Sling Media Slingbox Pro

Mr. Budd Margolis

at 2:58 am

GREAT PRODUCT! Slingbox products work well, are easy to set up, the software application are easily downlaoded and configured and it provides a quality streaming experience and image.

I have slinged US TV to London, Seoul and Moscow and have just set up the Slingbox Pro so I can sling UK TV when I am travelling. Quality is always dependant on the broadband speed you are receiving.

The new versions of the Slingbox handle higher streaming speeds that provide better quality.

When you are away from home or in another room and are watching Sky, every channel change you makes affects the main or connected TV. What tilted my purchase towards the Pro was the ability to tune in both my Sky digital TV and Freeview channels. I can now watch Freeview without affecting what people watch on my living room main TV.

Besides occasional viewing on my home PC, I have loaded the player on my son’s laptop.

Both devices offer HDTV connectivity but the signal is reduced so its not as HD as one might think.

After some research and measurement, I decided to feed a 10 metre CAT5 Ethernet cable between my home office, where the wireless broadband router is, through two walls (I already had a passage for the broadband cable), and into the living room. This was a cheaper solution to adding a Wireless-G Ethernet Bridge 802.11g device or home plug (fast data transfer over existing household electrical circuit) system.

I was surprised at first to have to attach two separate black plastic strips with adhesive tape to my sky box in order to remotely control the TV. But once I installed it, which took all of 1 minute after I used a flashlight to identify exactly where the remote receiver bulb was, I forgot about it.

NEXT? Ultimately, I want to be able to watch web streamed video content on my TV. The Sling Catcher is due for release in the UK soon so maybe early 2008 I can start watching the HD web streamed content on my TV. Watching the internet video streamed on TV is a much better experience than the PC. You usually sit further away and the TV is made to improve images!

Rating: 5 / 5

Mr. Ray Forde

at 4:47 am

We’ve all been disappointed by the Big-Boy manafacturers, and sometimes even cheated (eg: I’ll personally NEVER buy Phillips again!); so spending so much on a product by someone we’ve never heard of must be a worry.

Especially if the product looks so wierd!!! (I was never a fan of Space 1999).

However, buy with confidence.

Once you hold the product in real life, you’ll love the style, it’s a real ‘designer’ icon, and makes the glossy gadgets it’ll stand alongside, look 15 years out of date.

Set up is very easy, but remember to push the Remote Control cable-jacks in fully (till you hear a little click).

I foolishly bought an American spec model on Ebay, and paid the price for trying to save money. But even then, the Customer Support were extremly polite (& that’s a strong ‘plus-point’ in my opinion, it buys my loyalty).

So Amazon got my order for the ‘real’ McCoy.

I was watching my tv on my laptop, via my wireless router, within 15 to 20 minutes.

It’s very user friendly, and you don’t need any pc skills to set it up. You even control your input (eg: my Telewest/Virgin Media Cablebox), via an on-screen remote control that matches my ‘real’ remote control.

I’ve not worked out how to view my tv over the web yet, or how to view the built-in Freeview, which I believe it has, but I don’t fear this. As soon as I want to look into that, I don’t doubt it’ll be a sinch.

(Although I’ve tried, and failed, to set up the Mobile Phone viewing on my O2 Orbit XDA Windows Mobile 5 mobile phone… maybe it’s not compatible? I may need to ring them on that one).

Viewing full-screen on a 15″ laptop is ok (not dvd quality, but I knew not to expect this), whereas when you reduce the screen size, it improves.

I’ve gone for the higher spec model, as I hope it will be a bit more future-proof, and therefore save me money in the long run.

I wish I was this happy every time I spent my money.
Rating: 5 / 5

Adrian Beaumont

at 8:56 am

I was quite nervous about buying a Slingbox but really wanted to keep in touch with our sport whilst abroad – particularly having missed the Rugby World Cup whilst in Kentucky and not being able to watch our horseracing.

I bought the Pro because I wanted to be able to watch either Sky or DVDs and be able to upscale to HD when I’ve bought a SkyHD package. Also I thought if I was going to all this trouble I wanted the best one!

I drilled a hole between my lounge and study (where my router is) and thread an ethernet cable through – hoping that this would give a better stream than wireless.

I also had to buy a router splitter box because my Netgear router only had one Ethernet port but this was cheap and obviously simple. I’ve now got 5 more ports for future gadgets!

I then just loaded the software and was up and running – able to watch my TV on the study computer and able to change channels as well.

I also loaded the software onto my laptop whilst at work. I did have some problems here but rang the free Slingbox helpline and the people were absolutely great. You allow them access to your computer over a weblink and they quickly reconfigured my netgear modem for me (to allow remote access) and now I’m up and running. I didn’t need any tech knowledge – they did it all for me in a few minutes one evening – all for free.

This is a brilliant product and if you want to watch your TV on your travels I can recommend it.

Rating: 5 / 5