Slingbox - My TV, anywhere.
One of my birthday gifts that I gave myself was a Slingbox. This little box allows for a single user to access what is currently playing on a TV receiver at home (in my case, my satellite receiver) and watch it to any (or almost any) web-connected devices such as a laptop or cellphone. Of course, what's great about this is that you can be anywhere in the world and have access to your programming.
Now, don't get me wrong. I don't need to have my TV all the time, but one thing from being an avid sports fan is that it is nice that you can have a peek at the game going on anytime you want. It also adds the possibility that I can share a couch with my girlfriend and she can watch her show while I watch mine on the laptop. You can watch on the train or while cooking, it's a great product for a one-time purchase fee. Cell providers are trying to push TV to their devices using paid services. My current provider charges 8$/month for this service. My Slingbox cost about 180$ which means that within 2 years I will have covered my cost but the neat thing is I will have the programming that I want, not the restricted lineup my provider offers. Also, you can hookup anything you want to the Slingbox, whether it's a DVD player, PVR and even VHS player if you're into that sort of thing!!
I used to run the software on my Windows Mobile phone and it worked great. Now I'm running it on my Android device and the fact that the phone has a 1Ghz processor makes a big difference. Of course the quality is not hi-definition (mainly because I bought the Solo which was enough for me) but you can follow the action without problem.
The only thing that is lacking is that you'll need an Ethernet connection to plug into. When I built my house, I did not wire through RJ-45 cables in the walls. I put my faith in wireless and I sort of got caught. So I setup a repeater using an old Linksys WRT54G wireless router. It picks up the internet signal from my ISP's router and relays it to any wired (or wireless) device connected to it. It took some tinkering around, but now it works flawlessly. I might lose a bit of quality because the repeater's traffic is cut in half for upload/download, but at least it works. There are interesting products that use your power outlets to relay network traffic. Reviews are positive but I did not feel like spending the money when I had a WRT54G lying around doing nothing. I'm always up for a challenge and this one was a pretty good one!
Now, don't get me wrong. I don't need to have my TV all the time, but one thing from being an avid sports fan is that it is nice that you can have a peek at the game going on anytime you want. It also adds the possibility that I can share a couch with my girlfriend and she can watch her show while I watch mine on the laptop. You can watch on the train or while cooking, it's a great product for a one-time purchase fee. Cell providers are trying to push TV to their devices using paid services. My current provider charges 8$/month for this service. My Slingbox cost about 180$ which means that within 2 years I will have covered my cost but the neat thing is I will have the programming that I want, not the restricted lineup my provider offers. Also, you can hookup anything you want to the Slingbox, whether it's a DVD player, PVR and even VHS player if you're into that sort of thing!!
I used to run the software on my Windows Mobile phone and it worked great. Now I'm running it on my Android device and the fact that the phone has a 1Ghz processor makes a big difference. Of course the quality is not hi-definition (mainly because I bought the Solo which was enough for me) but you can follow the action without problem.
The only thing that is lacking is that you'll need an Ethernet connection to plug into. When I built my house, I did not wire through RJ-45 cables in the walls. I put my faith in wireless and I sort of got caught. So I setup a repeater using an old Linksys WRT54G wireless router. It picks up the internet signal from my ISP's router and relays it to any wired (or wireless) device connected to it. It took some tinkering around, but now it works flawlessly. I might lose a bit of quality because the repeater's traffic is cut in half for upload/download, but at least it works. There are interesting products that use your power outlets to relay network traffic. Reviews are positive but I did not feel like spending the money when I had a WRT54G lying around doing nothing. I'm always up for a challenge and this one was a pretty good one!
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