Sling Media Slingbox PRO-HD SB300-100 by Sling Media
|
List Price: Our Price: Calculated in a shopping cart Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more digital camera details and other models |
|---|
Digital camera reviews of Sling Media Slingbox PRO-HD SB300-100
Digital camera Review: Do not count on built-in tuner
Summary: 3 Stars
Tested reception with the Slingbox connected to my Comcast cable w/o a cable box. The built-in tuner has very low sensitivity which results in spotty reception. It picks up most of the analog and unencrypted QAM channels, but can not stream most of them. It would stream about 5-10 secs then blacks out and informs me that the signal is weak or not available. All my 4 TVs of various brands have no problem receiving the signal, and 2 of them were behind 3 splitters. I've even reconfigured the wiring, with the signal goes directly from the outside input cable to a 2-way low-loss Monster splitter, then to a PCT signal amplifier, then to the Slingbox. It did improve the analog reception, some channels now stay on, but it still misses 80% of the digital QAM channels. The TVs which are under the same condition have crystal clear analog channels and all the QAM channels (~60).
I have no cable or satellite box, so I tested the streaming quality with a WD HD media player, streaming a video at 640x480 locally. The video quality is acceptable, reasonably good, but a little laggy, which results in noticeable lip-sync, though TV streaming does not experience the lip-sync problem. Maybe the box has to downgrade the higher than VGA video down to 640x480. I've yet a chance to test internet streaming.
It may work for people with a cable/satellite box, but did not work for me with the built-in tuner, which is why I chose this model instead of the SOLO.
At this point, I've decided to return it to try another competing product like the Sony Locationfree or Hava with an external tuner.
Digital camera Review: Do you have very high speed internet line?
Summary: 3 Stars
Pro-HD has one digital componet connector, one component connector and TV tuner, that means HD quality connection is limited only one likewise solo model.
If you have very high speed broad band in your home and satelite, you may enjoy HD quality, but most of hotels in the US does not have such high speed line.
In case you may use within your intranet, it does work excellent.
Digital camera Review: Do your homework first before buying
Summary: 1 Stars
Don't just read my review. Go to the forums. The promise is so much greater than the product. Consider
1) it is a short term purchase. you will love it for the first few months. and then it will stop working. mine did --twice. Even had it replaced while still under warranty. just bought a $40 replacement part on ebay because the mfg. is out of stock.
2) customer service is awful.
3) you will not find solutions on-line, so many people are frustrated
Net: if you are up to spending 300+ for a product that is hard to set up, and will break (don't just take my word for it -- read other reviews too.) then go ahead. it's very cool. I have the ipad app and i watched my dvr from spain, vienna, chile even in other rooms in my house. way cool idea. but it breaks -- and then, like me -- where does it leave you. If you have money to burn, then go for it.
Its up to you.
Digital camera Review: Does the job
Summary: 4 Stars
My Customer Support rating is based more on my old Sling Box and not this one. I still have not found a good way to contact the company to get answers on problems. I ended up getting a new one instead of repairing issue with the old one, which is probably why its so hard to get a hold of them. Too bad there aren't comparable competitors to this product so they would need to be better to their customers.
As for the device, it does what it says it does and is generally easy to set up and use. the quality of the video/audio is more dependent on your internet connection and traffic then on the device itself.
Digital camera Review: Does what I wanted it to do
Summary: 4 Stars
All I wanted was a way to kill some time during down time at work, and maybe catch a Brewer game or two, and this did the trick. The set up was extremely easy and within just a few minutes the product was up and running.
One thing I loved about this was the flexibility it gave to me and my viewing habits. If I wanted to watch a movie but keep tabs on the game, I could load up the Sling player on my laptop, watch my movie and just keep the laptop near by to watch some of the game as well. I never hooked it up to anything beyond the cable box, but there is room for a number of additional peripherals if needed. I never had a need for anything outside of the cable box.