Testing the Slingbox

Posted Thu, 08/17/2006 - 15:09 by John Breslin

Sling Media

A friend of mine has a Slingbox in New York, and he's been showing me it in operation. Here is a screenshot of the news / sports program from 15 minutes ago.

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For those who don't know what a Slingbox is, it's basically a network-enabled device that allows you to watch your cable TV / satellite / DVR / whatever from home wherever you are over the Internet. Pretty cool huh? I am scanning through 200+ US TV stations right now. I can see that downloading TV shows may be replaced for some by such a device.

The quality is good, probably similar to VCD quality or something but I imagine this can only improve as broadband speeds increase. Response to remote control actions are fast, and it's also nice to be able to control the TV guide through the Slingbox (shown below).

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I want one! Actually I want one in every country they are licensed in...

Comments

[...] I read John Kennedy’s

by UPC considering Irish Slingbox introduction at Cloudlands (not verified) - 09/17/2007 - 21:25

[...] I read John Kennedy’s Silicon Republic article about UPC possibly introducing the Slingbox to its Irish customers with interest. I love the Slingbox idea, and tested out the system last August (see 1, 2). Irish customers of UPC’s digital TV service may soon be able to watch their favourite TV programmes on a computer anywhere in the world if new services being studied by the company’s Irish management are deployed. (More) [...]

[...] I blogged yesterday

by Testing the Slingbox (2) at Cloudlands (not verified) - 08/18/2006 - 19:52

[...] I blogged yesterday about testing the Slingbox; today I saw the TiVo in operation via the Slingbox - even cooler!  Not only can you watch your live TV, but you can set stuff to record and watch it later.  Screenshots below, showing the TiVo remote control via a Slingbox (that’s Tim Robbins waving a shotgun at Tom Cruise on HBO) and the “Now Playing List”. [...]

So do you reckon your going

by Denis (not verified) - 08/18/2006 - 00:23

So do you reckon your going to get one soon? I'd like to hear your first hands on experience with it, bar your previous one. The idea of watching 24 as it airs, rather than waiting for "my cousin to post a dvd over" sounds good. Infact my aunt misses the whole Irish TV viewing experience and I'd say this would be the answer aswell. Eastenders and fair city galore for her. :-)

I meant to say that I'd seen

by Cloud (not verified) - 08/17/2006 - 17:23

I meant to say that I'd seen them too in Curry's last week.

I plan on getting one of

by Denis (not verified) - 08/17/2006 - 16:56

I plan on getting one of these as I have seen it work with Sky.

Believe it or not PC world and I think Harvey Norman has them at around €250.
Actually here you go: http://pcworld.ie/productDetails.aspx?productRID=1388&image=Wireless_Net...

I first discovered it when I seen this: http://youtube.com/watch?v=oo3Qrr9iNxg

Ofcourse the system as I understand it is to be used for your own personal use.
No doubt I'll be keeping an eye out for anyone posting on the forums if anyone is sharing channels.