Solving an Olympic-size problem
Guest Blogger Jim Courtney, Mississauga, Canada
SlingBox Rocks ... and addresses my Olympic-size problem...
During the Olympic Opening Ceremonies last Friday (afternoon here) I was watching the CBC version of the event from my TV on my laptop via my SlingBox while having a Skype-based conversation with a Skype developer located in Sweden. He and his partner were watching the same program on Swedish television. We got into an intense discussion of the opening ceremonies as the various activities unfolded. What CBC had told us was that Pavrottti would be appearing near the end; my Swedish correspondent had not heard that but as a result he stuck with the show after we finished our conversation to watch Pavrotti.
And the story gets better....
During the summer of 1972 I moved to Germany (working with a private firm) about three weeks before the Munich Olympics started. As my wife had remained in Canada to help her parents with a move, I was getting my evening meals in the local town "gästehaus". When the Olympics started, the local German network provided 16-hour a day coverage from 9 a.m. to midnight. As a result I would spend my entire evenings in the gästehaus watching the Olympics(and upgrading my high school German in the process). I became an Olympic TV junkie and have been entranced by the round-the-clock Canadian coverage that has been provided with every Olympics since Montreal hosted the 1976 Summer Games.
During a recent trip to the U.S. I stayed with some friends who gave me a demonstration of not only TiVo but also the newly released SlingBox. So when I realized at the end of that trip that I would be spending the first ten days of this year's Winter Olympics in the Los Angeles area without access to the CBC, I resolved to have a SlingBox installed at my (Canadian) home prior to my trip this coming week. (I certainly did not want to be restricted to NBC's "summary" prime time broadcasts that only cover U.S. athletes.) An interim quick trip to U.S. gave me the opportunity to purchase a SlingBox last week (and, yes, I declared it at customs).
This is one amazing box. The most difficult part of the installation was figuring out the wiring maze I had put together when I installed my home theatre system. The rest of the installation went quite smoothly. Simply position the SlingBox between your cable box and home stereo amplifier; attach an Ethernet cable to the home network (via a Linksys Cable/DSL Router or equivalent) and place the IR generator and its cable such that it can trigger the "Remote Control" functions of your cable box. Oh yes, do connect the power adapter!
Run the installation software on your Internet-attached PC and presto, your entire TV functionality has been migrated to your laptop PC. It was one of the smoothest installations I have executed in years. One further test: I wanted to confirm that my home TV could be viewed from anywhere on the Internet, so my next trip to a HotSpot-equipped Starbucks gave me that opportunity.
The picture on the left (captured during the opening ceremony on Friday afternoon)demonstrates the overall excellent picture quality. The only time it gets the least bit fuzzy is when I expand it to cover the full 1680 x 1050 resolution of my Dell Inspiron. (No, you cannot record the video feed from SlingBox; recording with access via remote control requires a TiVo box. This picture was captured using Snag-It.)
A few comments:
It allows me to view the programming I am already paying for through my Rogers Cable subscription. And I would still have to pay for any PPV programming.
There can only be one external viewer with access to the feed at a time; this avoids any accusation that SlingBox is facilitating "broadcasting" in any illegal manner with respect to the delivery of programming.
You do have total control of the cable box (including turning it off and on).
Make sure you establish some "rules" with the person who normally views the TV set; you do have to watch whatever is being shown on the same TV (unless you acquire a second cable box that is independent of your primary TV setup)
So this week I am one of the few Canadians able to watch the CBC's full coverage of the Olympics while at a location in the U.S. that is well beyond the US-Canada border. SlingBox has solved my Olympic-size problem!
Currently Slingbox does not work with PALS TV Systems. Right now it only works on US Cable TV boxes.
Comment from Bill: "Nice story. Be careful, Jim. someone else in Ottawa lost the election picking on Americans. (Grin) Streaming content is a hot item this year. Orb Networks and soonr both are streaming Skype stuff to mobile devices.
Comments
I would just like to know as to the quality of the Slingbox. I have been running Orb for some time now and I think it´s very useful, and probably more customizable/flexible.
But as to video quality, thats is my main question. I saw a video on the Sling site where a user was watching a football (american) game via Sling on his notebook. He was within his own network, so the transfer speed available to him was high, and he was watching full-screen (15in) without any degradation in quality and without any stuttering/buffering.
I have tried to do this in Orb and have not been able to do so. While image quality is very good, even using a regular internet connection, the available screen size of the video is very small, even within your own network.
So is there any way you could maybe record a video of Sling in action and showing how big the screen can be using a public Net connection and an internal network? Or please just a comment on the quality. maybe you can try Orb and do a comparison.
thank you
Posted by: Aristotle16 | February 17, 2006 04:08 AM
Aristotle, I've seen this work over crappy hotel wifi, over EVDO to a handheld. The quality rocked. TV is only sending pictures with 500 or so pixels across to you anyway so it may look small on your screen.
Posted by: Phil Wolff | February 17, 2006 08:38 AM