Sling Media Slingbox SOLO (SB260-100)
by Sling Media
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List Price: Our Price: Calculated in a shopping cart Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $129.99 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Sling Media Slingbox SOLO (SB260-100)
Customer Review: Incredible Little Box
Summary: 5 Stars
I have heard the Slingbox advertised for several years and have often wondered what the appeal was--with other technologies like tv tuner cards and portable media players, I never saw the point. Recently, however, I purchased a 3.5G smartphone and found there was Slingbox client software available for it. The idea of watching television anywhere from my phone [with an unlimited data plan] intrigued me enough to make the relatively minor investment in a Slingbox.
After trying it, I can only say it is incredible. Having a device in my pocket that can receive television is amazing, and the fact that it is not some choppy over-the-air signal but a beautifully clear signal with access to an entire cable tv feed, on demand services, program guides, and recorded programs is mind-blowing. Even from a laptop or other client, having access to all the channels and features you normally have in your living room, no matter where you are, makes the Slingbox much more powerful than a simple tuner card. For those so motivated, it is also possible to spy on what your kids are watching when you're not home (or annoy them by changing the channel).
I purchased the Slingbox SOLO because of the built-in high-definition component input. Because I was eager to set-up the box, I initially connected it with a simple composite connection--later, I dug-out an RGB component cable and connected it that way instead, but found with the lower resolution and compression artifacts introduced by the Slingbox I didn't notice a significant difference and ended-up switching back just to eliminate some cables and to take advantage of the cable-box's ability to convert everything to the same aspect ratio to avoid having to switch the client. The video quality looks perfect on the cell phone [although I don't think anything less than 3.5G service would work well] but from a PC or laptop, the picture quality is similar to a high quality standard-definition tuner card, even when viewing a high-definition source.
Setting-up the Slingbox was absolutely simple and almost completely automatic; it does require a pc on the same network. The box was detected and video was working as soon as set-up started. A huge variety of equipment is supported, with pc client software displaying a remote that looks almost identical to the actual equipment remote. I did not have to make any adjustments to the box's IR signal timing to the cable box and it has worked flawlessly without ever missing a command.
Customer Review: Great way to watch TV on the road
Summary: 4 Stars
I owned the first generation Slingbox and really liked that but decided to upgrade as I was having a lot of problems with the non-standard input cables that it used. Since I have a high-def Tivo, the Solo seemed the obvious choice.
The Slingbox player that you use on your computer or laptop to watch shows keeps getting better and I've been very impressed by the quality versus the old Slingbox I had. It's neat how the remote actually *looks* like my Tivo remote, and also the player can be customized with your most often-used commands so that you can still forward-back-replay-etc. without having to bring up the full remote view. Installation was a piece of cake and I had no problem at all hooking my other devices up to its output.
One thing to be aware of is that this is *not* a wireless device and you will need to hook it up directly to your network via ethernet cable. If this is not feasible, you can use an ethernet bridge (will need an available wall outlet at both ends) but be sure to add this to the price when determining cost. Also, while Slingbox does make a mobile player which works nicely on smartphones, Palms, PocketPCs, etc. they do charge extra for it. Considering the whole point of this device is to watch TV away from home, it seems that the mobile player ought to be free. Having said that, the player does work pretty well for the most part, if you have 3G or a fast Wifi connection, depending on your device and how well it handles video playback. They do have a trial period with the mobile player so at least you can try before you buy.
The biggest issue I've had so far is simply getting a good enough connection for it to stream the video without jumps or pauses. It works great at home, if for instance I want to watch a TV show from my computer room. But on the road I often find it's not that easy to always find a broadband connection that can handle enough throughput to really give you a good stream and often get pauses and sound loss while watching. It can be very frustrating. So I do have mixed feelings about this device. It's really, really cool, and will certainly impress friends and family. The device itself works great, and other than not supporting Wifi and including the mobile player, I don't have any complaints about it. I just wish I had more luck when I was using it to feel like it was worth the cost.
Customer Review: Terrible for watching American Football overseas...
Summary: 2 Stars
I saw the great reviews, so I got one. Great concept, but the Slingbox is just not good for my application--I use it ONLY to watch NFL and College Football from a remote location. For that purpose, it does a poor job. I have noticed really great reviews here, so for you, it may work very well--I just wanted to the give my input here, as slinging is not always so wonderful.
Maybe they will fix the firmware/software and make this thing what it should/could be. They need a REAL or ACTIVE buffer on the player. You know, one similar to what YouTube uses--so you could pause and come back and watch video later that looks good? That way you would have no choppy picture or blurry images and it would not matter what your connection speed was--anyway, they definately need something like this for fast-moving sports.
In my opinion, the Slingbox is a great idea, but the video quality on the Solo for remote viewing football is awful. For regular TV shows and movies, the video quality is fine and watchable, but for watching football overseas, it is very poor. Forget HD or putting the game up on a big TV. Ugly, ugly, ugly. I have my Solo hooked up in the US and watch it in the Philippines. Again, I only use the Slingbox to watch football (there are plenty of US shows here) and for football the blurriness and poor picture quality is just unacceptable.
1+mbps upload and 3+mbps download--but the Solo never streams over 400-550 kbps. According to their literature, that is more than enough? No way. Sometimes, the game is so blurry, the action looks like a watercolor painting in motion. On occassion, the Solo will not stream over 150 kbps!!!
It got worse after I upgraded to 2.0 Beta SlingPlayer and Slingbox's newer firmware. Help Chat guy was nice, but no help at all.
It is not my overseas connection--one second later I can shut off the Solo and stream NFL.com's Game Pass HD at over 2000 kbps and the picture is beautiful! SpeedTest says I get 3 mbps. Sling must be limiting their stream?? If so, that really stinks.
Again, for regular TV shows and movies, the video quality is watchable, but for remote watching football, it is really bad. Remember, this is just my experience here, this thing seems to be great for many users. Maybe they can tinker with firmware/software and make watching football a pleasure--I would LOVE this thing if they did that.
Customer Review: Pretty good, but a few gotcha's
Summary: 5 Stars
I use the slingbox solo to be able to watch TV on my various computers around the house. The picture and sound quality are excellent once you get it running, especially if you have it hooked to a high def cable or satellite box via the component cables. I have a dish network DVR 622 and it works perfectly, when it is running. All the remote control and software functions as advertised. I run it through my 100Mbit local ethernet home network, but the DVR is not near a hard wired Ethernet port, so I put the Slingbox through an ethernet switch that shares the DVR ethernet port and a PC on a home AC wiring ethernet box back to the main hub and router. This all works fine, and the Slingbox transmits at about 3Mb/sec across the network in automatic mode, so it doesn't use anywhere near all the network bandwidth. I would not recommend the high def version of slingbox, the results with this one are good enough, and you can still surf and do email etc while watching slingbox in the corner.
So what are the gotchas? Number one, the slingbox mysteriously stops transmitting periodically. This can be anywhere from a few seconds to a couple of minutes. Then it starts up again on its own. You can use Windows task manager (ctrl-alt-del) to monitor network traffic, and you can easily see that slingbox has stopped transmitting. Then it just as suddenly starts back up. This means you miss everything that happened while slingbox was frozen. This can be pretty irritating, as it was for me when this happened during the last minute of a football game.
Second gotcha, Slingbox tech support is terrible. When I reported this problem, they blamed it on everything but the slingbox - must be my PC, must be windows, must be my anti-virus, must be my router, my switch, blah blah blah. No, it is clearly a problem that the Slingbox has stopped transmitting. They have a bug in their firmware, but they don't even want to look into it. So if you are not a tech guru, you probably won't have a very good experience getting this going.
Luckily, they have a firmware update utility, so if they ever fix this, I will be able to upgrade my slingbox. But until then, I will have to use the DVR rewind feature to watch all the stuff that slingbox skips over when it is frozen. If you don't have a DVR, you will have to get used to it.
Customer Review: Appalling Customer Support
Summary: 2 Stars
The sling box is a great idea, poorly executed. The unit failing in 1 1/2 - 2 years is a very common scenario (see other reviews).
When you see a 5 star review lavishing praise on sling media and their products, PLEASE do yourself a favor and see how long they have been using the product.
You will find that the majority of the negative reviews come from reviewers who have used the product for over a year. Length of time using a product should weigh heavily on the credence you give any review.
There are some good things about slingbox:
Although they are not well supported, they are reasonably easy to set up.
When they work, the experience is like candycanes and cocoa on Christmas day. You pay a lot of money for your cable content and it's wonderful to watch it away from home.
They are reasonably priced, IF THEY WORKED.
There are some BAD things about slingbox:
They have an alarming failure rate after 1 1/2 - 2 years.
The support is APPALLING. You have to pay after a short period of time (90 days?) for any live phone support.
They have a website that is very hard to navigate. In addition, it is almost totally user supported. I am also very suspicious of the responses found on the website, as they are either grammatical disasters indicative of foreign language users who don't completely understand the posted problems. (although I appreciate their efforts) OR
They are prepackaged responses intended for mass consumption and containing links to other help pages, that are inserted into threads based on "keywords" in the original posts.
In addition I have seen argumentative responses from moderators when people have become frustrated and complained about lack of solutions or assistance.
I have also seen people post about calling paid customer support without actually getting their problems resolved.
I wonder if they were refunded the fee they paid for asssistance. Somehow I doubt it.
When you pay approx. $200 USD for a product it should work for more than 2 years.
Reasonable basic customer support should not require payment.
I cannot recommend slingbox or sling media products. They are unreliable and poorly supported.
Buyer Beware.