Watch your home TV anywhere

26 July 2009 2,513 views 3 Comments

Sling Player Mobile

Imagine you are away from home on a trip. You can watch TV in your hotel room but it’s not the same because you are missing out on your favorite show. What about watching your local language TV during overseas trip. It’s possible to stream recorded or live TV show from your Tivo,Cable/Satellite Settop Box to another computer,laptop or mobile devices connected to the Internet.

Streaming of TV from one room in home to computer in another room or mobile device over the Internet has becomes possible by high speed Internet connections and few innovative products. If you have not guessed already, they are famous SlingBox and another product called HAVA. There are similar products but these two are most popular so will focus on them in this article.

: Slingbox PRO-HD

Sling Box Pro HD shown on the right hand side picture is top of the line Sling box. This Sling Box can stream video in high definition. Other Sling Box cousin called Sling Box Pro can stream only in SD, even if your input source is HD. High definition Source is down converted to SD before streaming over the network.

Sling Box Pro-HD can accept video signal from component (From any HD source), S-Video(For Good quality SD) and a composite source. Its also has QAM and ATSC tuner for high definition Satellite or cable signals. Depending upon the network bandwidth between Sling Box and target device sling box pics optimal signal quality.

Setup of Sling box is easy. Sling acts as a pass-through device for all the video signals while capturing it for streaming over the network. For high definition video streaming component out put of source (Any Settop box,Tivo etc) is connected to component input of Sling Box. Sling Box’s component out put is connected to the TV. Similar audio output from source is connected to Sling Box and Sling Box audio is connected to TV. Sling Box is also connected to the Internet, through LAN port on the router.

Following picture demonstrates connection of Dish Network DVR with Sling Box and transmission of video to iPhone,Laptop Computer and a Blackberry.

Sling Box allows the control of the remote video source from the client machine. For example if you are watching TV program from a Settop Box on computer you can control the Settop Box remote control image presented on your computer screen. Slink Box generate actual remotes commands as if they are directly from your Settop Box remote control. Most of the major remote controls are supported by Sling Box.

In above picture Sling Box can remotely turn on, turn off the Dish DVR receiver. It can also perform all the remote control operations by sending IR signals from Sling Box to the Dish Receiver. Sling application running on the target device displays the picture of the remote of the actual device being controlled.

Sling Box connects to the home network through Ethernet port. In the setup shown in the picture above ,Sling Box is directly connected to the router which is connected to the Internet through DSL Modem. If the router ca not be placed right next to the Sling box then you can use Powerline AV Ethernet, MOCA or Wireless Router to Router Bridge to connect Sling Box to the router.

After Sling Box is wired up you need to install the Sling Player media application on PC and ling player for the mobile devices from where you want to watch your TV. Sling Player guides you through step by step instructions to complete the installation. Once the installation is complete you can enjoy streaming your TV anywhere in the world.

Sling Box is breakthrough device but its not alone. There are other products offered by Monsoon Multimedia, Inc. called HAVA can also let you stream your TV to other devices connected to the network. The products are HAVA Titanium HD and HAVA Titanium HD WIFI/Wireless.

HAVA devices offer interesting features like multicasting to multiple PCs,WIFI,recoding TV to PCs Hard drive,Windows media player support etc. See the comparison chart below for differences betweenthe best HAVA and Sling Box Products.

HAVA/Sling Box Comparision	Slingbox PRO-HD	HAVA Titanium HD WIFI
Watch Live or Recorded TV	Yes	Yes
Access to set-top box controls	Yes	Yes
Supported Max Streaming Resolution	1080i	480p
Multicasting – Watch TV on multiple PCs simultaneously	No	Yes
Record TV programs on PC over local network	No	Yes
Built-in TV Tuner	Yes	Yes
Digital audio inputs	Yes	No
Windows Media Center Support	No	Yes
TV On Mobile Devices	Yes	Yes
Built in Wireless (WIFI)	None	802.11g

HAVA product use the term “HD” in their products. I find it misleading because HAVA Titanium HD can not stream any resolutions higher than 480p. 480p is DVD quality. Slingbox Pro HD supports streaming resolutions up to 1080i. Its important to note that the quality of video at your end device will depend on the quality of the input source and the network bandwidth. You are likely to better quality using wired home network than over wireless connection or from the Internet. Also streaming over the Internet will constrained by your network upload speed.