I've been intrigued by the Slingbox story and products since I first saw them at Digital Life in 2005. A little box that can allow me to watch my TV from anywhere in the world? That's cool! And recently I decided to take a close look at the Slingbox Solo to see if the little box lived up to my expectations.
The Slingbox Solo is like other Slingbox products in that it hooks into the video and audio outputs of your Tivo, cable box, TV tuner or satellite receiver and effectively "broadcasts" the signal over your home network or even over the Web. Once it's up and running you can tune into your TV shows (recordings or live TV) and watch them on your PC, Mac or mobile device from anywhere in your home or anywhere in the world, as long as you have an internet connection. Oh don't worry about someone hacking into your cable box PVR and seeing what you've been recording, each Slingbox is only accessible via a 31-digit hexadecimal number (the "Finder ID"), which then requires a password to view.
The Set-Up
So how does it work? Quite well actually. The Slingbox Solo comes with a quick start guide that shows you how to hook into the output of your cable box, satellite receiver or OTA tuner. A loop output is provided so you can use the same device output to plug directly into your TV if necessary. The Slingbox then has two other important outputs - a network connection (standard RJ45 Ethernet connector) and an infrared blaster which is supposed to be placed close to the IR sensor on your source device. This part of the set-up took me about 8 minutes, and only that long because I had to find a power strip (I was fresh out of AC outlets).
On the viewing end, you need some software - the SlingPlayer. I was surprised to find that the Slingbox Solo did not come with a software CD or any instructions of how to download or install the player. Being a clever enough lad, I went to the Sling Media Web site and hunted around to find the right version of the player for my operating system. The download and installation took another 15 or 20 minutes and then I was ready to do the final configuration.
Once you have the software loaded on your PC or Mac (or mobile phone, more on that later), you'll need to run though the initial Slingbox set-up. The Slingbox Setup Wizard handles this task for you. Assuming your PC is on the network with your Slingbox the Setup Wizard will find your Slingbox automatically, identifying it's FinderID, and will then ask you to specify which connections are being used (component, composite or S-Video). Once you set the administrator and user passwords you'll also specify which TV provider you have and which specific device you are using (which model cable box or satellite set-top box or OTA tuner). This allows the SlingPlayer to control your device, loading a "SlingRemote" - a perfect visual representation of your original factory remote (see screenshots). This is what you'll use to operate your remote TV viewing session.
The final step in the Set-Up Wizard is to test your local connection to the device, as well as simulating a remote (outside the home) connection. If your home network router is set with its factory application and security settings, then chances are pretty good that this first test will fail. By default, most home network systems (most routers) will prevent outside visitors from getting into your network. They have something called a "firewall" which blocks remote access to your network And this is a good thing. But if you want to be able to view your TV shows from a remote PC via the internet, then you'll need to make some adjustments.
With the Slingbox SetUp Wizard, these adjustments were remarkably painless. The Wizard asked me for the manufacturer and model number of my router, and it then loaded the actual admin panel of my network router, along with a tutorial frame on the left that told me exactly what settings to change (port forwarding) in order to get remote viewing sessions to work. The whole process took only a few extra minutes and it worked flawlessly.
If you intend to tune into your Slingbox from another PC or mobile device, you will also need to run a quick initial set-up on these devices. To do so, you will need to know the Finder ID (revealed during initial set-up), so when you get this value in the initial Slingbox set-up screens, copy it into an e-mail and send it to yourself on the device from which you want to install the SlingPlayer software. This will save you from having to manually type in an imposing string of 31 numbers and letters.
Once the set-up is complete, you can watch your TV remotely from the SlingPlayer. You can control basic functions with your arrow keys and space bar, or you can view your remote control on the screen, click your mouse on its buttons, and do anything on your device that you could do from home. Want to catch the latest episode of "The Office" which you recorded last night? No problem. Are you running late at work, and you just realized you forgot to schedule a recording for tonight? No problem: get into your DVR's guide and schedule the recording from your remote PC (or phone). And this is probably the killer app of the whole system - the ability to tune in and watch your TV shows from anywhere is great, but the ability to program your DVR to record things from anywhere might be even more useful.
Forget to record a show? No problem. Connect to your Slingbox via a PC or mobile phone and you get full access to your DVR's guide and scheduling features.
Corporate Tools
Even though the Setup Wizard set everything up properly, when I attempted to connect to my home Slingbox from work, I got an error message "0x9234006F" which said that the Player was unable to find the SlingBox. The culprit was our corporate firewall. For security purposes, a corporate firewall is usually configured to block non-standard ports from being accessed. The SlingBox uses port 5001 as a default, but you can select a different port if your connection fails. After reading a few posts in the SlingBox forum, I chose port 443 (same port used by HTTPS secure server connections) and this allowed me to get right in. In order to change which port the SlingBox uses, you'll need to run through your Slingbox SetUp Wizard again on your locally connected network PC and re-do the port forwarding, but the Wizard will get you through this pretty quickly.
How Does it Look and Sound?
You might think that a network streamed version of your TV shows would look pretty bad. But actually, it's quite watchable. When watching shows within the home network, playback was virtually glitch-free, though the audio and video signals were compressed so that they could be transmitted over the network. I watched several high definition programs streamed from my DISH Network DVR to my PC connected to a 23-inch widescreen monitor. Even at this relatively large monitor size, TV shows such as "Lost" and "Survivor" looked crisp and clean with smooth motion and only minor artifacts.
Colors were a bit muted and details were clearly softer than the original high definition broadcast, but this is to be expected, particularly since I was using the composite video output from the DVR to the SlingBox. Changing over to the component video inputs improved color saturation and accuracy a bit but the image sharpness didn't change much. It's not high definition, but it's perfectly watchable, and the viewing options should allow you to see your content in its proper shape, whether your monitor is widescreen or 4:3 in its aspect ratio.
When you get outside the home network, the quality will depend entirely on your specific connection speed from your home to the internet (your upload bandwidth) and on the network speed that you're getting on your remote viewing session. When I viewed programs from my office, the shows illustrated some additional compression artifacts in the video and audio, but the feed itself was pretty solid with minimal drop-outs. And I have to tell you, my home network is less than ideal, and this may limit my upload bandwidth. I have about 6 or 7 devices all sharing an internet connection. My SlingBox is actually on a 4-port LAN switch, which is then plugged into a Corinex AC home networking box, which is then plugged in on the other end to a 4-port router. I'm amazed that it works at all, and the fact that it creates such a good picture and sound on the PC client is quite impressive.
Phoning It In
The SlingPlayer Mobile's viewable area can be a bit small on widescreen programs or window-boxed 4:3 content.
Viewing high bandwidth audio/video content from a PC connected via a broadband internet connection is one thing, but watching the same thing on a mobile phone is a whole different ball of wax. Viewing your content from a mobile phone or PDA will cost you a bit more (currently $29.99, one-time fee) but you can download a 30-day trial with full functionality so you can see how it works on your phone and network before you buy it.
I admit my expectations of this were pretty low and I did have some issues with this viewing method. I loaded the SlingPlayer Mobile software on my Treo 755p (Verizon Wireless Network) and was able to connect to my SlingBox with no problems, but the stability of viewing is a bit more haphazard than on a PC with a more reliable network connection.
At times I could get glitch-free uninterrupted playback for several minutes - even half an hour or more. At other times, I'd get maybe 30 to 45 seconds of playback, then a freeze for 15 or 20 seconds, then it would tune back in. Really I'd say this is less a factor of the SlingPlayer technology itself, and more a factor of the wireless data network reliability and bandwidth availability. If you are having trouble viewing a show, you can switch into audio-only mode and get a more reliable signal (which is OK for things like baseball games and talk shows).
Since real estate on the mobile device screen is tight, you do not have the option of viewing an image of your factory remote control. Instead entering "remote" mode displays your most commonly used commands like "Menu" and channel up/down in a small toolbar below the viewing area. Also, on my Treo, the 5-way navigator and center button on the phone was mapped to the direction arrows and select button functions on my DISH remote. This design lends itself to very intuitive operation of the DVR from a phone or PDA.
One feature that I really missed in the mobile version of SlingPlayer was the ability to rotate and/or zoom the screen. The SlingPlayer Mobile viewing screen has a fixed toolbar area below the viewing area. This is used for menu items (e.g., icons to switch between "favorite" and "remote" modes). For widescreen content, the area for playback on the active viewing area is only about 2 inches by 1.25 inches. And if you're using a high definition DVR, then standard definition programs may be "window-boxed" (black border all around the picture) on the SlingMobile screen - they appeared this way in my set-up.
The SlingPlayer Mobile does allow you to select 4:3 or letterboxed viewing, so the shape of the image will be right, but you may not be able to use your full viewing area. If it were possible to rotate the image 90 degrees and enter a "full screen" mode (no icons), this would increase the viewable area considerably. Also, allowing the mobile player to zoom in on the viewable image would be great. On a 3-inch diagonal screen, I'd be willing to sacrifice aspect ratio purity in order to actually see things at a reasonable size. This isn't a major criticism, but is certainly something I'd like to see addressed in a future software update.
Final Thoughts
Without a doubt, Slingbox completely changes the rules of engagement between a person and his or her television shows. VCRs and DVRs allow us to time-shift our programs so we can view our shows whenever we want, and now Slingbox allows us to place-shift our viewing to wherever we want. And it actually works. What impressed me most about the SlingBox was how simple it was to get everything up and running - this is advanced technology and home networks aren't too simple either, but the simple automated and guided set-up was able to get me up and running quickly and without any major issues
In 2007, Sling Media was acquired by EchoStar/DISH Network. What this means for the future of SlingBox products is not yet clear. Certainly it would make sense to build the SlingBox technology right into a future version of the DISH DVR. But it's unlikely that the company will stop selling standalone Slingboxes. With the split of DISH Network and Echostar into their own business units (one to sell the DISH service, the other to sell the DISH/Echostar hardware), there's even more opportunity for the Slingbox line to be enhanced and developed. But don't let that stop you from buying one now. It's here, it works and it will change how you see TV.
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What's in the Box?
Manufacturer's Contact Information:
Sling Media, Inc.
1051 E. Hillsdale Blvd, Suite 500
Foster City, CA 94404
Phone: 650-293-8000
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