The Slingbox is really cool
I just got a Slingbox. It's totally sweet. Here's what they did really well:
1. It just works. Like TiVo, there are a lot of wires, but once you connect them, it pretty much just works. You run the install disks on your computer, they connect to the Slingbox, you click next, next finish, and it working. You can watch TV on your computer. Some caveats - the install CD's software only works on XP and below, so if you have Mac OS or Vista, you have to go to the website and download some software, but that was pretty easy and just took a few minutes.
2. It just works. It was pretty cool that it worked on my home network right out of the box, but it was even cooler that it worked on an external network right out of the box. After I was done installing, I brought my laptop down to a local cafe to grab some lunch, and give the Sling Player a spin. All I did was open the player software and it almost instantaneously started working. Amazing.
3. It just works. Because of where I live, I have pretty slow DSL at home, and I was on a wifi connection at the cafe. I expected the picture to be pretty crappy. Wrong. Somehow they're able to auto-adjust everything so that the picture and the sound all work well, even with that remote connection. Cool.
4. It works on my Treo! I downloaded the Treo app and installed it pretty easily, and I entered a very long string of numbers to identify my slingbox, and it also connected and just worked. The picture even looks pretty good. I don't really take trains or wait for buses, but I do have the unlimited data plan from Verizon, so maybe when I'm mad at them I'll leave this on all night so that I can use a lot of data.
Overall, I'm really impressed with this. I know it works with TiVo too, so I think I'm going to hook up my TiVo to this whole setup. I was wondering what I was going to do about watching the Olympics - now I have my solution!
1. It just works. Like TiVo, there are a lot of wires, but once you connect them, it pretty much just works. You run the install disks on your computer, they connect to the Slingbox, you click next, next finish, and it working. You can watch TV on your computer. Some caveats - the install CD's software only works on XP and below, so if you have Mac OS or Vista, you have to go to the website and download some software, but that was pretty easy and just took a few minutes.
2. It just works. It was pretty cool that it worked on my home network right out of the box, but it was even cooler that it worked on an external network right out of the box. After I was done installing, I brought my laptop down to a local cafe to grab some lunch, and give the Sling Player a spin. All I did was open the player software and it almost instantaneously started working. Amazing.
3. It just works. Because of where I live, I have pretty slow DSL at home, and I was on a wifi connection at the cafe. I expected the picture to be pretty crappy. Wrong. Somehow they're able to auto-adjust everything so that the picture and the sound all work well, even with that remote connection. Cool.
4. It works on my Treo! I downloaded the Treo app and installed it pretty easily, and I entered a very long string of numbers to identify my slingbox, and it also connected and just worked. The picture even looks pretty good. I don't really take trains or wait for buses, but I do have the unlimited data plan from Verizon, so maybe when I'm mad at them I'll leave this on all night so that I can use a lot of data.
Overall, I'm really impressed with this. I know it works with TiVo too, so I think I'm going to hook up my TiVo to this whole setup. I was wondering what I was going to do about watching the Olympics - now I have my solution!
Labels: gadgets
posted by Chris at 2:42 PM
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