Product Reviews

You need never endure the boredom of foreign hotel rooms again, as Slingmedia's Slingbox lets you watch UKTV from anywhere in the world. This box takes an S-video or SCART input, or uses its built-in Freeview tuner, and streams the video from your home, via broadband to a single PC anywhere on the internet.

This may sound like a nightmare to get working, but Slingmedia's network setup is one of the easiest we've used. As the Slingbox is UPnP-compliant, it can configure a compatible router automatically. If your router doesn't support UPnP, the Slingbox does its best to make it easy to set up port forwarding (virtual servers) by displaying a single page with all the settings that you'll need; see www.portforward.com for detailed help with configuring your router.

Connecting to the Slingbox from over the internet requires you to enter your unique 32-digit code followed by a password (the admin password lets you change settings; the viewing password lets you watch TV). Slingmedia's servers redirect your player to your Slingbox. This process means you don't have to know your broadband connection's IP

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address. However, we would have preferred an easier-to-use locator, allowing you to give your Slingbox a unique name.

If you're using an external input, such as Sky+ box, you also have to connect the Slingbox's IR transmitter. This broadcasts the same commands as your remote control, so you can change channels, access the guide and recorded programmes, and power the box on and off remotely. When you connect to your Slingbox, a replica of your remote is displayed, so using your set-top box over the internet is as easy as it is at home. Be careful how you use it, though, as changing channels remotely can be annoying for the person watching at home. If someone's already using your set-top box, you can use the Freeview tuner to watch those channels independently.

Video quality depends on the speed of your internet connection. The Slingbox monitors the connection automatically and raises or lowers video quality on demand. We regularly achieved speeds of around 256Kbit/s, which is fine for watching video at full screen and even reading scrolling text. Artefacts are evident, though, so we recommend sitting back from the screen or watching in windowed mode. Use the Slingbox at home - whether it's from the bottom of the garden or your bed - and you'll easily get 2Mbit/s. There's little difference between watching streamed video and your actual TV. There's no direct control over the stream, though, so you can pause, rewind or fast-forward video only if your set-top box can do those things. This makes using the built-in Freeview tuner less flexible, as there's no way to time-shift its video.

Slingmedia's Slingbox has been brilliantly designed and works flawlessly with set-top boxes. If you can't be without your TV, there's nothing better.