In 4 1. I currently have a solo at my parents house, use it all the time to watch baseball. time to upgrade to HD! Anyone want a solo for $50?
Do you still need an IR blaster to change channels?
I predict a legal showdown between slingbox and their upside down U looking icon thing there and Barns and Nobel and their stylized n on their ‘nook’ devices… trademark cage match.
Instead of buying the apps, I remote desktop using splashtop and watch slingbox without having to pay 30 dollars for an app.
Will I need to have my router and HD DVR in the same room to set this up?
That’s the easiest way. But my parents router is in the basement and the sling is on the 2nd floor. Luckily my parents house has cat5 running throughout.
This is the cheapest I have seen the Pro-HD model. If I didn’t already own one I would be all over this. I have owned the AV, the Solo, and now the Pro-HD. While streaming at home the Pro-HD of course looks by far the best. Since the picture quality outside of your home network depends on your internet connection you have to have a fast connection on both ends. My internet upload speed is great but it is rare that I am anywhere that has fast enough download speeds to take advantage of the Pro-HD. Still, the Pro-HD is the best slingbox available. At this price it is a no brainer.
I have been involved “managing” five slingboxes (son, daughter, mine, two
for friends). I have concluded that if it works, good for you but if you
have problems you are in for a never ending battle.
I originally got a slingbox when it was still an independent company and
they worked flawlessly. Then they were bought out by one of the satellite
TV companies and it has been downhill ever since.
If something changes, like I got a new router, I could not get the slingbox
to work. I discovered that it would not accept an IP address from the new
router. I had to force my new router to go back to the old IP Address to
make it work.
If you go to the forums, forget it. I placed a question in February and got
a reply from Sling in May. And it made no sense. They were telling me I
had a firewall problem when the problem had nothing to do with firewalls.
If you try to follow the help pages you get different information and things
you cannot do. It is like the help just gives you random answers; nothing
connected to what your problem is.
If you have a working slingbox, DO NOT upgrade the firmware. I am sure that
killed the one I am trying to get working now.
And, man, if you have a problem, they love to force you to the “paid help”.
Of course if it is like the forum help. Good luck!
One poster reported the person on the other end hung up when he asked for a
supervisor.
******************************** New Information ********************
I wrote the above last June. Just a week ago I was at my daughter’s and had
to rearrange her network. Sure as $hit the sling solo didn’t make it
through the change. It took me two hours of going through the “setup”
process. I would do identical steps but the setup software would give me
entirely different options sometimes. I finally got it almost working but I
couldn’t get the “remote” to appear. My daughter got on her iPad and the
remote came up for her. That sling now works but only through her iPad.
Any other computer, including one wired to the same router cannot tune it
because of no “remote”.
It is so frustrating to try to go through the setup steps and part way
through something takes you to a whole different set of steps. Even though
you did nothing different.
Pete
It works great with my Direct TV. I have HDMI going to my TV and the composite going into the Slingbox.
Although Petecal said above that the support may not be too helpful, I’ll give the links anyway.
Main support page:
http://support.slingbox.com/go/home
Support setup page:
http://support.slingbox.com/go/setup
Support video page:
Videos:
CNet:
[youtube=tcxqGcRfFUU][/youtube]
Tiger Direct (7 + minutes):
[youtube=8G1xP7Lb_G8][/youtube]
Unboxing:
[youtube=ESohaFL89N8][/youtube]
Sorry I can’t do more, have to go into work all day. Have a good weekend, y’all.
Wait. You mean unless I have my router near the TV/Cable box, I must buy yet more equipment to make this thing even work? Which also means 2 boxes (slingbox and the turbo) in one room and another box (turbo) to add to the equipment where the wireless router is placed? Why don’t they offer one that is integrated, like most current blu-ray players and many new TVs? Seems pretty antiquated!
You know you’ve been playing too much Skyrim when you see the slingbox as an ebony ingot and then think “WOO HOO! I can finally upgrade my Daedric armor!”
Thankfully, I caught my mistake and backed out. Who needs a Slingbox when you got Skyrim?
For those who are interested, there’s a review of the Slinbbox PRO-HD on CoolHotNot by one of their TechXperts at http://www.coolhotnot.com/products/gadgets-and-goodies/slingbox-pro-hd
Beware, the company is excluding this device from some of its apps, so it may not work with your ios or android device. In addition they have a BIG problem with bad capacitors. The capacitors give out and the unit will only work for 15 to 30 minutes.
I have four Slingboxes and only one will now work on my Android phone and two have bad capacitors.
The new ones definitely aren’t as well build as their Classic ones, and that they’re actively putting in artificial walls into their apps so that they can exclude/block old models (So you buy their new one) from streaming is extremely poor business ethics. Personally I would avoid them altogether.
Can someone please answer the questions below for me.
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Describe what this thing does in a couple of sentences.
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I just moved into a new place and I don’t have cable yet. If I bought one of these things, could I hook it up and receive HD cable from my buddies place 12 miles away? I just want it for cable, I don’t care about the phone or cpu.
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How would you receive the cable? Through an ethernet connection, could I use it in a tv in another room too?
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Is there another one that’s cheaper that would do the same thing.
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Please feel free to add other useful information that I may need to know.
Thank you so much to whoever helps.
Horrible customer service, I have the older Hava HD and it works great but their customer service sucks.
Not this device. The older non HD ones.
Hava is a completely different company.
I have a Hava and they do not stand by their product. The same company now sells the Vulcano. They make a new product and then stop supporting the old. I would get a Slingbox over one of their products. They promised us 3G support on the Hava forever and never delivered.