After a long wait, I finally got my slingbox hooked up in the states. Paid for digital cable and DVR for my friends house (he already had highspeed internet). Fantastic. Set my DVR from taipei to record loads of programs, including Seahawk preseason game, and left for vacation. First stop two days in Kaohsiung County – no internet. Now in Kenting on the local wireless and am streaming TV to my laptop – no buffering, great quality. Son was running around like a chicken with its head cut off – no problem. Just choose “On Demand” sesame street programming.
Football game streamed fine. Can sometimes get fuzzy when action gets fast but only for a second and that’s on this wireless connection down south. No problems from home on my 8M ADSL from hinet.
Anyone thinking of getting one of these, do. It’s a bargain. Down to $160 online in some places in the US. More expensive in the UK. I paid $180.
A friend recommended it recently for watching the NHL via his parents’ TV in Edmonton. Could I tap into my brother’s Sky TV (NZ) rugby coverage?
Yes.
But don’t you have to watch TV on your laptop? Who wants to do that? Have you ever outputting the signal to a big Plasma, LCD or Projector? Someone test this and let me know your honest answer, better yet, let me test it here.
I have not tested this with mine but can tell you the answer. The quality will be lacking. A couple of folks here have tried it with a projector and from what I have been told it takes some getting used to. I am not particularly bothered about not being able to hook it up to a monster tv or projector. It would be nice to be able to do that and have the same quality as one would have at home but that is not what Slingbox offers nor is it priced in that range to offer it today.
I got my Slingbox about a year ago. It was US$250 well spent. I was able to watch hockey regularly during the season and catch the games that I wanted to watch during the playoffs. I enjoyed watching hockey - not particularly bothered at this stage whether it is on my LCD monitor or a plasma tv. I have also enjoyed watching any number of other things including Sportsdesk when I get home in the evenings and the news. The joy is in just being able to watch the stuff rather than suffer through local and regional programming and channel roulette. There is not a single cable or satellite or pirated satellite pack in Taiwan that offers me what I am looking for so for the price of a year’s worth of local cable I bought a Slingbox. Just my two cents on why I would want to watch it.
Who wants to watch TV on their computer for any length of time. My computer is not for channel surfing. Anyway, monitor resolutions are so high these days that the little window for the Slingbox must be so small. I think this is a sorry solution and usuable for desparate situations or desparate individuals. Really how relaxing it is to watch such a small window?
I think I will stick with Satellite TV until there is a solution similar to Slingbox with better resolution. I know there is already by some company in NYC, but the price is over US$5,000. Will deliver the signal across the globe over the internet at a resolution good enough for the biggest of projectors or Plasma TVs.
Hmmm . . . little window? There is a full screen function along with any number of other settings just like most media players - watching it full screen on a 15 or 19 inch LCD can be pretty relaxing (as long as the Leafs are winning 
). The quality and resolution improve with each update of the firmware and software.
Exactly. I am living here and the quality/content of cable and satellite available bites and last I checked neither offered NHL games.
I enjoy the fact that I am not tied to my house to watch something as I also have the software installed on a USB thumb drive and on my notebook. I have connected to my Slingbox from Taiwan, Canada, and the UK. It serves its purpose.
Sattelite may be good for some of you, but to follow the NFL and my local team there is no alternative. In the states we’re using 360 or so upload and I watch full screen on my computer no problem. If you get really good upload at the slingbox and good download here you can stream at upwards of 1 to 1.5 MBps. Then you can start talking about plasma TVs I guess.
For me, using my DVR to record my 300-400 digital channels from home, all my american sports plus premiership and champions league plus movies on demand, and then watch them at my convenience, make it 6000 NT very well spent.
I hooked it up to my TVs with an Svideo cable.
You need to mess with the screen settings to get it to work on a tv but its not too bad. It actually improves the pic quality.
Ski
Yes.[/quote]
I am watching Canadian TV now. Seems like its all home reno or cooking shows 
I’ll hook it up to the big projector later. Jet lag now, too tired.
It works great, needs most of the bandwidth (can’t skype voice chat and watch), and is big enough on my 19’ monitor. It looks better at 1/2 screen than full screen though.
More details as events warrant.
Ok, cards on the table: what is the resolution and frame rate (pictures per second) the sling-box delivers?
I’m geting over 300Kbps and up to 400. Whatever that means. How wold I check the resolution?
It looks great on our projector TV (Optima Movie time) and runs well in fullscreen mode there. runs through the lan to an old computer then out to the TV. Looks better there than on my great LED monitor on my good comp.
Fuck the mortgage, I’ve gotta get me one of these things. 
Are they available retail in Taiwan?
[quote=“Infidel”]Fuck the mortgage, I’ve gotta get me one of these things.
Are they available retail in Taiwan?[/quote]
Make sure you can get the correct type. PAL, NTSC and the correct voltage. Otherwise it won’t work.
Yes they sell in Taiwan…According to the website.
Ski
yes, but you have to set them up on the cable that you want. So if you want Canadian cable it has to be in Canada.
They wern’t that much. $300Can or so.
[quote=“ski”]
Make sure you can get the correct type. PAL, NTSC and the correct voltage. Otherwise it won’t work.
Yes they sell in Taiwan…According to the website.
Ski[/quote]
Cheers, Ski. I’ve forgotten all the techie details you mentioned when we last talked. Wonder why.
I’m off the turps today coz the third week of morning class starts tomorrow and there’s a ton of prep to do, but any chance you & K can make it over for a few cold ones next weekend?
The resolution should be mentioned somewhere (in the manual?) or the playback software shows it, else it’s difficult to check.
Found it! 320x240 at default setting. Video bitrate is 300Kbps that needs 348 Kpbs bandwidth.
But 
don’t expect it to work as well running 2 computers BTing and DLing and stuff at the same time. It took 5 min to fully buffer and there was a little bit of lag until it was at 50% buffered. Its running at 130-150 Kpbs now but is still very watchable and got better after it was all buffered.
Thanks. Not really suitable for big screens / projectors then I think though I understand the appeal of the slingbox. Actually contemplating to get one myself, just need to talk my parents into an ADSL connection the next time I get home … 