Slingbox Pro-HD

[Sun Tzu]

Hey all. I recently moved from the SF Bay Area to Oahu. As it turns out, all of the companies out here black out not only Giants and A's games, but 49er games as well. When asked they had no answer other than "TV contracts and legalities". What makes even less sense is that Hawai'i is considered SoCal territory and they air Dodgers/Padres games without a problem. If this is SoCal territory, why in the hell would you black out NorCal teams? Ugh...we considered getting directv but the dish they have to install is FOUR FEET WIDE and they would have to stick it on a pole in the ground in middle of the front yard. Seriously? Dish Network as well as mlb.tv are both subject to the same blackout rules for the Giants/A's/49ers.

So I'm going with the following set up. My mother-in-law still lives in the Bay Area and we're going to have her upgrade her internet service and get an extra HD-DVR dedicated strictly to this. Then we're going to slap a Slingbox Pro-HD onto that bad boy and broadcast it to a PC I'm building out here which will be hooked up via HDMI to our 42" flat panel. Our download/upload will be roughly 30M/7M at the slingbox location, which from what I've read should be plenty. Our download out here runs between 7M and 8M, and that's the fastest on the island. Our TV is a 1080p (Sling maxes out at 1080i) 240hz LCD. The PC will be plenty beefy to handle the HD signal. Does anybody here have any experience streaming HD with a slingbox?

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu

Hey all. I recently moved from the SF Bay Area to Oahu. As it turns out, all of the companies out here black out not only Giants and A's games, but 49er games as well. When asked they had no answer other than "TV contracts and legalities". What makes even less sense is that Hawai'i is considered SoCal territory and they air Dodgers/Padres games without a problem. If this is SoCal territory, why in the hell would you black out NorCal teams? Ugh...we considered getting directv but the dish they have to install is FOUR FEET WIDE and they would have to stick it on a pole in the ground in middle of the front yard. Seriously? Dish Network as well as mlb.tv are both subject to the same blackout rules for the Giants/A's/49ers.

So I'm going with the following set up. My mother-in-law still lives in the Bay Area and we're going to have her upgrade her internet service and get an extra HD-DVR dedicated strictly to this. Then we're going to slap a Slingbox Pro-HD onto that bad boy and broadcast it to a PC I'm building out here which will be hooked up via HDMI to our 42" flat panel. Our download/upload will be roughly 30M/7M at the slingbox location, which from what I've read should be plenty. Our download out here runs between 7M and 8M, and that's the fastest on the island. Our TV is a 1080p (Sling maxes out at 1080i) 240hz LCD. The PC will be plenty beefy to handle the HD signal. Does anybody here have any experience streaming HD with a slingbox?

Yes, I stream HD from a slingbox to my work. I have a 15 Mbps upload at home where the slingbox is located and 70 Mbps download at work, and no issues at all. I assume 7M upload for you should be enough even though some times on my home LAN the HD speed exceeds that.

The only thing I would comment on is in regard to building a computer only for the hookup to the TV seems excessive (unless you are building the computer for other things in addition to this.) If you are using it only for the streaming, check out the slingcatchers. Some people love them and others hate them, but they are fairly cheap now (under $100) and might work better for you.

Regardless of the setup you have though, I have found sports viewing (especially football) on the slingbox isn't as smooth even over HD as watching it in person. It is outstanding quality if you have high bandwidth available though, but don't expect it to be just like sitting there at the tv.

[Sun Tzu]

Thanks for the input. I got the feeling while reading reviews on the slingcatcher that it can limit the quality of HD that it displays on your tv. The PC I'm building is only running me about $500 (thank you newegg), which we will also be using for some occasional PC gaming as well as NES/SNES/Genesis Rom gaming. The $$$ really isn't an issue for me, it's much more a matter of being able to sit down on the couch and watch the Giants every night.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu

Thanks for the input. I got the feeling while reading reviews on the slingcatcher that it can limit the quality of HD that it displays on your tv. The PC I'm building is only running me about $500 (thank you newegg), which we will also be using for some occasional PC gaming as well as NES/SNES/Genesis Rom gaming. The $$$ really isn't an issue for me, it's much more a matter of being able to sit down on the couch and watch the Giants every night.

Yeah, if money is not an issue then build yourself a nice HTPC that can stream the slingplayer on the tv but also do other things with movies or such as you may wish. If you're already spending the money on the parts to connect to the tv, might as well make it multi-purpose.

[k0ruptr]

I have nothing to add except welcome to Hawaii, and I'm moving back to Oahu in a couple months. I smell an FOFC party.

[Sun Tzu]

Originally Posted by k0ruptr

I have nothing to add except welcome to Hawaii, and I'm moving back to Oahu in a couple months. I smell an FOFC party.

Haha. Howzit?

For sure man. You're welcome to check out our new digs. We have a killer view of the entire town of Kailua, not to mention the Ko'olau mountain range and the ocean. This is from our upper lanai (we also have a much larger lower one w/ the same view)...and the last pic is how the parties get started. Mai Tai's all day long.

[k0ruptr]

hell yea. You already know the Hawaii lifestyle, haha. good man.

[k0ruptr]

Dola, Sun you know I will be dragging you with me to every damn Warrior home game, so be ready!

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by Alan T

Yes, I stream HD from a slingbox to my work. I have a 15 Mbps upload at home where the slingbox is located and 70 Mbps download at work, and no issues at all. I assume 7M upload for you should be enough even though some times on my home LAN the HD speed exceeds that.

How do you get such a fast upload speed? It seems like all the companies around here offer 1-3 Mbps upload speeds. Is it through a regular ISP?

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

How do you get such a fast upload speed? It seems like all the companies around here offer 1-3 Mbps upload speeds. Is it through a regular ISP?

Its just verizon fios. Seems like most major cities these days have either Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, Charter or someone else offering something comparable. My plan is 25Mbps down and 15Mbps up, and it is not even their expensive plans. If you live further outside of cities (or in major cities but in areas where no one has upgraded the infrastructure) you likely are still limited on upload speed.

[stevew]

Can't you trade log ins with someone for MLB.TV? Like for instance, the pirates are blacked out in my area. So if we traded log ins, you would have blacked out Pirates and I would have blacked out Giants? Or doesn't that work anymore.

[k0ruptr]

Originally Posted by stevew

Can't you trade log ins with someone for MLB.TV? Like for instance, the pirates are blacked out in my area. So if we traded log ins, you would have blacked out Pirates and I would have blacked out Giants? Or doesn't that work anymore.

I'm pretty sure they check IPs before the game now, and even if your login is based in wherever, Its where you are there its blacked out

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by stevew

Can't you trade log ins with someone for MLB.TV? Like for instance, the pirates are blacked out in my area. So if we traded log ins, you would have blacked out Pirates and I would have blacked out Giants? Or doesn't that work anymore.

I thought they used to use IP address to determine black outs at one point. I haven't used them in a few years though.

[Sun Tzu]

The IP thing is correct. I had to do a lot of digging over a couple days only to realize there was absolutely no way possible to avoid the blackout other than the slingbox route.

k0ruptr,

Gladly! Is there tailgating before the game too? In SF I use to show up 3+ hours early before every game and grill up some onolicious grubz

[Sun Tzu]

Alright, I'm just about a week away from pulling the trigger on this new rig.

Alan - What are the specs on the machine that you're using to view the HD stream? Do you see any stuttering/pixelation that could be attributed to having too weak of a GPU? Let me know...I'm considering just going with one of the new intel i3 chips which has pretty good Media Graphics built in.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu

Alright, I'm just about a week away from pulling the trigger on this new rig.

Alan - What are the specs on the machine that you're using to view the HD stream? Do you see any stuttering/pixelation that could be attributed to having too weak of a GPU? Let me know...I'm considering just going with one of the new intel i3 chips which has pretty good Media Graphics built in.

I usually just do it on a pretty standard dual-core system. Don't know the exact specs, but I usually don't have too many problems. My impression is that the biggest issue for it would be bandwidth. I guess if you plan on doing other things at the same time you can encounter issues with cpu load.

The only thing I ever see stuttering issues with is faster moving sports.

[Sun Tzu]

Yeah...as it turns out I can bump my upload where the slingbox is located to 10MB, so I should be ok there. My download at home tops out at 15, so again...I should be ok. Is your receiving computer a mass produced one? Like a Dell, HP, or IBM or something? If so, do you see a model number anywhere on it?