julesandco

Has anyone got any experience of this product?

http://uk.slingmedia.com/go/slingbox

They are selling them all over for about £120. If you have a friend or relative in the UK, you can watch their TV.

Is this the answer to my Ant and Dec addiction?

Has anyone had any experience of it or see any pitfalls?

Thanks,

Jules x

tillysmum

that looks really good, hope someone says it is as good as it looks.

kevinbloomfield

What about the 10 hr time difference?

jackhigh

Absolutely, great product, believe you can now get one for about £99 in the uk, and thats it, just a one off fee to have all the uk freeview channals plus all the sky ones too if your box is connected to sky streamed to your computer antwhere in the world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.radioandtelly.co.uk/slingbox is a great site for information about the slingbox and gives info on best prices.

Have one myself but a couple of things you need to be aware of before purchasing; if you dont have it connected via a hard drive recorder or sky plus box (thats the recorders that have the freeview built in, dont use tapes and have electronic programme guides) you'll have to watch programmes at uk times. With the recorders mentioned you can remotely programme in a prog to record then watch it back when you want.
You will have to download everything to make your computer/notebook compatable with your slingbox in the uk via the modem that the slingbox will go through, so its no good if your already in oz or anywhere else.

Depending where you'll be living download speeds can be lower than what you might be used to in the uk (which can cause a little loss of quality but still very watchable) also many providers have download limits but as long as your not watching 3 or 4 hours a day and just watching selected progs you should be fine.

In case there are any problems the sling support is very good, have used them myself a couple of times. The telephone No is a UK landline so no expensive 07 numbers and can usually sort out the problem. It does help if the family/friends where your slingbox will be located are computer literate as if there is a problem they will need to understand how it works from their end.

Slingbox does not recognise all freeview hard drive recorders (support will probably let you know which ones it does) but i do know that it recognises the sky plus box. The slingbox is always adding to its list of devises and there are regular update downloads.
and finally, I think (but not 100% sure) if you just stream directly from your slingbox via your family/friends freeview box you can only watch the same programme if you both want to watch at same time (via a recorder as above not a problem as most will let you watch one prog and record 2 more at same time). Me, I simply split the aerial at my dads and set up a seperate freeview recorder in his study so no probs (no tv required, just the freeview recorder and slingbox)

Hope you can make sense of this and it helps, dont let the above put you off, if you get it right before you leave the uk its all your answers for viewing UK TV from anywhere with an internet connection

jackhigh

sorry Jules, just seen your already in oz so no good for you unless you're heading back to UK soon for a holiday

julesandco

Why? Still got family in the UK that have a TV I can use

julesandco

Thanks for the feedback Karma on it's way x

Safin

Really dumb question I expect as I am NOT a techie but how do you program your recorder if that's in the uk and you're in Aus - does that rely on your family - no hope for me then.

We have a freeview Topfield box (brilliant here)

emelems

Knowing my luck, I'd get this set up (would have to use my brothers house) and then switch on to find that him and his girlfriend are watching something unsuitable like porn or suchlike!

(kidding)..

(but a possibility! )

Em xx

julesandco

Excellent

northernbird

Why don't you just do what we all do and get downloading. I have just watched the last series of Sat Night Takeaway. Don't do the I'm a Celeb stuff but it is available to those that do.

emelems

I think this is prob what we shall be doing... must be easier as you can watch what you want when you want...

I tend to do this at the moment... I don't watch a series, I wait for it to come out on DVD (specially the ones that I know I'll watch over and over like The Sopranos).. so I think downloading will be more up my street... the cost of buying DVDs (tho I usually buy 2nd hand) can be very costly too... proper downloading much be a cheaper option..

Em x

julesandco

Th trouble is, we work from home and use a lot of internet bandwith and it's restricted over here.

I don't think downloading will work for us as it cuts the speed after do much use, which wouldn't be good for the business.

Timber Floor Au

I see Kevins reply was ignored...

So .. how do you combat the time difference?

Why do you watch TV on a PC?

Surely the bandwidth must be enormous ?

kevinbloomfield

Far easier to use UK Nova and download what you want to watch and you can watch it at the time you want to. If you have an LCD or Plasma they normally have VGA inputs so you can hook your laptop or PC up to them.

Anyway, with the crap ADSL service (cost and speed) there's no way I'd be streaming TV from the UK (it isn't that good is it?)