March 10th, 2006
Field Test: Slingbox Connected to San Francisco TiVo From London
By Alice Hill
RealTechNews
When I got a Slingbox for Christmas - the amazing litle device that connects to your TV, cable box, satellite receiver, or PVR and streams your home TV to your laptop (or another PC) anywhere in the world, let’s just say I was eager to test it out. Sure, it worked great at home, and even at the office, but the real test was taking it overseas.
The image you see here is a live screenshot I just took while sitting in London’s Heathrow airport. The connection I am using is only a wireless hotspot, and my connection speed is listed as “excellent” but sure enough the video sream is pretty darn consistent. As you can see I am averaging about 200 - 300kbps, a sharp drop from the 800- 900 kbps I was getting at home, but last night a firmware upgrade and software change made a huge improvement in both the stability and the video quality. When it drops below 100 kbps the image freezes, so I would say a wired connection is your best bet, or not a crowded hotspot where I am blatently sucking down all the bandwidth.
Another great feature is the way they replicated the TiVo remote control (and the remotes used by most popular cable and satellite receivers.) The TiVo version even boasts the distinct TiVo beeps and boops. There’s also a special remote control mode that makes your remote act faster as you page though various menus, and then you un-click it to give all the power back to the image generation. Nice.
Botton Line: This is still a pricey add-on ($249) if you just want to watch TV at work or on an occasional trip, but if you travel a lot or live outside the US, and have a hankering for US TV, especially shows like this week’s upcoming debut of the new Sopranos season on HBO, Slingbox is a great service that keeps you connected. The real torture test will be Africa - a continent known for a very slow “pipe.” I will give the old Slingbox a try and report back - here’s hoping I can watch the Sopranos on Sunday, or I am out $250!
More Info Here
Source: Sling Media
Debbie says:
You can do the same thing a Slingbox does for $249 for free w/ Orb. Download Orb to your home PC, and if you have a tuner card in your PC, you can watch and record TV, your TivoToGo shows, listen to any music on your PC, and even look at photos. It’s all streamed to any web-connected device w/ a browser. I use Orb to stream music into my office at work, and during baseball season, use Orb to watch the ballgames. And yes, I do work for Orb.
March 10th, 2006 at 10:01 am
Mike C says:
I use Orb on a MCE2005 setup. I was on a road trip and had my laptop in the car online with a Sprint EVDO wireless card and accessing my Orb which was on a MCE2005 box using cable broadband at home. Worked pretty darn well, is a free program and basically kept me from buying the Slingbox.
March 10th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
Sean Brody says:
The price is now a more attractive 200$ in best buy
March 10th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
TVover.net says:
Slingbox Connected to San Francisco TiVo From London
How’s the Slingbox work overseas?
March 13th, 2006 at 3:53 am
Dave Zatz says:
In my experience Slingbox works significantly better than Orb to control and stream TV, without requiring a tuner or leaving a computer on and open. Slingbox also is much more than a TV tuner, giving you full control and access to your TiVo, DirecTV DVR, DVD player, whatever. However, Orb IS free and also serves other types of media.
As was mentioned above, the Slingbox has been seen several times at $199 at Best Buy and Amazon. I’ve had pretty good luck with Slingbox speeds at 350 down via EVDO while on the road. At home, I’m always above 1000 (and I’m running wireless encryption) - I wonder what’s keeing Alice’s speeds down. Perhaps those numbers were before the firmware upgrade.
March 13th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
Lockergnome's Tech News Watch says:
Field Test: Slingbox In Africa
This is part two of my Slingbox torture test. I am in Africa this week and Africa is known for having the slowest Internet access in the world. The hotel I am in has ISDN and a Wi-Fi router under the desk which is pretty advanced, so I decided to fire …
March 19th, 2006 at 11:08 pm
Cyril says:
Hi Alice,
I’m working in the French TV industry and I’m searching to make an oversea test of a US Slingbox connected to a test computer in Paris. My bandwith is about 20Mo/s (ADSL 2+)
Let me know if you can help me to do this test.
Regards
Cyril
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