Slingbox TV Anywhere

Time shifting your favourite TV shows just got better, now you can place-shift your shows too! Thanks to a clever little networking gadget known as the Slingbox due for release shortly.

This technically impressive set-top box compresses and transfers live TV, satellite, or DVR video from your home to a computer anywhere in the world, all without requiring a PC to be up and running at home, and with minimal quality loss.

The Slingbox unit connects in-line with your TV set, cable box, DVR, or a PC equipped with a TV tuner and infrared remote. It has input and outputs for virtually any kind of video, plus a wired Ethernet port.

You set it up from a PC inside your house (hence the Ethernet port), but that’s the last time you need an in-house PC running while using Slingbox. That is, unless you decide to use the Slingbox like a media hub to rebroadcast video within the house, which you can do over Ethernet, powerline networking, or Wi-Fi.

Why would you want to do this though?

Any PC with a broadband Internet connection can connect and play whatever signal Slingbox is currently receiving. It’s a one-to-one relationship of one player streaming to one remote PC, and the remote PC must have the proprietary SlingPlayer software installed (you can’t just walk up to a Web terminal in a Key West coffeeshop and see the latest episode of whatever shows TiVo recorded last night at home).

If you’re traveling, you can catch the local news. You could use Slingbox to play a TiVo-recorded movie in your hotel room (might as well, as long as you’re paying $10 a day for hotel broadband). Distant grandparents could see home movies stored on your DVR or Media Center PC; they’d just need the SlingPlayer software loaded on their PC (and a guest-access password).

Find out where to buy this great piece of technology from the Sling Media website. The suggest retail price is $249.99

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