I've never been as enthusiastic and totally blown away by a product I've reviewed than I am over Slingbox.
Slingbox is a little black and red box that connects to your home TV video receiver box (cable, satellite, or DVR), and in conjunction with your Internet router, broadcasts your digital or analog TV signal over the Internet. You must have a broadband Internet connection at home and be able to connect to one when you're traveling in order to run Slingbox. You can then watch any channel available on your home system from anywhere in the world (or elsewhere in your home) using an Internet-connected PC or Windows Mobile device. Best of all, you can also watch programs recorded on your DVR and even control your TV and DVR remotely.
Setting up Slingbox
Three different versions of the Slingbox are available (see sidebar). I tested the Slingbox AV which ships with power adapter, quick start guide, and all the cables necessary for a standard installation. (I had to buy a couple of splitter cables for my particular installation situation.) You also get an installation CD that automatically transfers you to the Internet to download and install the latest version of SlingPlayer on your PC.
The standard setup process is simple, but I ran into some problems that required a trip to Radio Shack to buy the aforementioned splitter cables, some calls to technical support, and innumerable trips upstairs and down between my Slingbox and router. The biggest challenge in my case was getting my router tweaked so that it would forward the TV signal over the Internet. Another issue was a conflict in IP addresses with a VoIP box in the system. My point is that the more complex your setup is, the more technical assistance you'll need to get things working.
After some persistence, I had SlingPlayer installed on my desktop and laptop PC and was able to view my home TV on my laptop anywhere in my house or garden. In fact, the first day of my connection, I took my wife to lunch to celebrate. The restaurant had a Wi-Fi hotspot, and we watched a program we'd recorded the night before from our table. My wife, other patrons, and the staff were more than a little impressed with this.
SlingPlayer Mobile
Next, I downloaded SlingPlayer Mobile and installed it on my Pocket PC and Smartphone. You must purchase this software separately for each platform ($29) but there is a free 30-day trial available. The good news is that everything is a one-time charge—there are no monthly subscription fees for any of the Slingbox products.
SlingPlayer Mobile on my Treo 700wx (top). SlingPlayer Mobile on my i-mate SP5 Smartphone in full-screen mode (bottom).
Slingbox uses an innovative technology called SlingStream that optimizes streamed video images. The quality is amazingly good compared to other steaming video I have experienced, but it is not perfect. When you first connect with a mobile device, it takes a few moments for the streamed content to buffer, but after it does, the picture settles down to a steady stream of highly "watchable" TV.
The quality decreases as you expand the size of the screen, which was not an option on the first Windows Mobile device I tested—the Treo 700wx. Palm calls this device a "Smartphone," but it's based on the Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC Phone Edition software. The image was reasonable on the Treo (Fig. 1), but it only displays in the upper two-thirds of its 240x240 pixel screen, and you cannot change it to full-screen viewing mode.
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