Slingbox

Olympics are in full swing and hopefully you’ve had a chance to check out some of the contests. However, due to the time difference and the pure amount of 3600 hours of content it’s hard to keep up with it all. Unless of course you have a Slingbox. This “gotta have” gadget is great for viewing your TV while you are away. The Slingbox allows you to watch and control your favorite TV source from anywhere in the world on your laptop or cell phone. You can watch your DVR, digital cable, satellite receiver, or DVD player wherever you are. The Slingbox does not have a monthly fee and is surprisingly-easy to setup. It works phenomenally well and allows me to catch all the programming I would have otherwise missed. I can watch all the channels on my Comcast DVR box, I can use my DVR remotely to view recorded programs or to set a new recording. I can pause and rewind live TV and interact with my DVR just like at home. For example I recently wanted to catch the Olympics 4×100 swimming relay with the (not enough talked about) African American USA swimmer and now gold medalist Cullen Jones, but I couldn’t catch the broadcast because I was traveling. So, while at the airport I opened the MacBook Pro and slapped in my EVDO card, connected to the web, opened the Slingbox app and connected to my home Comcast Cable DVR box and set my DVR to record the race. The next morning I connected to my Slingbox and to my cable DVR and pulled up the race and watched it from the laptop. This type of control, flexibility and functionality is exactly what I was looking for and the Slingbox delivered.

What about picture quality? Surprisingly good, obviously the better your internet connection the better the viewing experience, if you can get an internet connection around 200 Kbps or higher, you should be in good shape.There are also different versions of the Slingbox, the AV which is the basic model and costs about $129.00, the Slingbox Solo which handles HD content costs about $179, the Slingbox Pro which allows you to connect up to 4 sources and HD content, costs about $229.00. Oh and I shouldn’t forget Sling Player mobile, which just upgraded to a beta version of the SlingPlayer 2.0 that’s available for Windows users as a free download from Sling Media’s website which allows windows mobile phones to connect to your Slingbox at home.

I tried this on a Treo and loved the experience of pulling up live or on-demand tv from my phone over the EVDO mobile network without paying extra or monthly fees, just make sure you check your mobile data plan ahead of time so you don’t get a surprise bill, at the time I tested it “unlimited data” was truly unlimited.