I wasn’t sure where to put this, so it ended up here by default.
Slingbox is a contraption you can connect up to, say, your cable TV service and basically watch your own cable TV via your computer from anywhere you can connect to the internet.
So…I just bought a cabin and was wondering if it would be a good idea to just pay $130 and not have to pay for another cable bill. Just buy a cheap 'puter and watch my cable TV from there.
Are there any opinions out there?
BTW…the Slingbox site linked above has a pretty neat interactive commercial guy. You can get him to do stuff, and it changes regularly.
I have a Slingbox, and I like it a lot. I actually won it on an episode of Yahoo! Tech’s Hook Me Up, which you can watch here.
I use it primarily at work, or on my laptop, and even on my phone. Fast-action stuff like football is not the greatest quality, but you can generally see what’s going on. Your network speed is really going to dictate how well the Slingbox works. It occasionally freezes up on me, but typically a restart does the trick.
I’m very pleased and happy with the 'Box. Being that I have one of the original ones, I imagine the newer versions are even better. Tech support and the forums at the Slingmedia site are excellent as well. I beta tested the Mac client and the programming team was incredibly responsive. They’re a good company, but I heard they were recently bought by some huge media conglomerate - but the company is supposed to remain as is…
I know… a guy… who has DirecTV. He goes to a lot of college football games and tailgates. When he goes, he takes a TV, Reciever and Satellite dish and hooks them up. There are actually quite a few people who do this and I don’t know why you couldn’t do the same with cabin. (check your TOS… it may not be allowed)
I have one though I don’t use it, my husband does. He travels for work and he loves it, particularly for watching our local sports that are not carried in other markets. It was outrageously easy to set up and it’s easy to use, he even records shows on the DVR and watches those.
His biggest beef is that hotels are increasingly going to wireless service and that it is sometimes spotty and slow, particularly in Europe. That wouldn’t affect you, obviously.
Among his work peers, he was first to buy one and most the others have jumped on board because they all travel quite frequently. When one is in a foreign country for a week and the only English language channel is BBC World, small things mean a great deal.
Yes, in the sense that I could, if I wished, get a high speed hookup through Dish Network…
No, in the sense that it would cost too much for how little I’d use it.
The phone lines are about 300 yards away, so it wouldn’t be too cost-prohibitive to get a land line, but my cell phone works (marginally) OK. Eventually, I’ll probably pop for a land line.