Slingbox

[nickfil]

http://www.slingmedia.com/

I've been thinking of pulling the trigger on a slingbox for a while now. Anyone have one? Love it/hate it?

Lately I've had the desire to learn new programs and skills. I want to learn how to cut together video so i've been considering getting a slingbox to stream the 360 multiplayer gameplay from whatever i'm playing lately to my mac and putting together highlight videos. Just to learn the skill and mess around.

Also- I barely *barely* watch any TV now. I work from home and I'm at my computer pretty much all day working. I download a lot shows and watch a couple season of things a week. If i end up turning on my set at all, it is to play games 9 times out of 10. I was thinking Slingbox would be a good thing for me to watch live events on my computer while i work. Stuff like sports and politics. Plus, the daily show is being cut from hulu... so... yeah....

anyway- you guys love it? hate it?

[ilovesega]

I have JUST managed to set up a slingbox this past week, so I can probably tell you a little bit about them. However, my uses are different from what you are looking to do.

I live overseas, so it's really hard to get any kind of american programming, particularly sporting events. So I had my brother back home set one up so I can catch the ballgames and things while I'm living here. For the most part it works perfectly, the picture quality isn't that good at all, but you can adjust it and use the proper cables to get the most out of it, but living so far with a slow internet connection I have to set it to the 2nd lowest picture quality to get it to stream smoothly. That said, it's all done via browser, there is a slingplayer program you can install but I had a hard time finding it on their site, so I assume they want you to use the browser for most of the watching. There's also no "easy" way to record things to you hard drive. What they suggest on their site is to set it up to a dvr and record things that way, but since my brother doesn't have one I had to search around for ways to record it locally on my computer, and slingbox themselves don't offer anything but there are some third-party programs that can do it. I've tried mreplay and at-large video recorder. I couldn't get mreplay to work at all, and at-large you have to pay for. I forgot to mention I have the slingbox solo which is the SD quality version.

Anyway hope that helps.

[Koopin_Krackerz]

I've had a Slingbox Pro HD for over a year now and I love it. I don't use it in the way you plan on using it though. I primarily use mine to watch my hometown teams (Nashville Predators, UT Vols) at my college in Charlotte, NC. Also, it's nice to watch live tv in bed if my roommate is watching something I don't want to watch. The interface is MUCH better on Windows than Mac's. It has DVR features, live schedules, and looks slicker. Sling.com has similar features for both, but again it's more reliable on Windows. Also, the usefulness is largely dependent on your internet connection. I've had to cut back on my viewing ever since my college installed a bandwidth limiter (bastards). If you don't have a solid connection, it can be like watching video on a 56K modem. It's quite expensive so I'm not sure if the price is worth it for what you want to do, but if you can find a good deal I recommend it.

[nickfil]

Also, the usefulness is largely dependent on your internet connection. I've had to cut back on my viewing ever since my college installed a bandwidth limiter (bastards). If you don't have a solid connection, it can be like watching video on a 56K modem.

Wow. That is a really shitty thing for a college to do.

So i guess that largely it depends on your internet connection. Since I'm going to have everything on the same network, I wonder if i can LAN it rather than pop it through the net. Don't know if that is an option or not. I can imagine it is particularly taxing on the net to play something online and stream the video.

This guy did what i want to do and has a bit of a framerate issue


but this guy did what I want to do and it looks smooth.

[Koopin_Krackerz]

It really does. If your internet is not at least 2MB's (connected to the Slingbox and/or the internet you're watching from), it will hiccup (similar to that first video, audio stutter, and the video quality will decline. Our internet at home where my sling is connected is around 4MB's and is very smooth to use when I'm using it there. At school, we never get higher than 500KB's (and that is very rare to get) and makes live streaming near impossible.

If you feel like your internet you will use (both sides) is fast enough, I say it is a good investment if you can find at a reasonable price. If your internet is too slow, it will be very frustrating, and I could imagine recording an entire session only to find out it is constantly skipping be insanely annoying.

Hope it helps with your decision.

[nickfil]

Hope it helps with your decision.

It does for sure. I might pick up a new cable modem to compliment the buy. You know, swap out this older modem rented from comcast that is clearly referbed. Just to make sure that everything runs as smoothly as possible.