I know the bare basics of what Slingbox provides , it allows you to view what you could view on your tv at home , on your laptop ( among other devices but that is the main desire for me ) wherever you are over the internet. Obviously this sounds like a terrific innovation , what are the negatives? I would suspect the picture would have some blips and not be seamless , but can it be bad enough to where you don't really enjoy the viewing? Does it limit what may be viewed at home, as in if I wanted to watch a game would that interfere if someone at the source didn't want to? Certainly sounds like both a great option for getting programming in distant places and maybe less expensive as well. Any insight would be appreciated. Cheers.
The Slingbox allows you to stream content online, but here are the drawbacks: 1) you will be limited by your internet connection speeds. Upload is always slower than download speeds, so your viewable picture will not be anywhere near as nice as watching regular tv. Think watching a youtube video on your phone - it's like that 2) you can only stream what you set up to stream, and only on that channel. In other words, if you want to stream a football game, you have to have your tv set up to be on the correct channel and turned on for the slingbox to stream it. If you have a receiver and cable box, you can use the slingbox without actually having your tv on. You can't remotely change channels and alter what is being streamed (at least you couldn't with the solo I had, but it's been a year since I've messed with it). 3) firewall/home network setup can be a pain in the arse. If you have a home network with a firewall, you might have to set up port fowarding on your router to enable the slingbox to work properly. It is not always the case, but some routers don't play well with the slingbox. 4) picture quality. For me this was so poor I really don't even use it; as I said before the best way to liken it is to streaming youtube video on your phone. It works if you have absolutely no other way to watch somehing, but it depends on what you're trying to watch. Sporting events are more difficult with how fast paced they are and how poor the picture usually is. Watching a quick tv show is ok, and I was able to stream standard television with no issues. Hope that helps. It's a great idea that IMO right now is limited by upload speeds.
