# Slingbox



## jonphil (Aug 7, 2002)

I know it's not really Tivo related as such, but has anyone tried one of those Slingbox's from PCWorld?
I'm not quite sure how well it would work with Tivo or the picture quality possible from the box.

If anyone has tried one with a Tivo I'd be interested to hear about your experience.


----------



## Raisltin Majere (Mar 13, 2004)

This any help?

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=301443&highlight=slingbox


----------



## Hunty (Nov 6, 2001)

I have had one for a couple of months and it works great. The only issue is the upload speed of your broadband, anything above 200K works well, anything below is not so good.
There's even a Tivo remote control.

I spend loads of time at Airports waiting for (delayed) flights, so connect to a wireless network, and away I go watching TV or using TIVO via the slingbox.

Think there are lots of people on here that have a slingbox.


----------



## jonphil (Aug 7, 2002)

Raisltin Majere said:


> This any help?
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=301443&highlight=slingbox


Cheers. Had no idea they had been around that long. Not seen much advertising. They need to be careful that the lack of advertising doesn't result in another TIVO type thing where nobody knew what TIVO actually did.

I only knew about TIVO from watching infomercials while in New York a few years before I saw them for sale in the UK


----------



## Darren Skidmore (Mar 27, 2001)

I had a Sony Location Free player which works in the same way as the slingbox.
The main reason I got that was that you could connect to it with a Sony PSP. (As well as a PC)
It worked OK but Sony were absolutely dire at supporting it. I had to pester them for about three months to put on remote codes for the TiVo.
Like I say it does the job and the picture quality is certainly watchable (Expect VHS quality rather than DVD quality).
One thin I would say though is think before you buy either the Slingbox or the Sony Location Free and ask yourself how often will you use it.
Do you do a lot of travelling and if you do, will you be able to get a decent speed connection from where you are staying (Hotels don't normally have good (reliable) speeds although they claim to.
I know a few people that have bought them and they all end up the same way. Once the novelty has worn off they either end up gathering dust or on Ebay.

The funny thing was, I saw a slingbox in PCWorld not long after they had been released and I ended up explaining to the shop guy how they worked and what they did!


----------



## katman (Jun 4, 2002)

Darren Skidmore said:


> I saw a slingbox in PCWorld not long after they had been released and I ended up explaining to the shop guy how they worked and what they did!


But did he understand ???

After all he was only a salesdroid


----------



## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Can't you just do the same as slingbox with tivoweb (for the remote), a spare PC and the free orb software(http://www.orb.com/what_is_orb/orb_tv/)?


----------



## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

Darren Skidmore said:


> ... I saw a slingbox in PCWorld not long after they had been released and I ended up explaining to the shop guy how they worked and what they did!


Rather like the salesman in Dixons, who apologised to me for not being able to demonstrate the TiVo, because they couldn't find out where to put the tape in.


----------



## Samstan (Dec 4, 2002)

I bought one a few weeks ago. I had a 'mare trying to set it up using a wireless gateway and ended up running a cat6 cable half the length of the house. I'm on NTL with a 4mb connection and the upload rate and the subsequent pictures were excellent. However, 2 weeks after I bought it, it stopped working - a blown PSU I think. After spending £180 on it I wasn't impressed (a)reliability concerns and b)buildquality - it feels really cheap and plasticky) so got my money back. But it worked well with the Tivo. Only minor issue I found was although the remote looked like the TIVO peanut , a couple of button's functionality didn't work (thumbs up & donw IIRC).


----------



## Fred Smith (Oct 5, 2002)

mikerr said:


> Can't you just do the same as slingbox with tivoweb (for the remote), a spare PC and the free orb software(http://www.orb.com/what_is_orb/orb_tv/)?


Mike,

Have you actually used it. The reason I ask is I can't get it to work several different error messages.

Have been using Unreal for about a year now and that works fine in conjunction with TiVoweb.


----------



## diomark (Nov 3, 2006)

Slingbox works great with the Tivo.. I highly recommend it.

I use my slingbox 3 different ways -
1) to view tivo in my bedroom (computer in bedroom)
2) to view tivo on my laptop while travelling
3) to view tivo from my phone (I have a windows mobile ppc-6700 phone) when out and about and I have a bit of spare time...

-mark



jonphil said:


> I know it's not really Tivo related as such, but has anyone tried one of those Slingbox's from PCWorld?
> I'm not quite sure how well it would work with Tivo or the picture quality possible from the box.
> 
> If anyone has tried one with a Tivo I'd be interested to hear about your experience.


----------



## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

diomark said:


> 3) to view tivo from my phone (I have a windows mobile ppc-6700 phone) when out and about and I have a bit of spare time...


Is that a Wi-Fi or 'phone connection? I assume that the latter would be a bit expensive to run.


----------



## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Fred Smith said:


> Mike, have you actually used it. The reason I ask is I can't get it to work several different error messages.


 Well actually its the webcam part of orb I`m using for tv, (it sees my hauppage TV card as a webcam) but it works ok.



iankb said:


> Is that a Wi-Fi or 'phone connection? I assume that the latter would be a bit expensive to run.


 Cheapish on t-mobile WebNWalk... I'm on an unlimited data transfer 3g package for £20/mo


----------



## alanjrobertson (Feb 15, 2002)

Darren Skidmore said:


> One thin I would say though is think before you buy either the Slingbox or the Sony Location Free and ask yourself how often will you use it.
> Do you do a lot of travelling and if you do, will you be able to get a decent speed connection from where you are staying (Hotels don't normally have good (reliable) speeds although they claim to.
> I know a few people that have bought them and they all end up the same way. Once the novelty has worn off they either end up gathering dust or on Ebay.


 I'd heard about them before they came to the UK so bought one the first weekend they were out (love my gadgets!). If I had T-Mobile Web'n'walk I'd probably use it a lot more when I'm travelling. As it is I tend to use it over my home network much more than I expected - quite like being able to pop TV up on one monitor whilst working on the other (well other 2 actually - triple-monitor setup! ). Also used it when at my parents or friends houses - you can copy the software to a USB key and then just run it straight off the key without needing to install it. The upload speed on my 2Mbps ADSL connection makes the quality a bit on the poor side with this (although watchable nevertheless), whereas on the LAN it's really quite good.

Cheers

Alan

PS They've got remote code for lots of AV equipment (they had my Humax 9200T) and seem fairly responsive to adding new ones. It's also got a built-in DTT tuner so if someone is watching the TiVo/DVR at home then you don't need to interrupt their viewing just to watch live TV.


----------

