SlingCatcher

Prodelin · 18-02-2008

I was around looking at Slingmedia website and noticed they will release soon the Slingcatcher which you connect to your TV which allows you to watch TV from anywhere without using the computer as you needed before.

This should be a great product when it comes to all people living abroad and want to watch BBC/ITV which requires big antennas.

I have been waiting for a product like this for ages and always wondered why they couldn't release a product which doesn't require a PC to control everything with.

Now it's here, the SlingCatcher.

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

Prodelin · 18-02-2008

Find a friend in Egypt and you can watch Nilesat and Showtime without a large antenna in the UK.

Find a friend in the U.S and you can watch all their channels.

Sit in your house in Spain or Cyprus and watch from your Sky dish at home in the UK without a large antenna.

**Analoguesat** · 18-02-2008

No good to anyone with restrictions on the downloads or uploads - a SB running every evening will soon nail transfer limits

***trigger*** · 18-02-2008

About a year ago we looked at hosting the sling boxes in the UK for expats. To do it on a basis to make a reasonable profit on the investment, according to our Computer guy, the connection needed from BT was 25K Sterling per month.

We laughed heartily

***snap*** · 18-02-2008

In theory The Slingbox is a good idea, but in practice it's really only going to work if:
-you have a broadband connection with no or very high usage limit
-you have a second home in another country
-have friends, or family who are happy to have a second receiver in the house, using a large part of their upstream bandwidth
-a spare port on a twin or quad Lnb or a spare terrestrial aerial feed.
-a completely reliable broadband connection at the remote and receiving end

**HB13DISH** · 18-02-2008

Originally Posted by snap

In theory The Slingbox is a good idea, but in practice it's really only going to work if:
-you have a broadband connection with no or very high usage limit
-you have a second home in another country
-have friends, or family who are happy to have a second receiver in the house, using a large part of their upstream bandwidth
-a spare port on a twin or quad Lnb or a spare terrestrial aerial feed.
-a completely reliable broadband connection at the remote and receiving end

It might be interesting to do some arithmetics and calculate the cost of the broadband services on the send and receive ends per month and the extra hardware needed and compare it to the cost of a rather large dish including installation in a fringe area in order to receive those channels.

Prodelin · 18-02-2008

Originally Posted by snap

In theory The Slingbox is a good idea, but in practice it's really only going to work if:
-you have a broadband connection with no or very high usage limit

Generally not a problem in most developed countries in Europe if you dont live very very isolated and remotely, i got FTTH which is Fiber To The Home, which means i have 100Mpbs up/down direct optic fiber in my apartment, all apartments have that here in my area, the whole area is feeded from the city-NET is feed with OC-12 to the core.

Originally Posted by snap

-you have a second home in another country

When i am talking expats you would assume people have some place where they live right?

Originally Posted by snap

-have friends, or family who are happy to have a second receiver in the house, using a large part of their upstream bandwidth

Of course, how would you think they would otherwise get their signal from?

And! broadband is not generally a problem in Europe in civilized areas where they can get DSL connections with 24Mpbs down and 1Mps up which is enough for Slingcatcher as it only need 512Kbps.

Originally Posted by snap

-a spare port on a twin or quad Lnb or a spare terrestrial aerial feed.

I do beleive people understand that, don't you? most people aren't stupid.

Originally Posted by snap

-a completely reliable broadband connection at the remote and receiving end

[/quote]

As i said earlier most DSL connections are under SLA's and have 99.8% uptime if you aren't unlucky living in a isolated area with no broadband.

Said that! it doesn't matter as you try to create a problem which doesn't exist as we are not talking about commercial use here.

And! any commercial use doing this is highly illegal.

Finally this is the best solution for people if they have access to broadband with at least 512Kbps uplink.

SlingCatcher is the preferred way instead of old fashioned satellite dishes.

Why?

1. If you live in a apartment in Marbella for an example where you can not install a 3 meter dish or similar for your area.

2. You have access to broadband either by DSL or FTTH.

3. You don't want to have a BUD(Big Ugly Dish) in your garden or roof.

4. Finance! you save alot of money as you don't need any dish.

***Zorba*** · 18-02-2008

So this is legal ?

**Analoguesat** · 18-02-2008

Oh yes its legal. Ive had one running from the Scottish Borders to Brighton no problem at all as a test (although sadly I cant get it to work through our corporate firewall down at my workplace a mile away!)

Just as a matter of comparison I was running 450 kbps upstream which is all my bb connection goes to on a good evening, and the connection was more or less useless for anything else - surfing was hopelessly slow, although to be fair, thats right at the very bottom of what is recommended for SB's - 1 meg upload is recommended if you want to use the bb for anything else.

**Analoguesat** · 18-02-2008

Originally Posted by Prodelin

Find a friend in the U.S and you can watch all their channels.

.

Thats hardly a selling point - yankee tv programming is generally speaking complete sh!te. If what we get on uk telly is the "best of american tv" I certainly dont want to see the rest of it!

***dasteelman*** · 18-02-2008

I think I already mentioned this, but I got a demo from an american company and I was very impessed.

I had a download of about 1.2 Mb and the switching of channels was quite quick. Obviously the quality was not as good as a TV...but I linked my tv up from my PC...and it was very good

Prodelin · 18-02-2008

Originally Posted by Analoguesat

Just as a matter of comparison I was running 450 kbps upstream which is all my bb connection goes to on a good evening, and the connection was more or less useless for anything else - surfing was hopelessly slow, although to be fair, thats right at the very bottom of what is recommended for SB's - 1 meg upload is recommended if you want to use the bb for anything else.

You need to configure QoS in your router if you have that feature, this is the reason most people complain when they download with Torrent or in your case is streaming that it bottlenecks the whole bandwidth.

***snap*** · 19-02-2008

The trouble with all this is many people in the UK out of the cities have poor upstream speeds like Analoguesat. A Slingbox is going to hog almost all of that. If you configure QoS (assuming that you have a router with this facility- many don't) to prioritise other traffic, a Slingbox's upstream will slow to a halt and your friend or relation abroad trying to watch Eastenders is going to get upset.
It's also not practical for many households to have a spare feed to a Freeview box or spare Sky box, in some cases another aerial will have to be erected as Freeview signal strength is marginal in many areas and cannot be split.
It's also the case that many expats do not have houses back in the UK, or if they do, they are usually rented to tenants. Imagine how fed up tenants would be if the ADSL to the house was being slowed right down by their landlords using a Slingbox hidden away in a cupboard.
It's a neat concept if you are wealthy enough to have properties in two countries, and able to pay for broadband in both, but for the majority- it's a nice, impractical, idea.

**rolfw** · 19-02-2008

Even in the towns in the UK, the average upstream is seldom above half a Meg, bear in mind that the UK telephone system still runs on copper wire over a large proportion of the country.

There are couple of hosting companies for Freeview via slingbox in the UK, but not sure what they charge.

**Baxter Boy** · 19-02-2008

Rather than Slingbox, is anyone else using uknova or thebox.bz for their UK TV viewing?

They are both UK expat private Bittorrent communities where you can download British TV programmes for free. They have everything from soaps to University Challenge. Picture quality is close to DVD and you need a DVD player that can playback Divx files.

It takes a while to understand how Bittorrent downloading works and registered users are limited to 30,000 so you might have to initially make numerous attempts to register. I’m led to believe that about 300 accounts become available each day due to users’ not using their account for a month.

It’s so good that we are now not worried that we can’t receive Astra 2d.

Prodelin · 19-02-2008

Originally Posted by rolfw

Even in the towns in the UK, the average upstream is seldom above half a Meg, bear in mind that the UK telephone system still runs on copper wire over a large proportion of the country.

There are couple of hosting companies for Freeview via slingbox in the UK, but not sure what they charge.

What is the fastest DSL line you can subscribe to in UK?

**jimbo** · 19-02-2008

Originally Posted by rolfw

Even in the towns in the UK, the average upstream is seldom above half a Meg, bear in mind that the UK telephone system still runs on copper wire over a large proportion of the country.

There are couple of hosting companies for Freeview via slingbox in the UK, but not sure what they charge.

Hence the beauty of cable. I can upload at 680Kbs.

**rolfw** · 19-02-2008

Originally Posted by Prodelin

What is the fastest DSL line you can subscribe to in UK?

This is about the fastest I can find: 20Mbit downstream 1.6Mbit upstream

_http://broadband.o2.co.uk/packages.jsp

Full list here _http://www.broadband-finder.co.uk/compare-broadband/compare-broadband.html

**PoloMint** · 19-02-2008

You can get SDSL (synchronous digital subscriber line) of up to 2 megabit upstream in many places in the UK (even remote exchanges). But be prepared to pay hundreds a month.

http://sdsl.nildram.net/pricing/

I don't know why SDSL is so expensive.

**rolfw** · 19-02-2008

I guess that it must be very low contention, can't see me signing up any time soon.

Sandbox · 22-02-2008

I cannot WAIT to get my hands on a SlingCatcher. I would absolutely LOVE to be able to watch British TV here in Bahrain. There are a few companies out there that offer Sling hosting and they are doing it within the law. You pay for the bandwidth, you pay for the satellite subscription, you pay for the Slingbox, and you even pay for a TV licence! The satellite companies do not specify where you can or cant watch the content you have paid for, be it in your living room, or next door.
It is very expensive but some people are willing to go to extrodinary lengths to be able to watch ITV1/BBC1 etc.

I am considering hosting a slingbox with family back in the UK and Id ofcourse pay for a seperate ADSL line. Fastest connection I have found in the UK is Be* their site is be there dot co dot uk. They offer 24Mbps download, and 1.5Mbps upload but you can opt for a 2.5Mbps upload if you want for FREE but - you slower download speed to compensate.

I've trialed one of the sling hosting companies - had my laptop hooked up to my Panasonic 42" plasma via VGA cable and the picture was definately watchable! and I've got a 1Mbps connection. I would ofcourse upgrade this when i get a permanent service.

**rolfw** · 22-02-2008

The speed that your relatives get in the UK will be purely on a geographical basis, forget what is advertised, it is what can be received in any particular area, how far away from the exchange they are and the state of the cable network.

Sandbox · 23-02-2008

Not too versed on ADSL but they live in East Finchley and I think Be* have their DSLAM? located somewhere within finchley. I did check using the location and landline number of the house and Be* told me we could have their service. IF I am able to push 2.5Mbps that is faster that I can download over here in Bahrain.

The fastest ADSL connection we have in this country is 2Mbps.

The arab nations have just signed a new charter regarding Arab broadcasting standards and it's not good. It contains lines such as 'You are not to offend leaders or national and religious symbols in the arab world, you shall not damage social harmony, national unity, public order or traditional values. They threaten to revoke licences for those who break the rules.

The quicker I can get hold of TV from the west the better!

Sandbox · 10-09-2008

Woohoo! This is exciting news!

The SlingCatcher has gone on pre-sale in the USA.

Can't wait to get my hands on this product!

_http://www.slingmedia.com/go/slingcatcher-purchase

No info on the SlingMedia's UK website though...

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