Slingbox: Cool Tech but Challenging to Set Up (posted by Brad Bowers)

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.

Comments

[padrabinda Tripathy]

Dear sir,
I am unable to connect the classic sling box in my home net work.it's damn urgent
because it's official please solve it quickly
thanks
padarabinda Tripathy

[padrabinda Tripathy]

Dear sir,
I am unable to connect the classic sling box in my home net work.it's damn urgent
because it's official please solve it quickly
thanks
padarabinda Tripathy

[padrabinda Tripathy]

Dear sir,
I am unable to connect the classic sling box in my home net work.it's damn urgent
because it's official please solve it quickly
thanks
padarabinda Tripathy

[afferent input]

A handy description. Thanks for sharing (even if it's two years old!)