annoying if you are a Mac user. This means that now you can watch TV and movies pretty much anywhere you are. Here are some of my observations:*The setup was fairly straightforward, but it did not go without a few glitches. The Slingbox recognized the network settings, and later on when I was trying to access it from various computers on the network I was immediately able to find it.*The software setup was also pretty straightforward, although you had to download it from the internet.
This might be a bit of a problem if you are watching a movie, but for watching TV news you would probably not be bothered at all. Slingbox, however, is not one of them. For instance, I have TiVo and I can watch Netflix movies streamed to it. That's also where most of the dropped signals would occur.
Overall I think this is a good idea: you are certain to always get the latest version of the software. The worst have been over slow WiFi and 3G connections. Its metallic casing feels very solid. I for one have only done this on just a few occasions.
This product is as good as advertised. You do have to register your Slingbox and create a user account on the company's website. Fortunately I haven't had any more serious problems with my Slingbox thus far, so I don't know how good the customers service would be under those circumstances. I've been using it for several months now, and am extremely happy with it thus far. *The quality of the video stream will primarily depend on the speed of the internet connection that you have. This account is used for the purpose of connecting you to your Slingbox over the internet, and is indispensible when you are away from home.*There are many different versions of Slingbox software depending on the device that you are watching your video content on.
One way around this is to have two different ways of connecting Slingbox to the TV content: over the regular coax and through a DVR for instance. The physical appearance of the Slingbox is also very appealing, and it fits very well with the rest of my entertainment center devices. In my experience, as expected, the best results have been from watching the video stream in another room of my house over the Ethernet connection. The biggest difference is that PC version of software allows you to pause live video stream for up to 60 minutes, while the Mac version does not let you do this.
However, being able to watch TV on your phone could in and of itself be the single best feature of Slingbox, especially now that you are allowed to stream over 3G networks. As you may expect, having three different video inputs and that many outputs, not to mention several cables for each one of those inputs/outputs, plus all the audio inputs/outputs, can be a wee bit confusing. *I wish that, in addition to watching live TV and other streamed content, we could also record content on your computer or other device. The iPhone version costs $30 for instance. Ever since the arrival of VHS we've been taking time-shifting of TV viewing for granted. When I tried doing this there was a slight sound delay, but it was not bad enough that it would interfere with my viewing experience. Furthermore, this doesn't allow you to watch live TV from somewhere else. However, for the most part this process is rather cumbersome and time consuming.
I have and have been extremely happy with my experience. If you are interested in watching TV and all your other video content while away from home, I would strongly recommend giving Slingbox a shot. *The software for various mobile devices is even more limited, and for the most part it is not free. *I had just very limited experience with the customer service (I called them to clarify something during the initial setup) and have found it to be prompt, responsive and knowledgeable. This difference in quality is most noticeable when you are streaming video around your own home network, but even away from home you can see the difference between HD and regular video. This could be due to the bandwidth limitations, but I would not be surprised if some pseudo-legal restrictions might be at play as well. This, at least, is the promise of Slingbox, and for the most part it delivers on that promise.
*The physical production value of the Slingbox is also very high. This way you can choose a different source from the one that the person watching TV at home is using. This could potentially make Slingbox the definitive TV content viewing platform, but my guess is that there are many legal potholes that would need to be surmounted before something like this can happen.There are many supposedly revolutionary new devices that don't live up to all the hype that surrounds them. This means that only one person can be watching video streaming at a time. Some of these DVRs allow you to transfer recorded shows to your computer and from there to almost any device that plays video. The arrival of DVRs in recent years has additionally simplified this process, but the basic idea behind it remains the same. Sorting out which cable goes where is bound to lead to an error or two the first time you do it.*Connecting to the home network was no problem at all.
We can record TV shows that we want and watch them later on when we want to see them. The software for PC and Mac is free, but there are some major differences between those two programs at the time of this writing. Now I can watch those same movies on my iPhone, thus going around the obstacle that there are no ways of streaming Netflix movies directly to iPhone.
Once you set it up at home with your various video inputs (cable, antenna, DVD player, etc). *Another annoyance has to do with the fact that only one Slingbox connection is allowed at any given time. you are able to access any of those devices via broadband internet.
In fact, you can do something even better: if you have for instance connected a device to your Slingbox that can stream video content from the net, you can now watch that same content on your mobile device as well. *One of the limitations of this system is that if someone else is currently watching the TV that Slingbox is connected to, you are bound to watch the same stuff that he or she is watching. *The HD version of Slingbox definitely makes a difference when watching the HD content.
The TVs which are under the same condition have crystal clear analog channels and all the QAM channels (~60).I have no cable or satellite box, so I tested the streaming quality with a WD HD media player, streaming a video at 640x480 locally. All my 4 TVs of various brands have no problem receiving the signal, and 2 of them were behind 3 splitters. Maybe the box has to downgrade the higher than VGA video down to 640x480. Tested reception with the Slingbox connected to my Comcast cable w/o a cable box. It picks up most of the analog and unencrypted QAM channels, but can not stream most of them. It would stream about 5-10 secs then blacks out and informs me that the signal is weak or not available. The video quality is acceptable, reasonably good, but a little laggy, which results in noticeable lip-sync, though TV streaming does not experience the lip-sync problem. I've yet a chance to test internet streaming.
The built-in tuner has very low sensitivity which results in spotty reception. I've even reconfigured the wiring, with the signal goes directly from the outside input cable to a 2-way low-loss Monster splitter, then to a PCT signal amplifier, then to the Slingbox. It may work for people with a cable/satellite box, but did not work for me with the built-in tuner, which is why I chose this model instead of the SOLO.At this point, I've decided to return it to try another competing product like the Sony Locationfree or Hava with an external tuner. It did improve the analog reception, some channels now stay on, but it still misses 80% of the digital QAM channels.
They tend to focus on download speeds. My internet service provider's typical upload speed is 384 kbps. In order to watch in HD mode, most user's will likely find that their internet upload speed is not sufficient. I upgraded to 768 kbps and this is stil not sufficient in my opinion for HD viewing. Before spending the extra money on the Slingbox PRO HD, ensure than you have better than 768 kbps upload speed. Also, my internet service provider (and probably most internet service providers) don't offer many affordable upload speed options.
|
May be eligible for FREE Shipping offer
