SiGGy

http://www.slingmedia.com/


Looks cool, but they are $250 to start I believe. A big steep I think, so I'll wait a few months to get one.


Any input? anyone own one yet?

SiGGy

DOH just in case any of you don't know what it is.

You hook it up to you cable box/satellite reciever/DVR recorder and it streams whatever your watching to your computer. It also acts as a IR repeater.

So... you can be on your computer watching something and change channels on the box anywhere.

It also allows you to stream your video to anywhere on the internet if you have a decent upstream of 256Kbit or more.

You can also control the cable/satellite/dvr box accross the net as well. Pretty neat if you are at a friends house and realise you want to add a show to your DVR. Or just simply want to watch something you have recorded somewhere else!

Seems like a neat concept, it obvioulsy requires a good internet connection for external use. But it'd be cool even inside your house.

JJ4Short

Schweet, when one of you get it let me watch your tv

amisconception

lol @ "At Work"

Xenogen

My question is will there be a signifigant loss in quality through the stream?

Smitty

someone watches too much TV...

were you watching that show "I want that" last night Captain Sig?

Moog-Type-S

Windows Media Center already does this.

soopa

i decided awhile back i'd never look twice at the thing because it's so ridiculous that they shaped it like a hershey bar.

just what i need, another component that doesn't stack with the rest of them.

kensteele

Dave, a co-worker and I went to look at them on Tuesday at CompUSA. He bought it, demo'd it at work we couldn't get thru the firewall, but using his wireless card, we watched live TV from home. It was actually pretty good. The picture was very watchable, very smooth. I will purchase slingbox on Saturday (long story) at a discount. Stop by next week if you want to see it in action. Now if I can stream Tivo/surveillance camera to a phone or PocketPC/Treo....

Smitty

that would be sweet Ken... totally

NYZGREATST

deyum that sounds pretty cool

kensteele

This thing is awesome if you are a big TV watcher and/or electronics geek. TV anywere is an understatement...I can watch my Tivo'd programs from my laptop while driving down the freeway.

To me it is still secondary to TivoToGo where you download the programs (files) to your computer and play them locally before you hit the road. But if you are gone for a week, you can watch the shows that were recorded while you are on the road.

I think I'll get the biggest benefit when the PocketPC software / Java download for cellphones comes out. In the meantime, I'm going to try to hook up a live surveillance camera and broadcast it over one of the cable empty channels.

I would definitely recommend the slingbox.

AztecRol

iTrader: (2)

WOW!!! Very cool!!!!!

JJ4Short

Remind me never to drive near you LOL

Whiskers

Its come down in price. Im thinking about it....

kensteele

So the latest software upgrade will allow you to hook up to three components at a time. I have my DVR cable box and my Tivo plugged in, the third is open but I'm going to plug in a surv. camera. The slingbox is small so it's out of sight cause it's not required to be visible.

You can switch between all three whenever you want. If someone is at home is watching the DVR, you can watch the Tivo or you can watch the DVR and watch what they watch. If you want to check on your camera and see what's going on, just switch to input C. Works anywhere there is broadband or wi-fi. If you have a wireless EVDO card, it works just about anywhere up and down the highway.

My only complaint is it's a little slow in bringing up menus and changing channels so when you bring up your Tivo listing to play your recorded shows, it takes awhile to scroll. But when it plays, the picture is pretty clean, it's smooth, and it's more than acceptable to watch. But I don't do the fast forward during shows......

If it's on deal, I would certainly get one.

doopstr

Well I think its ugly and I don't need TV beamed to me.

doopstr

I'd rather have a sqeezebox from http://www.slimdevices.com/

nandowong

has soon as someone here sets theirs up to where we can access it im cutting out my cable

kensteele

well yes that's another thing. i think with the software installed on any computer, all you need it the finder's code and you can watch someone's tv from anywere given the proper access. it's great because i can watch my tv from any windows pc at home, no tuner card needed.

kensteele

Yes that's very attractive. Audio devices tend to look a lot nicer because of the need to display something visually. But that squeezebox doesn't even come close to the functionality of a slingbox, apples and oranges. And again, the slingbox is not meant to be seen...still it doesn't look that bad; much better in person than in photos.

Still for audio, I'm going to look into the squeezebox, looks pretty cool. Gotta checkout the ipod/itunes compatibility.

Python2121

this should be a standard feature for tivo, but very cool none the less

IMO i feel that the tv is going from source>>satellite>>cable provider>>into house>>through digital cable>>through tivo>>through even more compression>>over interenet>>laptop

it would be nice if the networks broacast from source>>internet and just let everyone stream basic cable from the net. of course, there would be huge huge distrabution costs, but if they compressed using h.264 or something efficient and make it pretty low res im sure it could be easily done while still making money

Stapler

Saw a add in the rat shaq weekly, 200 bucks, just so ya know.

Whiskers

Im thinking it's good for NFL, but there are only a few weeks left....

TypeRS

if you have a tv tuner on your pc, you can use orb.com which is free.


im interesting in t he slingbox. id like to hook up a unit at my relative's place in asia and watch shows from here...my only concern is will channel surfing from the computer over here affect what my relatives are watching on their cable box over there and vice versa?

kensteele

Yes it will. When you use the slingbox, it's like you are sitting in front of your television with the laptop on your lap. What you see on the TV is what you see on the laptop.

Thus you will need to have multiple sources going into the slingbox so that you can control one from your laptop while the person at home looking at the TV can control another...that will work fine and will let you both watch [different] TV at the same time.

yunginTL

i seen this shit at my work it looks fuckin throwed, and we just got this other one in by sony thats fuckin close to $500

TypeRS

i picked up the slingbox tonight at CompUSA. We paid $180 after $50 instant savings and an additional 10% off because of their friends and family night sale.

this thing works nicely with my 24" dell monitor =)

nandowong

anyone who has one care to share with us? just for a couple of minutes so that everyone can see how it works.

that way you get good karma and get to brag to those of us who dont have it.

doopstr

There is a $189.99 deal at Amazon today on the Slingbox if anyone is interested. Go to www.deal2buy.com for details.

SiGGy

yes, thats what i chose to do. i wont buy a slingbox. Orb does a LOT more and it's free.

I'm watching one of my DIVX movies from my house at work on my PPC EVDO phone right now. Looks awesome.

I'm going to pickup a USB tuner for ORB and a IR blaster. So I can control my DVR with ORB too. Then I'll have slingbox functionality, PLUS I can play all of my stored media files too on my PC and all the other PC's here at my place.

ORB rocks.

it's so easy to use too. I just go to www.orb.com in IE on my PPC phone then click what i want to watch. It's good stuff...

kensteele

I have orb installed (why all the software upgrades every week?) but I have yet to really try to use it. I like the slingbox for watching stored content and recorded shows already residing on my DVR/Tivo.

Any trouble with getting orb to work....?

SiGGy

I have had 0 troubles with ORB. So far it's been *fantastic*!

I dont write the software ken, I dont know why they keep updating it. Probably to enhance the service.

ORB does everything Sling does and more. I can control my DVR remotely and watch it. So I can watch stored content on my DVR, or live TV on it and control it via a webpage.

Plus I can get to all of my local movies, pictures and mp3's stored on my computer. It re-encodes the movies (and mp3) in realtime to match your bandwidth and puts them in WMP format. ORB does a bandwidth test when you login to it everytime via web browser so it knows how to encode the video/audio.

To add the only prequists are a web browser and windows media player (or real player, which means a lot of MM phones will work with it too). You do not need a proprietary player like sling requires.

However you do need a supported capture card or external USB video device to do live TV or control a STB. They range from $90-$160.

Jesus Walks

www.xtv.com nws

kensteele

cool show me the next time i see you. want to compare it to sling.

i was asking about the software upgrade,s do you keep getting additional functions, is the bandwidth improved, more buttons, more supported video, audio is louder, you gotta be getting something new with those one-a-week updates...i'll do more reading in the orb forums.

SiGGy

will do. I'll be in the office friday. Then I wont be around for a couple of weeks

Casper42

Its called IP Multicasting andthe infrastructure is already around today. Cisco has it pretty much nailed, and they make up a large portion of the Internet backbone.

But the Infrastructure doesnt have to be that bad for Cable Modem subscribers. Most Cable Loops terminate relatively close to your home, and they do so at the Cable Company's office. So screw ABC broadcasting their stream and everyone picking it up (plus there is a timezone issue there), just have the local Cable Company offer an IP Multicasting service that only goes to THEIR cable customers.
Add in the ability to request the multicast stream from an outside PC that has the proper username and password (like for your ISP's email / bill pay service) and then you can even watch your shit on the road.

DSL is a little bit trickier, because I know my previous house's (SoCal) DSL was being terminated in the SF Bay Area, where all the local channels are a bit different. So they may have to collect all these regional feeds and then redistribute in their Regional NOC, which adds infrastructure cost as you mentioned.


The emerging "digital cable" standard needs to be looked at for this to work. Its alot easier to stuff a digital pipe (interweb) full of digitally encoded video (at the source), than to transform it all on your own. This is something DirectTV and other sat companies already do. This is also why the DirecTiVo doesnt have any options for "Quality" while the analog (SA) TiVo does. DTiVo records the digital bitstream right off the SAT like ripping a DVD. Stand Alone TiVos use an MPEG Encoder chip to go analog to digital.

Hopefully TV stations will start seeing the beenfit to all this technology, and offer something like a primary channel in pure HDTV digital format, with a low quality side band also sent out digitally for those without HD or for all these alternative delivery methods that keep coming up (sling, TiVo To Go, VCast, etc)

badboy

Slingbox can be had for 199.99 @ amazon.

SiGGy

I'm still sold on ORB, I spend $59 for a external USB video capture device that came with a IR blaster. It controls my DVR/cable box remotely and does it's own DVR functionality and I'm not stuck on a proprietary client like sling requires... And ORB does more...

badboy

For people who already own a tv-tuner(usb2), orb is not much use.
I have the PCTV Deluxe tuner, and is not compatable with orb.com.

I guess I'll have to upgrade my tuner in order to use orb.