June 13th, 2006
Qtek 8300 Smartphone + Slingbox = TiVo on Your Mobile
By Alice Hill
RealTechNews
I travel a lot for work and that means watching CNN or BBC World News run the same five news items again and again and again, or strange local programming and re-runs of Charles in Charge. It’s not pretty. That’s why when I got the Slingbox for Christmas it changed my life. I was able to watch the Sopranos season opener from Africa, catch up with my favorite shows from any location I could get WiFi access. If TiVo is about time-shifting, and the Slingbox is place-shifting, then the next step is shape-shifting - or going truly mobile.
In March, RTN contributor Dave Zatz wrote about the release of SlingPlayer Mobile and wondered if the processors in mobile phones would be powerful enough to handle video. (Read his original write-up here.) Deciding to take matters into my own hands, I downloaded the beta today and fired up my brand new Qtek 8300 smartphone (with built in WiFi) to see the software in action.
What You Need
First, please excuse the crummy photos. I wanted to show you this running live on my own phone instead of the canned shots on the Slingbox site, but you get the idea. As you can see in the above pic, once you download the beta of SlingPlayer mobile and install it on your phone, the phone displays the familiar red Slingbox icon. Click it, fill in the password info, and there’s your TiVo (or cable connection.) The phone makes the exact boops and beeps as your TiVo does and the video is as smooth and clear as the laptop version. Performance-wise there is some lag changing screens and starting up a show, but once the show starts playing, it stayed smooth and synced-up the entire time.
To get this to work, I had to update my Slingbox firmware (and keep in mind that you cannot do that remotely - you must be on your home LAN to do this step) to 1.0.63, but the firmware upgrade is a short process and everything worked fine via my usual laptop connection. I also had to upgrade to version 4.1 of the Windows Mobile program ActiveSync. Here is a list of everything you’ll need to make this happen:
System (PC) Requirements
* Windows XP (SP2) Home/Pro/MCE/Win 2K (SP4)
* ActiveSync 4.1 for Windows Mobile 5.0 devices
* Latest version of SlingPlayer PC installed
* Slingbox firmware 1.0.63 (or later); available for download on BETA download page
Windows Mobile Device Requirements
To check the operating system version on your smartphone, on your device, go to Start > Settings > About.
* Operating System: Windows Mobile Version 5.0 for Smartphone
* CPU of 144 MHz (or higher)
* Memory:
o At least 900KB to install SlingPlayer Mobile
o At least 4MB of available Program Memory to run it
* Network download speed of 120Kbps (or higher)
* At least 16 gray levels display but 65,536 color is recommended
* Audio support plus speakers or headphones (Stereo support recommended)
Source: Slingmedia
So What’s the Catch?
The main drawback to this solution is cost. Early adopters of the Slingbox get the mobile software for free (a nice touch as Dave pointed out) but it will run you $29.99. And don’t put away your wallet. The Qtek 8300 phone I bought without a cell plan was nearly $500 and then the Slingbox is about $180, and a TiVo is another few hundred, plus your cable box and so on. Things start to add up. But if you have a PocketPC or a Windows mobile phone already and a Slingbox, or if you are thinking of changing phones and have the rest of this hardware in your life already, then $30 for the mobile software is not a bad price to take your TV on the go.
Bottom Line: TV on a cell phone always seemed dumb to me, until I could access my own content. The Slingbox changes everything. Again.
Final note: Some of the phones including my own will only play your shows when in WiFi mode - not via your cell connection. I will test this further because the wording on the Slingbox site is vague. This limits you to hot spots and other networks vs. being truly free - so if that is a must, make sure you pick the right phone. To date it seems that the Motorola Q is the only one that can handle both.
Get SlingPlayer Mobile Here
And here’s a shot of the cool landscape mode from the Slingbox set of pics. Nice!
MarcosV says:
Interesting. How much uplink bandwidth must you devote to SlingBox to support a cell phone or computer?
June 13th, 2006 at 11:48 am
Alice says:
I am not sure how you would measure that. The app shows your connection speed but that is for what is streaming to the phone. The cell phone signal strength is no realllly related, and you can see the strength of your WiFi connection, but not sure how you would isolate uplink info
June 13th, 2006 at 12:07 pm
Will says:
The catch with the Slingbox is that it takes control of your Tivo. If I’m traveling and my wife is at home trying to watch TV, only one of us can use the Tivo.
If you’re single though, no worries.
June 13th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
kr8tr says:
The T-Mobile MDA handles 15fps vidwo on both WiFi and the Cellular network. The Slingmobile player sometimes misses some frames, but it’s generally “good enough” for watching TV shows directly from my Time Warner Cable modem.
WiFi is certainly faster, and by applying some registry hacks you can enable 802.11g on the T-Mobile MDA, which get’s you a lot better throughput than the default 802.11b only settings.
June 13th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
Kenneth says:
So, do you need to purchase WiFi to use slingbox?
June 13th, 2006 at 6:07 pm
Alice says:
You don’t need to use WiFi on a laptop or desktop - just an internet connection. In fact the faster the connection the better. For a cell phone WiFi is preferred because it’s faster too but #4 said he can get decent performance va a cellular connection.
June 14th, 2006 at 7:17 am
David says:
As someone who has a slingbox, there is one aspect where I am unclear. Do you have to pay for the cell phone minutes of connectivity? If so, doesn’t that add up quickly?
June 14th, 2006 at 8:56 am
JD says:
I think at least 500kps up. I had 256-up cable, and it was watchable on my GF’s laptop (DSL>WiFi) 40 miles away, but very blurry. I upgraded to DSL 768-up, which is perfect. Now the stream is about 630 down on GF’s lappy. Note that you won’t be seeing high quality video - it is compressed. But very watchable. Slingbox has been a Godsend for me, since I am always away from home and must watch my cable news.
I’ve been wanting to get a Cingular 8125 (sama as T-Mobile MDA) for just this purpose, as their net is faster. But their data plan is more expensive than T-Mobile.
>>How much uplink bandwidth must you devote to SlingBox to support a cell phone or computer?
Comment by MarcosV
June 14th, 2006 at 12:20 pm
JD says:
The carriers all have fixed-price unlimited data plans, but be sure you get the right one for the right phone - Cingular will screw ya if you get the wrong plan for the wrong phone.
>>As someone who has a slingbox, there is one aspect where I am unclear. Do you have to pay for the cell phone minutes of connectivity? If so, doesn’t that add up quickly?
Comment by David
June 14th, 2006 at 12:22 pm