10Jul/091
Opinions on Slingbox?
I am thinking about getting a SlingBox for Christmas to distribute video from my TiVo to computers over the net. Anybody have one? What do you think of the video quality? Does it work well over wirelesss?
I am thinking about getting a SlingBox for Christmas to distribute video from my TiVo to computers over the net. Anybody have one? What do you think of the video quality? Does it work well over wirelesss?
July 10th, 2009 - 17:36
I bought the slingbox when it first came out and then took it back. The video quality was quite good, but there are a few limitations that I found:
1. It was a hassle to set up…I spent 2 hours on the phone trying to get this thing to broadcast outside my home network. My Vonage router was screwing it up. My experience may have been fairly unique, but it was frustrating.
2. The slingbox connects to your gateway via a wired ethernet connection. If your home theater isn’t near your router, you’ll need to buy one of these: http://www.slingmedia.com/slinglink/
3. You need to put software on your client PC in order to view the video. Not a big deal, but it would be really cool if you could do it all via the internet. They didn’t have a windows mobile client which prevented me from accessing the video on my smartphone…again, that may not matter to you.
4. When you control the TiVo remotely, it obviously impacts what is playing in your living room. If you have a spouse or roommate at home, you end up in a long-distance game of remote tug of war.
In summary, it’s a cool product that is great if you say want to access your TiVo from the road. You might check out http://www.orb.com for a similar, pc-based product.