Oddball Update

Whenever I visit Thailand, as Apple and I often do, I inevitably miss being “plugged in” to the entertainment and news media I’m used to having here in the U.S. Whether it’s live updates on the day’s happenings from CNN, the latest local news from our hometown, or even just a voice speaking English (heh heh), American media — for all its faults — quickly becomes something I wish I could more readily get my hands on.

This week, I installed the final component in a system which I hope will alleviate this problem: a Slingbox Solo. The Slingbox is a set-top device that takes the video output from a device of your choice — for example, your TiVo DVR — and “slings” it over the Internet to any location on Earth.

When you install the SlingPlayer application on your computer or mobile phone, you can “catch” the sling signal and, essentially, watch American TV from your patio in Thailand.

Setup of the ‘Box was fairly easy — I connected it to my TiVo HD’s component output, and attached it to my network via the old WRT54G I’d converted to a wireless Ethernet bridge. The first test was to try watching TV from my desktop computer — an effortless challenge, I was soon to see. It works flawlessly and beautifully over my wireless LAN, even from the opposite end of the house. I can stream a detailed VGA picture at full frame rate with no hiccuping or hitches, with a bitrate upwards of 6000 kbps.

Tonight, I took the testing procedure a step further and went down to my parents’ house so I could do a remote test. Again, everything worked beautifully, and I was surprised at how good a picture you can get out of a relatively small amount of bandwidth. I adjusted the SlingPlayer’s bitrate lock to simulate the amount of bandwidth I expect to have in Thailand, and even using HVGA resolution, the picture was still very detailed and very watchable.

The real test will be to try the Slingbox from a very distant location, which I won’t really be able to do until prime time. The big bottleneck with a connection from Thailand will be latency — if it’s too high, no amount of bandwidth on either end will save it — and issuing remote commands will be awful. We have a couple of different options for Internet in Thailand, though, so I’m hoping at least one of them will be an acceptable solution.

As far as connectivity, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Sling Media employs their own method of locating your Slingbox on the Internet. I had registered a Dynamic DNS domain name in advance, thinking I would have to connect manually to my home router, but it turns out this is not necessary. Each Slingbox has a unique “Finder ID,” and Sling Media maintains a directory server that stores information on how to reach your Slingbox. The box itself routinely pings the directory server so that the information is kept fresh. When you install SlingPlayer, you can login to your Sling Account and the rest of your connection is handled automatically. Still, I’m keeping the Dynamic DNS hostname active just in case the Finder ID method fails (you can use either method to connect to your Slingbox).

SlingPlayer also comes with a host of controls for bandwidth, resolution and picture quality optimization. It can either adjust the stream dynamically based on your Internet connection quality, or you can set a few ground rules you want it to follow (for example, you can force it to use a higher resolution, or a fixed bit rate). You can also set a password to access your ‘Box, and if someone else is using it when you try to connect, it will give you their IP address so you know who it is.

I got the Slingbox for $158 with a $20 instant rebate and free shipping at NewEgg.com. NewEgg apparently drop-shipped from a supplier in Jacksonville, so I even got it the very next day. Based on what I’ve seen so far, this is one nifty piece of hardware that’s well worth its price tag. If you want to watch your stuff on the go, I can think of no better way.

Tagged as Slingbox + Categorized as Media, Media/Television