Release date: July 1, 2005

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Reviewed by John P. Falcone

Edited by David Katzmaier

Reviewed June 30, 2005

Editors` rating:

Very good

7.2

out of 10

How we rate

Back in the 1970s, the first VCRs introduced a radical notion to the home marketplace: the ability to record your favorite TV shows--even when you weren`t at home--and view them at a more convenient time. It took another quarter-century before ReplayTV and TiVo refined the VCR concept, subbing a hard drive for videotapes. It`s now easier than ever before to watch your favorite TV shows when you want--but watching them where you want is a bit more challenging.

Sling Media aims to change that. The start-up`s Slingbox Personal Broadcaster ($249 list) is a small, silver box that digitizes the programming from your cable or satellite box and streams it--in real time--to a remote PC. The receiving computer needs to be a Windows XP PC with access to a broadband Internet connection and be running Sling`s SlingPlayer viewing software. But as long as you can find a Wi-Fi hot spot, you can watch your home TV channels live from anywhere in the world, be it Beijing or your bedroom.

The Slingbox itself is a modest-size, tapered silver brick, 1.75 inches high by 10.75 wide by 3.75 deep. It actually looks a bit goofy, due mainly to the pointillist marketing inscriptions on the top (My Cable, My DVD, My Music Anywhere, and so forth). Fortunately, once you connect the Slingbox to your home A/V system, you never have to see it again; the always-on device can be tucked away in the depths of your TV stand where it will toil away indefinitely. The physical setup is quick and logical--simply hook the video source (cable box, satellite box, DVR, and the like) to the Slingbox`s composite, S-Video, or RF cable inputs; place the IR blaster; and connect the device to your home network`s router with an Ethernet cable, and you`re good to go. The Slingbox also has pass-through S-Video and composite-A/V outputs--and provides the necessary cable interconnects--so it integrates seamlessly into your system without the need for any major rewiring.

Once you have the Slingbox base station wired up and ready to go, you`ll need to install the viewing software on a PC (the initial setup must be done within your home`s local network). The software follows a bulletproof, wizard-style install path; if you have a plug-and-play (UPnP) router, the whole process should take just a few minutes. Once it`s up and running, the SlingPlayer software gives you a video window--not unlike the QuickTime or Windows Media Players--with channel-changing controls. If you`ve connected the Slingbox to a video recorder (TiVo, ReplayTV, a cable or satellite box with a built-in DVR, or even a DVD recorder), you`ll also get video transport controls: pause, rewind, fast-forward, and so on.

Right off the bat, the Slingbox`s basic functions worked as advertised. We were watching our living room TV on the bedroom PC, able to flip channels at will. The SlingPlayer software automatically optimizes viewing quality, but keep in mind that this is Web video, and, when broadcasting to the outside world, it`s also limited by the upstream bandwidth of your home`s broadband connection, which is often significantly less than your downstream speed. While the blocky video quality was nothing to write home about--especially when expanded from the small 320x240 window to full-screen--it maintained an impressively smooth frame rate. The video remained smoothest when we were passively watching. When we tried channel-surfing, the video hiccuped and stuttered before reoptimizing, although the actual lag between channel flips was minimal. More surprising, though, was that the quality was still watchable when we installed the software on our PC at work. It was only 5 miles away, but there`s no reason it couldn`t have been 500.

As slickly as the Slingbox performed, however, we did encounter some issues. In addition to the far-from-DVD video quality, the Slingbox fell short on DVR functionality. While we were able to control the standard video-recorder functions--rewind, pause, play, and so forth--the dearth of some specialized key commands for our Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300 (the A, B, C, and List buttons) made it impossible to access our library of recordings as well as confirm any DVR-specific actions. There`s no reason Sling couldn`t enable such functionality in a future upgrade of the client software and/or device firmware--which is downloadable for free from the company`s Web site--but there`s no guarantee that every specific keystroke on your set-top box remote`s will be duplicated.

No, the Slingbox isn`t designed for mass IPTV broadcasting, either; it feeds video to only one software client at a time. But since the player software is freely available, there`s no reason you couldn`t, say, let your buddy in California watch the prime-time lineup three hours earlier from your East Coast home. Or, more tantalizingly, share a ball game or even a pay-per-view fight that`s otherwise blacked out in another region. Just keep in mind that the viewers on the Slingbox and the home set-top box are locked into the same program; if you pause or change the channel at home, the remote viewer will get those changes live. And the reverse is true; if the remote viewer gets bored with the game and flips to HBO, you`ll be watching Deadwood right along with your virtual guest. If you have analog cable or an antenna hookup, however, you can just split the line and use the Slingbox`s built-in NTSC tuner to watch those sources while your buddy enjoys the main feed.

How does the Slingbox compare to the competition? While the ``placeshifting`` market is fairly tiny, there is a growing number of options for copying/syncing video media from your PC to a handheld--everything from TiVo To Go to dedicated portable media players, smart phones, Palm-style PDAs, and the Sony PSP. But that`s just transferring previously recorded media to an iPod-like playback device. If you want live, real-time video, your options are limited: besides the Slingbox, there`s Sony`s Location-free TV and the Orb software package. The Sony costs at least $1,000, while Orb is free but requires a host PC with a TV tuner card to stream television programs.

Slingbox offers the advantages of an affordable price ($249), a seamless install, a high degree of compatibility, and no need for a source PC. We`d love to see improved video quality at larger screen sizes and software clients available for non-PC devices--Sling Media is pledging to add the ability to view the Slingbox from a handheld or a cell phone soon. In the meantime, the Slingbox remains a credible solution for viewing real-time video from your home no matter where you are.

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