Slingbox?

[Lemur]

Do any of you own of of these things, of know somebody who does? Any reviews, thoughts, opinions?

[Husar]

Can only offer some thoughts:

1. For watching on a Mobile Phone, you'll need a pretty expensive data option and UMTS or so I guess, can't seem y mobile phone streaming TV over the internet.

2. If you want to use it to watch in HD on your Laptop when you're away you'll need a WLAN for your laptop(or connect using your handy in combination with thwe laptop but that results in lower bandwidth, hardly sufficient for HD) and you will need a hell of a fast upload at home so the slingbox can upload at sufficient speed.

That are the problems I see, if you're rich enough to afford some 16MBit upload or so(maybe 3MBit for normal TV?) and a similarly fast download for your Laptop, you can probably enjoy mobile HDTV on your laptop, whenever a cellphone is included I can only hope you have a sufficient data option or else you'll pay a whole lot of money for every minute you watch, at least with my provider, alternatively a WLAN phone might work.

[Ramses II CP]

I know a guy who travels a lot and bought one. He says it's pretty much what you'd expect, reliable but slow and with a compromise on quality. He uses it mostly to keep up with the shows he and his wife usually watch together or something. I've thought about getting one, but we don't travel all that much and when we do I'd rather be using the (almost) bulletproof portable DVD player with it's iPod dock and SD card slot.

You might be better off checking Daily Motion or Alluc for a popular show.

[Xiahou]

I know a coworker who has one. He showed me a football game that was being forwarded to his Treo phone. Looked pretty good for the small screen.

Depending what you're planning to do with it though, a good DVR might be the better option.

[Lemur]

Believe it or not, I'm not asking for myself. I'm perfectly content with my HD Tivo. Someone PM'd me about Slingboxen, kinda shy about starting his own thread, so I kinda started it for him without asking. Presumptuous!

[Xiahou]

I'm perfectly content with my HD Tivo.

I use BeyondTV.

[Lemur]

I use BeyondTV.

I considered going the PC route, but was held back by two factors:

1. Queen Lemur is not good with PCs, and would probably blame me for anything that went wrong, and
2. I've read extensive reports about CableCards not working properly with DVR PCs.

I take it your mileage has varied?

[Xiahou]

I considered going the PC route, but was held back by two factors:

1. Queen Lemur is not good with PCs, and would probably blame me for anything that went wrong, and
2. I've read extensive reports about CableCards not working properly with DVR PCs.

I take it your mileage has varied?

1)My wife (non-techie) uses it and likes it better than our previous DVR appliance from the cable company. We leave it running 24/7 and it we've never had a serious problem with it yet.
2)I don't use cable cards. I have 3 tuners in my HTPC. Two are analog and pick up all the non-digital channels and the third is hooked to my cable box, which is in turn controlled by the PC via an IR blaster that came with the tuner card.

Basically, I have 1 tuner that can record all my channels and 2 others that can record analog channels. As the user, I need not worry about what does which because once it's setup, the software manages tuner availability/conflict resolution, ect. I dont have any HD content- as I don't have an HDTV. But apparently, BeyondTV can currently "Record HDTV from free, over-the-air or Clear QAM digital TV signals"

I never would have built my HTPC if it wasn't for the fact that my current cable company didn't offer DVRs when I first moved to their service area. We had one before we moved and decided they are too convenient not to have, so I made my own. Now they do offer a DVR, but we're not interested- BTV offers features and customization that a DVR appliance will never have.