The Place-Shifting Paradigm
A few weeks ago, we wrote about digital media receivers, which let you stream music or video from your computer or server to your home entertainment system. And that is pretty cool, no question. But when it comes to streaming video, it's hard not to be a little more geeked about streamers that work in the opposite direction. These ingenious gadgets, often called "place shifters," let you watch the programming available on your home TV--whether from your digital cable box, your satellite receiver, your TiVo, or your DVD player--through your laptop or mobile phone. And not just when you're sitting in the other room; we're talking anywhere in the world, provided you can receive broadband Internet service.
As the first to market, Sling Media's Slingbox still has the highest profile of all the streamers/place shifters/whatevers, with three versions in current release. The Slingbox Solo is designed for a single video source, such as a DVR or cable box, and is a good option for people who don't want to spend a ton of money. The Slingbox Pro is a bit more expensive but also more versatile, with the ability to connect to up to four video sources at once. But let's face it, HD programming is where it's at these days, so anyone with high (definition) standards will opt for the Slingbox Pro-HD, which connects to any of your HD sources for true high-definition streaming. The Slingbox Pro and Pro-HD also include built-in cable tuners (analog in the case of the Pro and digital in case of the Pro-HD), so you can access your cable programming through the Internet without changing the channel on your home TV, or pick up over-the-air HD broadcasts in your region (Pro-HD only).
The Slingbox is by no means alone in this category, however. Monsoon offers the Hava, with four cascading products: the Hava Gold, the Hava Platinum HD, the Hava Wireless HD, and the Hava Titanium HD Wi-Fi. The Hava Gold is the value-priced band member, with a design that lets you connect up to three video sources at a time. The Platinum HD offers essentially the same services but with an upgrade to HD-quality video. The Hava Wireless HD and the Hava Titanium HD Wi-Fi, meanwhile, offer a more robust feature set that includes built-in wireless support, so you don't need to connect to the Internet when watching TV through your PC. Instead, you can just stream the video direct through your wireless network to several PCs at once.
Among the other place-shifting options on the market are Sony's LocationFree line of products and Orb, a company that shies away from the hardware business and instead focuses on free media sharing via its downloadable MyCast service.
Daniel on October 17, 2008 at 02:25 PM
All these devices are very cool but I found they annoy my family at home when I change channels on them and upload speeds pretty crappy from my DSL so I started using http://parkmytv.com which is a 'hosted tv' service for place-shifting devices. I sent them my box and for $49/mo I now have super fast bandwidth ie. video quality, no channel conflicts and free reboots if it locks up. It's a beta currently but accepting limited new customers, was lucky enough to get in and lovin it :)
Miranda on January 24, 2011 at 11:02 AM
I have been using something similar for awhile now. I work for DISH and when they came out saying that they were getting the Slingbox. I decided to jump in and get it, not being to tech savvy myself. However I got it home and my husband set it up and got everything working with my Android phone, and it has to be the coolest thing ever. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who wants to be able to watch their paid TV programming anywhere in world! (That has wifi)