Blitztorte

I agree with previous comments. Slingbox is awesome. I do encounter many hotels that seem to block access however. (I have my Sling going over port 443).

Thanks.

ESpen36

My SlingBox is awesome! I use it everywhere! (even at home--it's just more convenient to watch TV on my laptop than at the actual TV)

I love the fact that it works anywhere in the world....so while I'm sitting in an airport lounge in South America, I can watch my local TV channels!

Taiwaned

So we are just considering a position in China. If I purchasee a slingbox and install it in my parents home (for example) I would be able to watch the tv we have always been used to correct?

How does this affect my parents internet usage bandwidth? Hate to have my tv viewing adversely affect the quality of their internet connection.

ESpen36

The SlingBox streams only when a user is connected, so it shouldn't hurt bandwidth too much overall. Also, your parents' ISP won't dial back their speed for "excessive consumption" because you won't be uploading/streaming content 24/7.

nmenaker

+4 meaing four slingboxes and one catcher!!

Slingboxes are great, especially when armed with a mobile device and of course lappy. the new catcher is a really nice add-on, that allows direct connection to a TV without the need for a laptop in between. Works VERY nice.

I've used any one of my slingboxes from within India, Russia, China, south america, all of Europe, Africa. On a boat in the middle of the carribean even!

With a mobile device hooked up, it is as good as getting satellite radio if you are looking to listen to thinkgs like CNBC, CNN, etc. Just stream it from home.

Per another post, sometimes there is a port blockage at some wifi or hotel locations (I often just use it with my EVDO travel connection so it doesn't matter) but a way around this is more than one slingbox, on more than one port. Granted, most users will have just one.

As for you parents. It would be REALLY beneficial to have them upgrade their UPSTREAM bandwidth to 400kps or more if they aren't already on cable or something. My DSL is now 700kps+ which works EXCELLENT even for NEAR HD streaming from the new ProHD slingbox. That is the only real bandwidth bottleneck. I stream on a windows mobile phone at 250-300kps just fine, great picture and no lag. LOVE IT!

adambadam

You do realize that you can just view the netflix stream right on your computer from netflix.com? The whole point of all these partnerships (TIVO, XBOX, Playstation) is so they can enable playback on a TV screen and don't even have to ship you a DVD.

ScottC

Good luck with that outside the US

griffinj

So I have a wireless router that does NAT and acts as a firewall. Would I need to open a port to allow inbound access to the sling box? How does it perform over an 802.11g network, or should I go hardwired? Any disadvantages to the sling?

cme2c

When you install the slingbox, it does a setup that worked flawlessly for my current router. Didn't have to manually open ports or anything. Works great at my house on an 802.11 g network.

Ctrix65513

Going to have to look into this new software you speak of. I love my Slingbox and use it all the time. Never have thought of updating my software.

ESpen36

Wirelessly posted (Apple iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

Yes, I had to open a port on my Airport Extreme router to allow streaming, and I had to map that port manually to the internal ("private") IP address assigned to the SlingBox. But it is pretty easy to do if you are familiar with DHCP/NAT configuration.

mjm

Trying to figure out which kind of TV is best to port my PC to when slinging from overseas. I get about 1100kbps right now, maybe a tad slower when I move next week but I think it will be pretty much the same. (initial speed test for line at current location showed 69mbps down and new place speed test 2 days ago showed 50mbps).

Do I go 17 inch, 20 inch, bigger? Do I go Analog or Digital? HDTV or no?

Thanks in advance,

Mike

ScottC

Why PC to TV? Why not just get a Slingcatcher and get it over with.

A Catcher will look fine on any size TV, I've used one on a 50" plasma and it performed just fine, especially with the speeds you are getting, you'll get a lot of joy from a Slingcatcher.

mjm

This sounds like it is too good to be true. Let me ask a couple of basics and then I am likely going to whip out my credit card and make a purchase.

I am overseas, my Slingbox is stateside. My goal is to watch the signal I see on my monitor when slinging form overseas to a TV that is with me overseas. I know I can port from video card TV pout to a TV but this SlingCatcher seems a great idea too. From what I can make out online on slingmedia's site, the sling catcher gets hooked to the Slingbox. What I am interested in is porting the signal I watch with Slingplayer when overseas to a TV that is also in the house with me overseas. In such a set up is SlingCatcher a viable option?

Thank you for the suggestion and if you have time a coupe of the follow up novice questions too.

Mike

adambadam

The sling catcher has one end that is Ethernet and goes into the wall and another that has different standard outputs that goes into your TV. It then can either hook up with a networked computer, a flash drive/hard drive or another slingbox either on the network or remotely.

The example on the Sling Media's Web site is for a college student who still wants to get the local sports teams while he is at school. He can buy a sling catcher and a tv for his dorm room and bum his parents TV from the slingbox at his house back home.

I think this is exactly what you are looking for.