Slingbox

[Sarisin]

Anyone have one of these, and no it has nothing to do with THAT part of the female anatomy?

 

http://www.slingmedia.com/

 

I am in the USA at the moment and ran into two friends, who, coincidentally, both have and love their Slingboxes.

 

One is a business lady who travels extensively nationally and internationally. She is able to access her cable TV while on the road on a PC, laptop or even a cell phone.

 

The other is a guy who is still working for the organization I retired from and has the misfortune of being posted in Damascus. His Slingbox is connected to DirectTV satellite with a sports package that allows him to watch many, many US sports programs in Syria. He can also see many favorites like Lost, CSI, 24, 60 Minutes, local news, etc.

 

I was thinking of getting one and hooking it up to my mother's Direct TV, but she lacks the computer requirements necessary.

 

I thought this might be great for ex-pat retirees in the LOS like myself fed up with UBC...

[..]

I looked into this. There are two issues. The biggest is that you muct watch what the person (if ther is one) at the home base is watching. It does not pull an independent feed off the cable box, just what is going out the output, so to speak. Easily overcome buy getting a seperate cable box for just the Slingbox. But that adds cost.

 

Number two is the quality of the internet connection and therefore the quality of your picture here in LoS. This is an unknown quantity.

 

Cheers,

SD

[Sarisin]

Thanks for your comments, suadum.

 

Two points:

 

I would get something like this for sports as I am tired of UBC's focus away from USA sports (not one NHL game, for example and very few collegiate events). But, it would be interesting watching the local news and some TV programs which take eons, if ever, to show up on UBC.

 

I believe there is some way you can connect to your TiVo and that would allow you to record any channels and watch later with the Slingbox. Maybe even a PC with a TV card would work if you recorded programs on it.

 

Yes, the quality of the internet connection in Thailand would be an issue, but I think the broadband in BKK isn't bad.

 

You must have the Slingbox software on your PC to use. One review I read had a guy with it on his flash drive using it on PCs in hotels, internet cafes, etc.

 

Still doing research on this thing...

[dean]

I am considering buying a sling box and bringing it over with me in a couple of months. As this thread was started 9 years ago, is sling box obsolete by now? Is internet service in LOS good enough to support a sling box? Any personal observations about sling box would be appreciated.

[My Penis is hungry]

Sling Boxes still good- I initially was negative on them due to the bandwidth requirements, I've now deployed them in Africa with no issues,

 

There is the requirement that the pay tv account your watching is the same as what you get, however you can also get a cable tv account direct with Sling Box, they are partially owned by one of the pay tv groups, forget who, in the USA.

 

There are other solutions as well, so do some more research.

[Pom Michael]

SlingTV is a new service - however as I just tried to get to the website - looks like it is blocked to serve us in Thailand.

[radioman]

Three letters V P N

[Mekong]

OK,

 

I know Dean is from US but for us Brits having a UK based VPN is priceless, I have BBC player, itv player, channel 4 etc and can stream most of UK terrestrial TV anywhere in the world

[Coss]

OK lads, recommendations for the best free or cheap VPN?

[radioman]

A few to try.

 

Hotspot shield. The free version connects only with a US based port so streaming other country specific content is not possible. I think the paid version adds more. There is a MAC app. Works good for what it is in getting around blocked web sites.

 

Hola Unblocker. Works with your web browser as a plug in and allows you to see some country specific content in a browser tab or window.

 

VyprVPN. Paid only service but offers multiple encryption technologies. Runs as an app, MAC/Win/Linux, Servers in sooo many countries including Thailand (???). I use this and have been very happy with their service and support. Anybody wanting to try VyprVPN I think I can get a free recommend which would give you a month to try it.

 

Now with the age of smart tv's and other devices I've moved to running the VPN connection inside the router, then all connected devices use the encrypted connection. To do this you need a compatible router. I use a cheap Cisco E900. Re-flash the router firmware with DD-WRT and work through the configuration for VPN. The configurability of DD-WRT turns any compatible router into a very powerful network platform from which to manage your home system. Highly recommended but a steep(ish) learning curve. Took me a few days to get it all working right.