Anybody here used the Slingbox?

TangoWhiskey

TangoWhiskey

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Feb 23, 2005
Messages
14,210
Location
Midlothian, TX
Display Name
Display name:
3Green
http://www.slingmedia.com

Dish Network bought them. It's fully integrated with Dish TV service. A $179 box, no monthly fees, connects to your Dish PVR and your WiFi high speed internet... and you can watch any of your TV or DVR programs from ANYWHERE you have internet access:

* your laptop on the back deck or in the kitchen
* from your hotel room in Timbuktu
* on your cell phone or PDA in the doctor's office waiting room.
* etc.

Anybody here have personal experience with it and can provide a review??
 
My son has this and swears by it. I can get more details if you like.
 
That's good enough for me, Lance. Not sure I want to provide the family THAT much more access to TV (we don't have a car with a TV in it either, and never will). Just wondering if it works as advertised. Very cool to hear it does.
 
I hooked up a ton of these things for clients who got frustrated with the setup back when most routers had UPnP disabled by default. Now that most consumer routers have UPnP enabled by default, I don't get calls for Slingbox setups anymore.

The Slingbox appears to work very well once it's properly configured (or if you have UPnP enabled on the router). I say "appears" because I'm basing my statement solely on client feedback. I haven't owned a television in years (nor have I missed owning one), so obviously I have little use for a Slingbox.

The Slingbox tries to use DHCP and UPnP to make a hole for itself up behind a router if UPnP is enabled on the router. I personally think having UPnP enabled on the router is a very bad idea, but if you do have it enabled, then the Slingbox setup is pretty much automatic.

If UPnP is disabled, then you have to manually open port 5001 and configure port forwarding to the device. This is the part where most users used to get bewildered. But the manual configuration is very simple. Just open Port 5001 (TCP/UDP) and use Port Forwading to point it to the device's IP (192.168.1.237 by default), and you're done.

The Slingbox also has a "Slingfinder" service that keeps track of changes to the WAN IP address if you're on a dynamic IP, and updates the service accordingly. This, too, appears to work well, based solely on the absence of client complaints.

-Rich
 
I used one once last year to catch a critical baseball game (and I'd prefer to leave the discussion about the particular game at that) when I was on the road; but it was a friend's set-up I was using, so I can't really speak to the administrative aspects of it.

As far as getting me what I wanted, it worked great. It worked effortlessly and allowed me to see what I wanted. No complaints here...
 
I have been using one for a couple of years. The nice thing about it is you can use your home cable from anywhere.
 
I have had one for a few years now. When traveling they are really nice and are a breeze to set up.
I had trouble once with a new router, their tech support had me going in 10 minutes.
They even have it for "smart phones" now also, so you can use it on them.

Highly recommend one if you travel much.

Mark B
 
Man! When they start shipping an HD Slingcatcher, I'm there!

That will get me multiple rooms without having to subscribe (or spending hours personalizing) a second TiVo.
 
It amazes me how much America will spend to watch crap on TV.

$500 DVRs
$1500 / yr cable bills
$300 more to do something their DVR should have done so they can watch their tv while driving or something on their iphone
$1000s into tv and audio
tons of money into dvds

You walk away learning nothing--can't hardly remember what you even watched--and wasted a bunch of time--and have nothing to show for it. I just don't get it.
 
I had looked at getting one. Since I travel a lot I thought it a good idea for me to actually watch TV. Some of the location I travel to the only English TV show is the BBC. But in the end I decided against it. But several of my work colleagues have a slingbox and swear by it. There biggest thing that no matter where they are they can watch shows they do not want to miss. One guy is a rabid sports fan and he watches all his baseball that way. Even at work or on the road. The key is to make sure your data connection at home can handle the traffic.
 
jesse said:
It amazes me how much America will spend to watch crap on TV.
...
You walk away learning nothing--can't hardly remember what you even watched--and wasted a bunch of time--and have nothing to show for it. I just don't get it.
Click to expand...
You just haven't seen "Burn Notice" yet. :D







(The danger there is Jesse would learn the finer qualities of 40+ year old women.)
 

Attachments

  • gab_char_13.jpg
    gab_char_13.jpg
    23.4 KB · Views: 4
Last edited:
jesse said:
It amazes me how much America will spend to watch crap on TV.

$500 DVRs
$1500 / yr cable bills
$300 more to do something their DVR should have done so they can watch their tv while driving or something on their iphone
$1000s into tv and audio
tons of money into dvds

You walk away learning nothing--can't hardly remember what you even watched--and wasted a bunch of time--and have nothing to show for it. I just don't get it.
Click to expand...


Preach it brother! We are the last no cell phone, no cable TV family this side of PA Amish communities. We have two unique stations (ABC and PBS) so the TV is more or less a conduit for Netflix movies. People at work think I am pretty much a hippie....or mentally deranged....because we don't have cable TV and two cell phones. I am just not a TV guy. I watched Firefly from 2003 this week and a couple of episodes of Dollhouse on Hulu, and that's about all the TV I can stand. Also, just for the added emphasis, our TV has what is called a "Tube". It's a large glass enclosure that catches the picture for you....

Plus, I remember when cable TV was commercial free more or less. Shouldn't it be free like airwave televison because of all the ads? I work with a guy that is paying like $150 a month to watch TV....yikes.

Anyhow, the slingbox allows you to watch "your" cable tv through a browser? I could see the use in that if I didn't get my TV off the net already. Interesting. Could you use it to stream other things to the net, like CCTV for video confrencing?

--Matt
 
Last edited:
jesse said:
It amazes me how much America will spend to watch crap on TV.
Click to expand...

I totally agree. I could live without a TV in the house, and in fact I did for nearly a year in 2002. I'd rather spend it on hours in the air.
 
jesse said:
It amazes me how much America will spend to watch crap on TV.

$500 DVRs
$1500 / yr cable bills
$300 more to do something their DVR should have done so they can watch their tv while driving or something on their iphone
$1000s into tv and audio
tons of money into dvds

You walk away learning nothing--can't hardly remember what you even watched--and wasted a bunch of time--and have nothing to show for it. I just don't get it.
Click to expand...

Amen!

There is stuff on TV that's good - I like The Daily Show, Family Guy, and there's a ton of good stuff on the Discovery networks that you CAN learn from. However, none of that is enough to get me to pay for cable TV. I generally watch movies on my laptop if I get them at all, and most of the TV I want to watch is available online anyway, and I can watch it at a more convenient time like 4 AM. :yes:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top