My cousin Steve
is moving to Bangkok at the end of the month in order to
take a new job assignment. While he told
me about this over dinner recently, I had the idea that he should look into the
Slingbox as a possible way to be able to view American television while in Bangkok.
Given that
he is keeping his apartment in S.F., as well as his cable and internet
connection (as he’s generously allowing a few lucky friends and family members to
use the apartment from time to time), it appeared to me that he had all of the
necessary ingredients for a good “eXtreme Slingbox” implementation.
Steve loved the idea and quickly ordered the Slingbox as well as two of their
powerline adaptors (as I knew this would be the easiest way to get his Internet
connection from his router on one side of the apartment to the TV setup on the
other side).
After
opening the boxes, surveying its contents, and looking at the brief-yet-straightforward
instructions, it was very clear that the people at Slingbox have put a lot of
thought and effort into making the installation as easy as possible. However,
after spending 3+ hours getting this set up (!), I can say pretty definitively
that the “average” user is going to find setting up their Slingbox a decent challenge.
The basics
of putting the cables into the Slingbox was pretty straightforward, but of
course I have hooked up a lot of things to my TV and stereo before (a DVD
player, a Philips Streamium device, etc.) and so I had a good idea of what to
do. But, I’m quite certain that my best
friend or Mom, or many other potential Slingbox users, would have been challenged
by this simple step (no offense Mom!)
Once I
installed the Slingbox software on Steve’s computer, it walked me through the
setup process, which included downloading the latest software and firmware
update (a firmware update is always a red light to me in terms of making
something easy for the average user). However,
I kept losing connection with the Slingbox and so I had to cancel and relaunch the
installation software several times (and one time I had to uninstall and
reinstall it entirely on his computer in order to complete the installation.)
A key part
of the setup process is to set your router to allow your computer to access the
Slingbox while remotely connected to the internet through another network (vs.
your home network). The software offered
a turnkey way to set this up, unfortunately Steve’s router was not configured
to allow 
this, and in order to get this working I had to access the router to
change the settings, which required having the router password. However, the person who had set up Steve’s
network more than two years ago had changed the password, which Steve no longer
had (which was not surprising as he’s never accessed the router since). Without the password, I had to reset the
router, which reset the factory default settings resulting in an inability to
access the Internet. To remedy this
situation, I had to call Linksys to figure out how to get the router to work
with SBC/Yahoo. Once that was done, the Slingbox was able to successfully auto-configure
the router access it needed.
We were
just about done when we realized that there was no sound on Steve’s computer
when the Slingbox was operating. It took
a call to Slingbox support to learn that certain cables had to be removed from
Steve’s existing set up, and replaced with another Slingbox cable. To his credit, the support person was very
quick to identify the problem and provide the proper solution.
Once we
were done, we were able to operate the product, which is very slick. Essentially, you hook your Slingbox up to the
Internet and your cable box, and then via your computer you can actually access
and control all of the functions of
your TV, cable, and DVR/Tivo from anywhere in the world where you are connected
to the Internet. The Slingbox comes with
some infrared transmitters that literally act as your pseudo-remote control and
when you use a function of your remote control on your computer, it sends the
proper commands to the Slingbox and then the Slingbox sends the commands to
your TV/Cable via the transmitters (a very cool concept, yet setting up the
transmitters is probably going to provide yet another challenge to the average
user).
The audio
and video streamed quite well on the computer, but the video image is pretty
small and can’t be increased past a certain point (which I imagine will change
as Slingbox figures out how to further compress the video files).
It will be
a few weeks before we know if this setup actually provides Steve what we hope
it will – access to regular U.S. television programming, as well as
the premium channels on his cable, and the ability to record and view
shows/sporting events/etc. via the DVR (as most will air while he is asleep in
Bangkok).
Overall, I’d
say that the Slingbox is a cool technology that dedicated TV viewers who are on
the move (such as mobile professionals) will find quite appealing. However, Slingbox is going to have to
simplify the set up even more (if that’s even possible) or be prepared to
handle a lot of support calls.
The Nicholas Negroponte program "One Laptop per Child" which was designed to "empower the children
of developing countries to learn by providing one connected laptop to
every school-age child", has a special program going on through the end of the year.
it to a child in need.
