Slingbox officially out

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Slingbox officially out

Slingtop Engadget is reporting that the Slingbox is out and available from CompUSA and BestBuy for $249. The Slingbox is a device that lets you view recorded content on your network from anywhere in the world, what they call "placeshifting". They made a big splash at CES earlier this year when I got to check it out. It's a cool concept, but I can't think of many uses beyond watching stuff recorded on your home TiVo while sitting at work, which is a killer app for those slacking away at jobs they hate, but not exactly worth $249.

by Matt Haughey June 30, 2005 in News

Comments

Windows-only.

Double yawn.

Posted by: emory at Jun 30, 2005 7:33:39 AM

Besides, why pay for it when there's a decent software version:

http://www.orb.com

Granted the quality is probably not as good as the above, but then again orb is FREE and the streaming quality is quite acceptable.

Posted by: w00master at Jun 30, 2005 9:41:06 AM

I agree that Orb is a better (and free) solution.

I have it installed on my Media Center PC at home, and I've accessed my photos, recorded video, live tv (you can even change the channels remotely) and music on my computer at work, PocketPC and Powerbook. I understand they even support some cellphones.

I can even program it to record shows from work.

- MikeK

Posted by: MikeK at Jun 30, 2005 10:01:03 AM

With a hacked tivo unit you can install Tivoweb and vserver/mplayer. You can then watched streamed shows off your tivo in very good quality as well "anywhere in the world" if you can play ASX files. (Might require Windows).

Posted by: Trapper at Jun 30, 2005 1:44:05 PM

The ORB software may be free, but you need a computer w/ TV-Tuner. The point of the slingbox is that you can watch TV that's on your DVR/TiVo without having to hook a computer up to it.

Posted by: Bryan at Jul 1, 2005 3:50:29 AM

BUT, The Slingbox has to be hooked to a broadband router (my TVs are not near one) and you can only view from computers that have the software installed while you can log onto ORG from any computer.

Posted by: PS at Jul 1, 2005 11:27:02 PM

Hm, what's to stop me setting up a TV, broadband connection, and a Slingbox in the UK, enabling me to watch real BBC, not BBCAmerica? That might be cool.

Posted by: Susan at Jul 4, 2005 10:51:18 AM

There are lots of uses for this product - you can watch channels from home in your hotel room in Tokyo. If you are a big UNC fan and are working in London for a year you could use this to watch all of their games live in London. And in countries with heavy censorship you could get access to channels that could have you beheaded - what would the Saudi authorities say about some of the content off of US TV (assuming that broadband is available in Saudi Arabia).

Posted by: Wayne at Jul 4, 2005 12:55:35 PM

Emory -- OS X and Linux versions are also on the way.

Posted by: Ed Campbell at Jul 4, 2005 4:47:01 PM

Emory -- OS X and Linux versions are also on the way.

Posted by: Ed Campbell at Jul 4, 2005 4:49:21 PM

You hit the nail on the head Susan. I'm living in Germany right now and am interested in trying this. The problem with live TV is the time difference. Anyone know if you can download the shows with TiVoTOGO from anywhere or if you need to be plugged into the same network as the TiVo?

Posted by: Dave at Jul 6, 2005 8:07:07 AM

I think it's a good product. I'd like a stand-alone hardware solution like this.

I wonder about the soft-remote control. I hope it's capable of TiVo's built in unit numbering for those of us with more than one unit.

Orb looks good, too. I might give that a shot for some other stuff.

Posted by: lutton at Jul 6, 2005 9:50:15 AM

I think it's a good product. I'd like a stand-alone hardware solution like this.

I wonder about the soft-remote control. I hope it's capable of TiVo's built in unit numbering for those of us with more than one unit.

Orb looks good, too. I might give that a shot for some other stuff.

Posted by: lutton at Jul 6, 2005 9:53:37 AM

Guys,

Picked up one last week at CompUSA. Slingbox is excellent. I've got it connected to a Time Warner Explorer 8300HD DVR cable box. It controls all the functions of the DVR quite nicely. You can get a slightly better picture using the cable-in jack and better channel changing performance (than user the IR emitter) but of course you lose DVR functionality. Latency makes it very difficult to do precise fast forward/rewind. Picture quality is decent and what you would expect for real-time streaming. It would be great if they offered a higher-quality mode that was a little more buffered. I'd be happy to take a 20 second delay to get higher quality but this is still pretty darned good.

I have only tried it from my local network (both wired and wireless) thus far but it works really well and I don't see any reason why it wouldn't perform just as well on the road.

I travel a lot and I'm a sports fan so I miss my games when I travel. Last year I had to listen to the SuperBowl over the internet from France. Same goes for NHL hockey. There's just no option to see my local team play, watch my local news or watch a recorded show from my DVR when I'm sitting in a hotel room in another city. Slingbox solves those problems. To me that kind of flexibility justifies the $249 price tag.

Posted by: Had one a week at Jul 10, 2005 9:35:06 PM

Me again! (Same as last poster) Using Slingbox from an airport wireless connection right now and it works great very impressive!!!

Posted by: Had one a week at Jul 11, 2005 1:23:56 PM

Has anyone tried using it from a dial-up connection? I'm going overseas to an area that will only have dial up. Also, I have a fairly new router and have everything set up correctly, but cannot remote view outside my own network. I have called Sling, my ISP, and Linksys to no avail.
lisaB

Posted by: lisaB at Jul 12, 2005 4:56:52 PM

Lisa:

If you can connect and operate your Slingbox locally, the next step to understand the remote issue is whether you are port forwarding correctly.

What message do you see when you try to connect to your SB remotely? Specifically, do you see an error box appear and/or what message do you see in the bottom left portion of the player window. (ex: locating, connecting, streaming, etc)

Have you looked on the support site at www.slingmedia.com? There are a lot of potential scenarios you could be hitting like this one (most common):

www.slingmedia.com/support/multiple

Posted by: BrianSling at Jul 16, 2005 1:47:51 PM

I found a site that has some more info on the slingbox, it offers a basic review, specs and few tips on installation, especially firewall stuff. Might be worth looking at, weird site though. Has some really strange articles on not so normal topics.

http://quampha.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=52&Itemid=1

Charles.

Posted by: Charles at Aug 7, 2005 8:11:54 AM

I recently installed a Sling in my house, it works great, however, whenever I connect on the road, the remote control icon appeards dim and I cannot operate any function on my DVR, help?

Posted by: sergio at Aug 17, 2005 7:28:32 PM

Hey guys!

How about the quality? Is it Mpeg4 format?

Posted by: April at Nov 21, 2005 9:51:21 PM

Can't wait to watch Eastenders live!

Posted by: Ashtonian at Dec 27, 2005 11:00:10 AM

Hi, Slingbox sounds great - I am live in Sydney Australia, and would like to buy it so I can watch UK TV, do I get my brother who lives in London to buy it, and get him to send me the software to install on my Centrino notebook in order to watch UK TV?

Posted by: Hootersnooter at Jan 10, 2006 6:25:38 PM

The Slingbox web site says they only have NTSC at the moment. British broadcast in PAL. They're building a PAL version but it's not available yet. Once the slingbox converts it to digital any computer can view it - just needs to be able to convert the format (PAL, NTSC, SECAM, etc.) that's plugged into it.

Posted by: Steve at Feb 4, 2006 3:38:00 PM

hi guys, i hve just come 2 know abt this product sounds really gr8... but i dont where i can get this in Australia.. i live in sydney. plz any 1 help me... i want 2 install this in india..
thanx...
Van

Posted by: Van at Feb 20, 2006 11:50:20 PM

This technology stuff is really wonderful! I just purchased my media center pc not even a month ago and I love it! Already I have an msn.tv.com account so that I can record programs remotely, through the internet, from anywhere to my media center pc.

Next week I plan to invest in another tv tuner so that I may be able to connect two High Definition Cable boxes to my pc. By doing so, I will be able to record from one while watching the other or record from both while watching one.

Thanks for informing me about orb and if it's free, I might as well take advantage of it!
I'll be purchasing my slingbox in a couple of weeks.

Posted by: gregory at Mar 9, 2006 11:42:38 AM

Just got a slingbox for my birthday :-)

I have just installed it connecting the slingbox via a SCART plug to DVB-T (free to air) receiver in Belgium. When installing the latest windows XP software I got the option to update the firmware and I can confirm that the slingbox works with PAL. For the moment I'm watching it on the local LAN but I will check it out at work later this week.
The default slingbox ip port is TCP 5001 and I will open up my linux firewall to let that port out.

Now, the only thing missing is a native linux slingbox client.

Posted by: kiwi at Mar 28, 2006 9:20:34 AM

I find it strange that noone bothers about available bandwith.

Posted by: paul at Jun 1, 2006 11:02:52 AM

finally available in the uk fo those in the uk of course.

Posted by: dotdot at Jun 10, 2006 10:14:39 AM

Great idea, but I am still skeptical about the picture quality.
Some feedback from current users who are using this device to watch TV overseas would be much appreciated.
What broadband connection speed do you require?
The max upload speed that I can get is 256k.
Is this fast enough?
Would a 512k download speed then be sufficient?
How does the picture quality compare to the original image?

Posted by: benwj at Jun 18, 2006 9:58:27 PM

The Slingbox is a nice gadged (I have one here).

The only think that it is missing is the ability to record on the PC you are viewing on.

Posted by: Wize at Sep 17, 2006 12:12:17 PM

I am having a little problem with my slingbox when i try to connect on my campus. An error message pops up that reads as follows: The connection attempt failed. Make sure the slingbox you are trying to view is set up for remote viewing and is not blocked by firewall/NAT settings. I have already connected out of my home LAN. I was thinking that it was the schools settings that were blocking it. If anyone knows any way around it PLEASE HELP:)

Posted by: Tyler at Sep 19, 2006 9:41:34 AM

I've just brought a Slingbox and just set it up. The only problem is the picture keeps freezing. The Kbps rate is around 18. Is my Livebox (Wanadoo)router to blame?
Thanks

Jamie

Posted by: Jamie at Sep 25, 2006 2:26:00 PM

Hi, I live in the UK and would like to watch basic US channels in the UK (ABC NBC CBS)
Could anyone out there that could offer me a service with their slingbox? Please get in touch.

Posted by: Darren at Sep 8, 2007 6:38:49 AM

Just got the slingbox. Incredible. Even plays well on my Cingular 8125. I'm loving it.

Posted by: Blake at Feb 18, 2008 8:20:01 PM

I can see why those of you who are always able to access the TV you're used to would find this less than interesting. If, like us and like another poster here, you traveled for your work almost constantly and often at a moment's notice, you'd find the pricetag negligible. With over 200 days a year in hotels around the globe, it becomes comforting to see home TV. Being able to view anything already on DVR satellite receiver or set something to record which you would otherwise miss is a very nice change. If there's someone in my home to cue it up, I can even watch anything in my library on the secondary DVR/VCR I have hooked up to my Sling Box Pro unit. Since I have dual unit satellite receiver with both TV's signal hooked in, I can switch between them, or record to one, watch another. We're actually putting a complete additional set up on another receiver so that both of us can watch different programming and record different programming at the same time which will solve our issue of occasionally wanting different programming or of being in two places with lousy TV on the same night. Our reception is good out of country and we've never had an issue with remote viewing. We forwarded the port full time and use the fixed IP address we assigned the box to access it. Our unit (HD signal) is connected via SlingLink because we wanted to put the unit in a less visible location than the TV nearest our satellite ISP box located in the office at home . It is on another floor, in fact, and it all operates perfectly. The one thing which I await - and it will come as more of us use the technology - is a few more codes for a wider range of products.

Posted by: Christine at Mar 26, 2008 8:48:40 PM

Slingbox officially out

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