With so many streaming media devices flooding the market, we take a close look at the Slingbox, now playing on our Treo 700p.
Set-top boxes have made a serious comeback recently, with the surge in popularity of digital media files. These devices shuttle songs, movies and television shows to and from your computer, home theater and mobile phone. We decided to check in on the grand daddy of streaming media devices, the Slingbox, and test the beta version of the Slingplayer software for Palm OS.
What it does, and what it doesn't
Though there are many similar devices on the market, they don't all work the same. The Apple TV, for instance, uses files from your PC and plays them on your television. The Slingbox AV, on the other hand, can accept inputs from any of your devices, and streams content in the other direction, from your home theater to your PC. Want to watch your TiVo on your Treo? Access your cable box on the road from your laptop? That's what Slingbox does. It can control anything with an IR port, and accepts one set of composite (RCA) cables or S-Video. From there, you basically load the application onto your device, which, for now, can be a Mac or Windows computer, or a Palm or Windows Mobile handheld, though Sling Media has already announced upcoming Symbian support. Then, you watch TV. If you're watching, say, TiVo on a PC, you get a virtual mock-up of the TiVo remote control, which controls your real TiVo at home. Unfortunately, this means that if someone is actually sitting in front of the TiVo being controlled, they will have to fight with the Slingbox for viewing rights, but this is due to the lack of dual-tuning on the TiVo, and not a flaw with the Slingbox. Actually, we thought controlling the box remotely made for a fun practical joke, even though it only worked once.
The Slingbox is meant to handle your home entertainment system, not your digital media, which means it won't compete with the Apple TV or other, similar devices, such as JVC's recently-announced Sophisti DD-3 system. In fact, the two might compliment each other nicely, and Wired has reported that Sling is currently working on compatibility between the Apple TV and Slingbox so that you'll be able to stream movies from your PC to your TV, through your Slingbox to your BlackJack. Sound complicated? Actually, it's quite simple.
Setup and installation
Once we had the Slingbox connected with the proper cables (power, AV, Ethernet, IR blasters), we had pretty much completed the setup. We loaded the software on our Powerbook, which found the Slingbox on our LAN right away and gave us the Finder ID, so we could find the Slingbox from other devices, outside our local network. Setting up our Palm Treo 700p was just as easy, requiring simply the entry of the Finder ID, and we were good to go. Windows was a little more picky, as Windows is wont to be, and we found ourselves opening ports on our wireless router, which we had never done before, but Sling has a vast collection of detailed, device-specific instructions for routers, including our two year old D-link. It took some trial and error, but once we got it working, it worked consistently.
So, how did it look?
Streaming television looked okay, but not perfect. The video signal is standard def (640 by 480), so blowing it up for our laptop screen (1440 by 900) made the image look a bit blocky, as we expected. On our Treo, however, we were much happier with the results. Because the Treo's screen, at 320 by 320, is half the pixel-width of the stream, video looked very clean, comparable to the demonstrations of mobile television we've seen from Modeo and MediaFLO. We did experience some stuttering, but no blockiness, and at its best the Slingplayer handled video as well as we would expect from a real television. Framerates usually hovered close to 15 fps, which is just fine for mobile TV, but occasionally dipped into the single digits. Still, even at this low rate, the picture was not only watchable, but enjoyable.
When you enter a remote control command for your TiVo, there is a considerable lag in seeing the command executed, a few seconds at least. We found our fast-forwarding abilities, so nimble with the real remote in our hands, required better timing and more waiting to skip through commercial gaps.
The software remote control for the Slingplayer on the Palm needs some shortcuts. Instead of an on-screen remote, there is a menu bar that features many, but not all, of the essential TiVo remote buttons, including standard playback controls, as well as the "menu" and "guide" buttons. Unfortunately, while navigating menus remotely, if you want to access some of the more unique controls on the TiVo remote, like the TiVo button itself, you need to dig through three submenus on the Slingplayer to activate the command, and you need to repeat this every time you need to press the TiVo button. This was aggravating, especially with the Treo's vast keyboard staring at us, mostly unused, all the while.
Our verdict
We think Slingplayer makes an attractive alternative to mobile TV options, and not just as a stopgap measure while we wait for mobile TV coverage in our area. Though video quality was a little better on the mobile TV devices, we think the Slingbox and Slingplayer have several advantages that mobile TV won't be able to match any time soon. First, you get to pick what you record and watch. Second, you can fast forward through commercials, if you have your Slingbox connected to a TiVo. Third, your content is limited only by your cable or satellite package. And, we only tested the Slingbox with a TiVo. It can also control other devices, so you could load a few DVDs into a multi-disc player and have movie options on the road as well. Finally, with upcoming support for digital media devices like the Apple TV, we're loath to send back our review unit, and might find ourselves purchasing one of these devices in the near future.
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