Turn your laptop into a TV with Slingbox

Recently, I was approached by a buddy of mine who is single and has plenty of money to spend on gadgets but neither the technical knowledge nor the will to make things work if they are the slightest bit complex. With just under US$400, he had bought one of the relatively new Slingbox systems complete with accessories and wanted it set up.

Slingbox is the latest gadget that

• takes advantage of the spread of high-speed Internet connections,
• home networks, and
• the current trend for many people, especially business types, to carry a laptop computer on their travels.

Slingbox, which sells for US$250 or less, looks quite unusual. It's ten inches long by four inches wide and an inch-and-a-half high.

It plugs into the devices that send your TV signal –

• cable box,
• satellite box, or
• DVR.

Infrared signal systems are then attached to the TV devices. Once connected to your TV devices, the Slingbox is plugged into the router of your home computer network. Even if you have a wireless computer network at home, Slingbox needs to be hard-wired to an Ethernet port to reliably handle the massive stream of video data that makes up a television signal.

If your home computer network router isn't near your TV equipment, for about $100 you can buy from the manufacturer an adapter that will plug into any electrical outlet and use the existing wiring in your home to get the Slingbox signal to your router.

Once everything is connected, your laptop is able to be turned into a portable television, no matter where you are, and you can watch any TV programming that's available at your home. By calling up the controls on your computer screen, it's also possible to instruct your DVR to capture future programs and play back shows on its hard drive.

The quality of the picture and sound depends on how fast a connection you have for your computer. I found that, even with slower connections, Slingbox quality made the quality of my VHS movies look bad. The picture was pretty good and the sound, while not being perfect, left little to be desired. Laptop speakers tend to be too small to provide a decent sound quality, anyway. I’m often tempted to take external speakers whenever I travel in my own vehicles.
Now I look forward to convincing the family that this would make a good accessory for the company laptop on business trips, vacations, and weekends away at hotels.

Slingbox, can also use your desktop or laptop at home to serve as a TV system in any room, or on the patio in good weather.

I guess you could also give the free Slingbox software, Slingmedia, and your access code to distant friends, associates and family members with hi-speed internet and they could tune in to watch sports not available in their area.

I see that Slingmedia is now available for cellphones, offering software that allows palm-sized cellphones and minicomputers that run on Windows Mobile software to access it.