If you spend most of your time in and out of airports, you may not always be in front of your telly to catch your favourite TV shows. Luckily for you, it's Slingbox to the rescue! This nifty device streams live TV to your PC, smartphone or tablet, so you never have to miss a show again. Read on to find out how it really works.

Out of the box

There are two versions of the Slingbox, a standard version and the Pro-HD, and we tested the latter. The Slingbox Pro-HD comes in a slab format almost the size of a small notebook. It's a fairly basic device in terms of looks, cut out in the shape of an aerobic step bench with tiny grooves on the front fascia.

Technology

The basic principle of the Slingbox Pro-HD is ‘placeshifting'. It is a concept that enables consumers to view live, recorded or stored media on a remote device via an internet connection.

Placeshifting technology allows anyone with a broadband internet connection to have direct video streams from their home television sets, DVR or other video sources, such as a DVD player or home security camera, forwarded for viewing remotely on a computer, netbook or a mobile phone at any location where they have a high-speed Internet connection, cellular data network, or Wi-Fi network.

Although it sounds very similar to controlling your computer over a network connection, the major difference here is that placeshifting essentially deals with devices like television, DVD players, etc.

While there are a lot of software solutions to control devices in your house from a remote location using a computer and an internet connection, the Slingbox Pro-HD enables you to not only control your video sources from a remote location but also stream content over the same. Moreover, it doesn't require a PC to do it.

The Slingbox Pro-HD is a top-of–the line product from Sling Media and comes with a total of four inputs including one coax connection where you can directly connect the cable TV BNC connector. It also has component, composite and S-video connections with stereo audio connections. All these inputs work as throughputs wherein there is an ‘output' for every input on the device.

Performance

Setting up the device is fairly simple. The idea is to connect the Slingbox Pro-HD to your TV and the video source (set-top-box, DVD player, camcorder, etc.) by using the throughputs on the Slingbox Pro-HD. So there is practically no addition of a new device in your regular signal chain as the Slingbox Pro-HD fits in seamlessly with the existing set-up.

The next thing that you have to do is connect it to the home network. Since there is no integrated Wi-Fi in the Slingbox Pro-HD, you are left with no option but to connect it to a LAN cable. If your network router and the set-top box are in different rooms, then Sling Media has signal jumpers/boosters called SlingLink, which come at an extra cost.

Once you have the connections ready you need to configure the Slingbox Pro-HD to the device that you will be using it with. The only pre-requisite here is that the device and the Slingbox Pro-HD have to be on the same network.

Slingbox Pro-HD is as easy as using a set-top box. The best part is that you get an exact replica of the remote for your set-top box (whatever the brand) on your device's screen. This makes it very easy to control the set-top box and browse through the menu options. This also stands true for most of the other video sources like a DVD player or a camcorder. In case the device that you are using is not mentioned in the exhaustive list of devices on the website, you also have an option of using the generic virtual remotes provided by Sling Media.

In terms of playback, the Slingbox Pro-HD is flawless. Another good feature of the Slingbox Pro-HD is that the video streaming is not dependant on the speed of the broadband connection that you are using.

Instead, the picture resolution of the stream is dependant on the speed of the connection. The player automatically adjusts its picture resolution according to your broadband connection. This implies that you will get a seamless stream of video content as far as you have a broadband connectivity of approximately 100kbps or more.

You get an option of letting the player know your broadband speed (approximately) and it will automatically adjust the picture resolution for the stream accordingly. And if you set the same on auto then you don't have to bother about the speed at all. The player automatically adjusts the resolution for the picture.

If you are using a HD set-top box then the Slingbox can stream all the way up to 1080i as well. But if you are using a Blu-ray player then don't expect the player to stream 1080p. That feature is yet to come.

The only drawback that we see for the Slingbox is the fact that if a user is using the Slingbox then the people sitting at home will have to compulsorily watch the same channels that the remote user is watching; this is because right now in India we get set-top boxes with only one tuner installed as a result the same tuner is engaged while you watch it through the Slingbox Pro-HD. In the future, once we get set-top boxes with multiple tuners, this problem will be easily solved.

Our verdict

In India, there have been devices in the recent past which claimed to feature placeshifting but incorporated it in parts. The Slingbox Pro-HD marks the beginning of the placeshifting era, especially with the mobile internet connectivity hitting 3G. The launch is well-timed in India. As far as the device is concerned, the Slingbox Pro-HD is fairly easy to set up, very easy to use and also effective in terms of streaming performance.

Love: Well priced, effective performance

Hate: Lack of integrated Wi-Fi

Rs 14,999

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