TVSquad

The Slingbox is a curious thing. On top of many things I'm a huge gadget geek, so I've heard of the Slingbox back when it was first unleashed onto the world. The original box was so odd looking, though, with embossed lettering all over its top that resembled the chiselings of famous author names around the top of the Boston Public Library. Though I read what this thing was supposed to do, I still didn't quite get it.

Forward ahead to today, where Sling Media now has an updated line of Slingboxen in their arsenal. Along with the Slingbox AV and Slingbox TUNER, they've now got an HD-capable unit available, the Slingbox PRO. And gone are the days of strange etchings across their tops.

Since I haven't yet jumped into the world of HD, the Slingbox AV works best for my setup. The first thing that I noticed was the need for a wired network connection in order to access the unit. If you're like me and don't have a network drop near your TV, you can always use a wireless bridge (the manual does point this out as well).

The Slingbox AV has S-video and composite input connections, but what initially surprised me was that the unit doesn't have output connectors. So unless you have an output to spare on your device of choice, it seems you're out of luck. I guess you could find a way to split a signal somehow, somewhere, but I'd think you'd have some signal degradation from that. Lucky for me my TiVo has two composite outputs, so this wasn't an issue for me.

The Slingbox also comes with a couple of Infrared outputs that you can use to control the device you're connected to from the Slingbox Player software. There are two outputs because you actually have the option of connecting two devices to the unit -- one to composite and one to s-video. That way you can have two different configurations, controlling and viewing your TiVo and then your DVD player, for example.

Once everything was hooked up and I had my wireless bridge doing its job, I was ready to install the Slingbox Player software and start configuring the box. The player software is extremely easy to use. When you run the software for the first time it will search your home network for the Slingbox and let you continue setup from there.

From this point on it really takes very little technical know-how to get things working. In order to really put this to the test on my home network, I decided to try the player from my laptop, which was also on the wireless network. I really wasn't anticipating the good audio and video quality from this connection. Everything was smooth and extremely easy to watch. I could control my TiVo from my PC with ease, as the software had a remote profile that included my particular system.


When watching my TV and the Slingbox Player at the same time, there was a noticeable delay in what was being shown on my laptop. Obviously there's a bit of caching that goes on in the Slingbox before it sends the signal to your Player. For most applications this is no big deal, though when you're trying to pause/rewind/fast-forward through programming this can be a pain. The software does have a "control mode" that seems to degrade the quality of the video in order to allow for remote control functions to work faster, though even then there is some delay.

Next I had to try the connection to the Slingbox remotely over the Internet. This is the part that might not be so easy for those not so familiar with how their home network, router and firewall work. First I had to make sure my home home firewall opened and forwarded the Slingbox's port.

I took my laptop to a friend's house, connected to his home wireless network and setup my connection to my Slingbox. This time I had to specify the Internet IP address of my home setup in an alternate configuration, which was easy enough. Once connected I was again surprised at the good quality of the audio and video. There was a definite degradation in the quality, but the sound seemed unaffected. It's definitely good enough for what it is and what you'd likely be using it for (i.e., on the road and needing to watch what's been recorded at home).

The one part of the Slingbox I wasn't able to test was the Windows Mobile client software, since the phone I use is Pal OS. There is a Palm version of the client coming, but at the time of this writing it wasn't available for testing.

While I'm pleasantly surprised by the quality of the Slingbox AV, there are some aspects that I'd like to see addressed in future models:

• Multiple remotes per input. As it stands now, you configure the unit with what remote you want upon initial setup, and then you're stuck with that one remote unless you want to do the setup all over again. There are times when I wanted to control the TiVo and then the cable box separately, but that wasn't possible.
• Video pass-through. I'm not sure why the Slingbox is an endpoint device, meaning you connect it to a video-out from something and you can't connect anything else to that output. There's already power going to the Slingbox, so why not allow for video pass-through and allow for more options?
• Recording (or at least pause/rewind capability). This is isn't a weakness as much as it is a wish-list item. Of course, if I'm viewing a TiVo recording, I can just pause with the remote. However, there were times I would've liked to pause immediately and using the Slingbox player might have helped there.
• Wireless hardware standard. Come on guys, today is all about wireless, so why make us purchase a separate piece of hardware in order to get wireless on the Slingbox? Even a USB port that allows one to attach a USB wireless adapter would be better than the wireless bridge.

If you want to get a peek at some TV screen grabs I took, check out the top image of my latest three Veronica Mars review posts. The Slingbox AV, Slingbox Pro and Slingbox Tuner are available on Sling Media's website.