Your Home Cable/DVR/TiVo anywhere you go - updated

If you travel a lot and like to stay up on your favorite TV shows, this is the best solution available on the market today.

Sling box comes in a few varieties...this review is about the slingbox pro which is slightly more expensive than the others, but well worth the expense so let me tell you why.

=====AUG 2009 UPDATE @ END OF REVIEW=========

First of all, lets start with the basics...

What is Sling box?

Sling box is a small, relatively non-descript red box that is a stand alone device. Its about the size of small box of chocolates or an oversized candy bar (4" x 9" x 1"). Even the 2 front lights are small and blend into the non-=descript red case. It is a relatively new concept that allows all of your home video connection to be transported anywhere in the world you may be, as long as you have a computer and a decent internet connection. There is an option to watch on your cell phone, but that is an extra cost option and I did not try that out.

Why is it so great?

If you have a laptop computer and a internet connection, (or the optional mobile phone software and subscription) you can watch your choice of 4 video inputs (Slingbox PRO only) which you've setup. Those inputs include your home cable TV, your home DVR, your HD box (or DVD player)and another video source of your choice. You can watch these whenever or whereever you are. The quality of the video and the audio connections are excellent even over a many slow internet connections. I will mention that if you want to watch the HD channels, you need to buy a separate HD cable from SlingMedia which is an extra cost item.

Does it work?
Absolutely! I was quite apprehensive about the quality and the capability of the system. But I bought it based upon faith and recommendation from my friends. I first tested it on my 17" laptop and the picture was great. The system starts up and it takes about 10 seconds for the video to stabilize. But once it does, there is no pixelization, perfect audio and great color. Even with slow speeds such as 300kbps, the quality was excellent.

But really I did not want to just watch my laptop, I wanted to watch TV. So I then went out and purchased a VGA cable and connected my laptop to the 42" LCD TV in my room here in London and I have to admit I was extremely impressed. Its not perfect as live digital TV or real HD, but its pretty close. On a scale of 1-10, I'd give the picture quality a 9.5 compared to analog TV and a 8 compared to digital/HD TV. Since I spend a fair amount of time in London, and since TV in London typically sucks...I wanted to be able to watch my American shows and or my TiVo shows here. I was not disappointed. Despite the distance (Florida to UK is about 5000 miles of undersea and terrestrial cable) and my apprehension of how much data my COMCAST cable modem could send up to me, the connection was crystal clear audio and video.


Why is the pro better than the others?
The Sling box pro is better than the others because it allows you to connect up to 4 video inputs. This box solves the dillemma of someone wanting to watch the TV you want to watch (maybe even use it to spy on your kids).

The 4 inputs include:

One for HD (using optional Sling HD cable)
One for your main cable TV connection
One for an S-video connection
One for a standard video connection.

The issue with older SlingBox versions is that even though you are not physically at home, if someone at home decides to watch TV the same time you want to watch...you have to watch the same thing because the sling box is connected through your only connection. Not an ideal situation.

The Slingbox Pro solves this problem somewhat by offering 4 connections. What that means is that if someone in your house chose to watch TV the same time you did, you can simply switch to one of the other three connections that is not connected to your TV set.

So in my house the TiVo is connected to the main TV. So if my kid wanted to watch TiVO at the same time I wanted to watch TiVo, I simply either ask her to go to another room or better yet I switch to the one of the other three inputs, which is usually the main cable connection and just browse my 60 cable channels, most of which are way better than british TV.

While most of us will only need one or two of the connections, theoretically you could connect a video camera to your s-video connection and keep an eye on some part of your house as well as have an HD connection just for all those HD sporting events you want to watch.

How hard is this to setup?

Well... this is a loaded question. There are no buttons, only two lights and a bunch of connectors on the back side of the box. Despite that, I think the quick start guide enables anyone to get SlingBox up and working to the point where you can watch TV on your laptop over the cable TV connection and even remote controlling your cable box in about 10-15 minutes. But you still have to download the software which is a 50MB download from the website.
I found to connect TiVo and another video source it gets a bit more complex especially since you need to remote control them as well which requires another cable.

It took me about 3 hours from the time I opened the box to the time I had the connections made, downloaded the software, checked all of the configurations and ensured it was working. If you can hook up a VCR and Cable Box, you should be knowledgeable enough to get all of the functions working eventually.

The really nice part about the setup is the software. The slingbox software was extremely smart and made the setup very easy. In fact, my software setup was flawless. In no time at all I saw video on the laptop and the software went about setting everything up. Its clear to me that these folks knoew what they were doing and made that part very simple.

What are the pitfalls?
1) You need a decent internet connection at home. If you are using 768kbps DSL, don't bother with slingbox.

2) Ideally, you should have an internet connection near your cable connection. If not, Slingbox makes a wireless unit that makes the connection, but I can't comment on the speed and quality of the connection.

3) There is no software in the package...its all downloaded off the internet. Its a 50MB download, so plan on waiting if you have a slow internet connection.

4) It costs about $200 dollars. For me this was no issue because I was going nuts with the bad TV in the UK and this was a must have. But $200 is $200 dollars.

5) The HD cable and the mobile phone connection options are all extra.


===========AUG 22 2009 UPDATE =========

Its been well over a year, so I thought an update on the Slingbox was due.  Slingbox has been relatively flawlessly since my last review with the following exception:

1) Three resets (power on/off) required in 1 year.  Sometimes a power outage or surge, will lock up the box.  Its simply power off then on to reset.  Calculated uptime = 99.7% or more, depending how long to reset.  Still very good compared to anything microsoft.

2) When I swapped my home router, I had to reset the open ports to allow the slingbox to work remotely.  Slingbox help page had all the answers and took about 15 minutes to find the router settings and instructions to update the router.

3) I'm also using it inside the house to transmit TiVo from the home theater to the rec room.  4Mb/s speed and HD quality is very evident.

4) I upgraded my comcast connection to a 3M/10M connection, and I now watch Slingbox at 1.5Mb/s on a 40" HD TV.  Its connected to my TiVo DVR using the S-Video connection (Not HD), and it looks awesome. 

So over 1 year later, I must admit I'm still very happy.