SlingBox Mobile Player - The Boredom Saviour

Have you ever been stuck at the airport? I’m sure you know just how boring it can be. I was sitting in the airport waiting for my plane to board the other day with no laptop! Shocking, I know. Thankfully, I’ve got the mobile version of SlingPlayer on my phone. With a couple button presses, I was dialled into my home TV and surfing the channels as if I was right in front of the TV.

The question I am often asked about SlingBox is in regards to the quality of the picture. It’s a fair question given the small nature of mobile devices. But the key thing to remember is the speed of 3G network. While it will work on an Edge device, the picture isn’t as nice as a higher speed device. The algorithm used by Sling is always adjusting to reflect the variables in network coverage. So if you have 3G, EVDO, or a WiFi enabled device, you’ll be much better off.

Another very common questions is how hard is it to setup? Well, if you’ve ever connected a VCR to your TV, you can connect a SlingBox. It works in the exact same way. Coax from the wall goes into the back of the SlingBox and then out to the TV. The only other thing you need to do is plug in an Ethernet cable into the back of it. Run some software on your computer and your done. Maybe I’ll do up a post some day that walks you through the process. But for now, trust me, it’s pretty easy.

One thing you really need to enjoy SlingBox from your mobile device is an unlimited data plan, or something very close to unlimited. Why? Well the answer is pretty simple, if you are going to be streaming an hour long TV show across the internet to your device, you’re going to chew through a 5or 10 MB plan pretty quickly.

I’ve included a couple screen shots of what you can expect to see when running in a Windows Mobile 3G enabled device. Full screen is the best viewing, but I included the other picture (up at the top of this post) so you can see the optimization numbers and what have you. The speed and fps will adjust over time. The number you see in that picture is what was displayed a minute or so after launching the player and connecting to my TV.

And this last picture is just because I thought the expression on his face was priceless.