A Slingbox is a device that allows you to watch your tv anywhere in the world over an Internet connection. How does it work? First let's look at the requirements. Imagine you want to watch Portuguese TV anywhere in the world. You will need to have a TV subscription back in Portugal (unless you only want the free four channels broadcasted over the air), a broadband Internet connection back home, a Slingbox and of course a place to house all this. Everything is pretty obvious except the Slingbox. This is how the basic model looks like:
The prices vary between €60 for the most basic model and €188 for the Pro version with HD - Amazon prices. I have the basic model and it works beautifully. But before going into that, let's check the set-up. Assuming you have all the four requirements, the coaxial or composite cable from the the wall or TV Set Top Box connects to the Slingbox and so does the router, via RJ45 cable. You have to do a few adjustments on the router but the Slingbox interface is brilliantly designed to help you with that. By the way, an Internet connection with at least 640Kbps of upload is highly recommended. Anything less than that and you're compromising quality. A software needs to be installed on the PC's where you are going to watch the Slingbox and voilá. You start a very intuitive interface that will guide you through the process, the same way you tune up a new TV or TV Card. If you went for the composite connection, you'll be happy to know that the Slingbox comes with an Infra-red emitter that will allow changing channels on the Set Top Box. Of course that if you have other viewers back home and you are in Australia or Japan changing channels, that will affect the viewers back home. The advantage of using the coaxial cable is that you will use the Slingbox's internal tuner and do not interfere with others.
Just to give you an idea of how reliable and stable the hardware is, I've been using daily for the past 4 months an unattended Slingbox Classic that is 2000 Kms away and it has never failed or crashed. And the best thing is there are no monthly fees from Slinbox, only from maintaining the Internet and the TV Subscription. You can always host that at your parent's or at a friend's house - it only eats up upload so they will hardly notice any difference. To use the Slingbox over the computer - which can be connected to a full screen TV with very reasonable results - just start the software and it will connect automatically to your Slingbox, provided you have saved your user and password. This assures that only you can connect to your Slingbox, specially because it only allows one viewer at the time. You can even setup different profiles (administrator or viewers) for different people you want to give access to your Slingbox. If you are traveling and have access to a broadband connection, having your home TV will almost make you feel like you're home! More, you can buy slingbox software to watch your slingbox on an iPhone, Blackberry, Windows Mobile or Nokia S60 series. This is actually the only downside, having to pay a little extra to have it on your mobile but boy is it worth it!
A shot from my Slingbox on my flatscreen TV:
Signing in on iPhone and chosing channels:
SIC Notícias on iPhone:
Enjoy! If you have any questions or doubts just leave us a comment.
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