Only slightly OT: Slingbox for sports?

[The Gr8est]

I am thinking about getting a slingbox to set up at my Mom's house in Maine. The idea is to use her cable connection so that I can get the local Pats and Sox broadcasts since i don't live in New England anymore.

For those who have experience with this will this work? What are the pros and cons? Is there a subscription fee?

Thanx

 

[Va_Pats_Fan]

I am thinking the same. My cube mate is a huge Michighan fan and has one set up at his parents so he can watch the games (that he doesn't go to)....

his words, "its great"...I guess he got the pro version (more $$).

 

[mrwallnuts]

I not sure how the sling box works but I am using ORB. I think sling box cost
250$ while orb is free. I installed it on my pc with a tv tuner card and it works via the web. I also can broadcast games to my mobile phone which comes in hand while at the games. It is best if you connect from a computer that has a broadband connection because you can have higher bit rates. The higher the bit rate the better the picture quality.

 

[mtbykr]

I am thinking about getting a slingbox to set up at my Mom's house in Maine. The idea is to use her cable connection so that I can get the local Pats and Sox broadcasts since i don't live in New England anymore.

For those who have experience with this will this work? What are the pros and cons? Is there a subscription fee?

Thanx

I haven't heard of it before, but would love to hear more....Please keep us updated on this. I gotta go up and see my family in NH soon anyway

 

[jimmyjames]

Can someone please explain what this is/how it works?

Just got Directv and (aside from watching Pats games through Sunday ticket ) I am not pleased with it and woudl much rather go back to cable.

If i could hook something up at my sister's house in NH i would gladly do it.

 

[SBPatsFan]

I am thinking about getting a slingbox to set up at my Mom's house in Maine. The idea is to use her cable connection so that I can get the local Pats and Sox broadcasts since i don't live in New England anymore.

For those who have experience with this will this work? What are the pros and cons? Is there a subscription fee?

Thanx

I have a slingbox set up at my Mom's house in Scituate, MA and live in Santa Barbara. It works great. I use it to watch games when I am home and just got back from a 4 week trip to Virginia and then Canada and was able to watch all the games on my computer while traveling.
CONS: Picture is streaming video quality so not the best.
CONS: Depending upon how you hook it up, it may or may not mandate that you and your Mom watch the same thing. Ideal situation is to hook it into a separate cable line than the one your Mom's uses on her main TV/cable box, so that you and her can watch different programming.
CONS: Initial Cost ($200-250)

PROS: No ongoing costs except the cable and internet at the source location -- My Mom's as example and the internet at the receiving location (most people already pay for these whether they attach slingbox or not)

 

[SBPatsFan]

Can someone please explain what this is/how it works?

Just got Directv and (aside from watching Pats games through Sunday ticket ) I am not pleased with it and woudl much rather go back to cable.

If i could hook something up at my sister's house in NH i would gladly do it.

Slingbox is a device that takes a local TV, cable, etc signal and routes (slings) it into the internet. A person with the password for the specific slingbox can then control and watch that signal remotely on their computer provided they have a high speed internet connection at the remote location.

So provided your sister in NH has cable and internet service, you could put a slingbox there and watch her programming on your computer via the internet.

 

[DaBruinz]

Can someone please explain what this is/how it works?

Just got Directv and (aside from watching Pats games through Sunday ticket ) I am not pleased with it and woudl much rather go back to cable.

If i could hook something up at my sister's house in NH i would gladly do it.

Why are you not pleased with your Direct TV? I've had Comcast, Time Warner, Cablevision, and Adelphia at different stages and Direct TV BLOWS them out of the water. I couldn't wait to get my Direct TV hooked up at my house.

 

[jimmyjames]

Why are you not pleased with your Direct TV? I've had Comcast, Time Warner, Cablevision, and Adelphia at different stages and Direct TV BLOWS them out of the water. I couldn't wait to get my Direct TV hooked up at my house.

Because I live in foggy San francisco our signal hiccups quite a bit. Even the "guide" screen is very slow to load. I paid extra to get an antenna with the dish so I could pick up local channel's HD feed, but these barely come in. For expample when the pats played denver on Sunday night the game was so glitchy off of the local HD feed that I had to switch over to the sattelite feed in SD (which not only does not look as good as HD, actually looks worse on my plasma TV.) it just kills me to pay for something that doesn't work. And the customer service people ar Directv are among the dumbest people i have ever dealt with.

Also, all of the cable channles are the east coast feeds so timing is off and even though I TIVO everything it sucks when I go to flip through the channles at like 11:00 PM at night and all the cable channels are showing their 2:00AM programming.

But I do love waking up on Sunday moring knowing I have the Pats and virtually every other NFL game in HD, and I don't have to go to abar with all the superfrans and degenerate gamblers. But other than that I was really pleased with Comcast Digital cable. Maybe it just takes getting used to but the sattelite hiccups are very annoying.

 

[Kasmir]

I now spend most of the time in Asia and have a Slingbox + dedicated Comcast DVR at home in MA. It's a lot better than nothing, but the picture quality really is dependent on end-to-end bandwidth.

I presently am limited to 384K upload bandwidth from my MA home, which translates into a maximum observed bandwidth at the receiving end of about 360K. When the end-to-end connection achieves that speed, I'm happy, as I can watch the games, but even then you can barely make out uniform numbers on the standard panned-out view that the broadcasters use at the snap. You'll not confuse it with a regular TV signal, and it's not worth watching it full screen, but it's no worse than watching the game in a sports bar with a smaller television.

Unfortunately, I sometimes can't achieve that end-to-end bandwidth. It's still watchable down to 100K or so, but you have to really want to watch the game to accept that, and at that bandwidth sometimes it loses sync and skips 10 seconds or so.

One very nice feature of my Slingbox setup is that I have a dedicated Comcast DVR/cable box for the Slingbox, so I always record the games whether I'm watching live or not. That helps both with timeshifting (4PM games ar 4AM games here) and just as importantly, allows me to if necessary rewatch the game when Internet bandwidth conditions are optimal.

All in all, I'm very happy with the setup because otherwise I would see no games at all -- American football is not popular at all in Asia; the World Series is broadcast here but not the Super Bowl, for example -- and it's not terribly costly. Theres'no recurring fee for the SlingBox, but I do pay $10/mo (I think) for the extra cable feed in my MA home. You don't *need* a dedicated cable feed or DVR, but I highly recommend it if there's any contention for the TV with the folks back home.

But it's not a real substitute for a real TV feed, as the quality is much lower.

Within the home, the Slingbox can use full LAN bandwidth, and the quality is excellent, with the following caveats; it doesn't support HD, the cable box it's connected to cannot be outputting an HD signal to any TV it's also connected to, and only 1 SlingBox session at a time is permitted (in addition to any ordinary TV sessions via the same or different cable boxes in the house). But it's a nice feature if you want to watch the game (or anything else!) while surfing in the study.

The Slingbox window can be sized from tiny to fullscreen or anything in between, and you have full control over the cable box remotely.

They also have a PocketPC client, but not yet Palm, Mac, or Linux clients.

I mentioned cableboxes many times above, but the SlingBox will work with just about any home TV setup, including DirecTV.

Also note that the NFL is offering (via Yahoo) an Internet GamePass feed to customers outside the US (only) for $249/year:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nflgamepass

I've only tried the demo a few times, and it's had variable quality. At it's best somehwat better than my best SlingBox quality, at it's worst unwatchable. The only save games for a week, and of course you can't watch any other TV programming. The Slingbox offers all programming available on your home TV.

Hope this was helpful.

 

[njpatsfan]

Because I live in foggy San francisco our signal hiccups quite a bit.

Check out this .75m antenna: http://www.solidsignal.com/prod_display.asp?PROD=SACGAINCOMBO

I installed one about two years ago when I went HD, and I love it - my rain fade nearly disappeared here (Jersey Shore). Extra 2 dB of gain makes all the difference in the world. I get some pixelation sometimes when a squall line goes through, but that's it. It's more reliable than cable in my area.

The only issue is that you need a) need an external multiswitch (I wanted an amplified one with 8 outputs/OTA input anyways), and b) you need a separate dish for Ka band channels (new HD local channels on DTV). I plan to install a separate (bigger) Ka dish anyways (rain fade on Ka is even worse than Ku)

You also might want to check the signal levels - you might not be peaked up on the bird.

As for your dish-mounted OTA antenna, it may be too small to close the link, or not oriented properly. I'm 50 miles from NYC and I have a 4 foot yagi.

R

 

[jimmyjames]

Check out this .75m antenna: http://www.solidsignal.com/prod_display.asp?PROD=SACGAINCOMBO

I installed one about two years ago when I went HD, and I love it - my rain fade nearly disappeared here (Jersey Shore). Extra 2 dB of gain makes all the difference in the world. I get some pixelation sometimes when a squall line goes through, but that's it. It's more reliable than cable in my area.

The only issue is that you need a) need an external multiswitch (I wanted an amplified one with 8 outputs/OTA input anyways), and b) you need a separate dish for Ka band channels (new HD local channels on DTV). I plan to install a separate (bigger) Ka dish anyways (rain fade on Ka is even worse than Ku)

You also might want to check the signal levels - you might not be peaked up on the bird.

As for your dish-mounted OTA antenna, it may be too small to close the link, or not oriented properly. I'm 50 miles from NYC and I have a 4 foot yagi.

R

Thanks. most of what you wrote is greek to me but I will look into it.

 

[DaBruinz]

A few things.
1) Sorry that you have to live in San Fran and deal with all the fog. I lived in NC and TX with DirecTV and not had the problems you are describing in terms of reception.

2) With Direct TV, yes, some channels are the East Coast Feed, but there are plenty of West Coast feeds as well.

3) While I get the local feeds in HD, I didn't have to pay extra for a seperate antenna. I get the local HD feeds through DirecTV.

4) The problem with most customer service units (not just DirecTV) is that they are FORCED to go through all the steps even if they know otherwise. They actually get reprimanded for NOT following the steps.\

5) I guess I've been lucky with the DirecTV people I've dealt with because I've not had problems.

Because I live in foggy San francisco our signal hiccups quite a bit. Even the "guide" screen is very slow to load. I paid extra to get an antenna with the dish so I could pick up local channel's HD feed, but these barely come in. For expample when the pats played denver on Sunday night the game was so glitchy off of the local HD feed that I had to switch over to the sattelite feed in SD (which not only does not look as good as HD, actually looks worse on my plasma TV.) it just kills me to pay for something that doesn't work. And the customer service people ar Directv are among the dumbest people i have ever dealt with.

Also, all of the cable channles are the east coast feeds so timing is off and even though I TIVO everything it sucks when I go to flip through the channles at like 11:00 PM at night and all the cable channels are showing their 2:00AM programming.

But I do love waking up on Sunday moring knowing I have the Pats and virtually every other NFL game in HD, and I don't have to go to abar with all the superfrans and degenerate gamblers. But other than that I was really pleased with Comcast Digital cable. Maybe it just takes getting used to but the sattelite hiccups are very annoying.