Slingbox: Fine, but why would you use it?
Sling Media is the latest venture-backed Silicon Valley company that lets you watch your TV over the Internet or other connected device.
The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg has an effusive review of the San Mateo company's product. Om Malik joins in the praise. Techdirt says it's evidence the sector might be heating up a bit.
But our own Mike Langberg provides a reality check in his piece (free registration).
Where I'm stuck, though, is coming up with scenarios where Slingbox makes sense. There are certainly easier ways that deliver better-looking video for moving TV from one room of the house to another. If you want to watch recorded programs away from home, you can get a home DVD recorder for less than $200 and put the programs on rewritable DVDs to watch on your laptop -- again at much higher video quality.
The only situation where Slingbox stands out is when you're far from home and want to watch a live or recently recorded program, such a local sports broadcast, that isn't available where you are -- assuming you can access a broadband connection, and you're toting a laptop. Unless you're on the road a lot, this doesn't seem enough to justify spending $250 and working through a complicated install process.
Agreed - so many of these types of product companies, though, seem to be building a suite of products that would make more sense as a 'feature' of an overall PC software package (read MS Windows) - and I remember reading that MS was involved in some way (investment?) in Sling... so yeah, why should I spend that kind of money on it?
snirula on July 5, 2005 2:53 PMComment link
this slinbox is great! I travel extesively in foreign lands. Local TV usually is aweful. Hotels usually have broadband. I can now watch my home TV- AWESOME! I just spent 10 days throughout India and it worked like a charm.
g550guy on July 20, 2005 1:29 AMComment link
