Setting Up the Slingbox Tuner

Of all the new Slingboxes, the Tuner is definitely the easiest to set up. There’s no IR emitter cables or A/V connections to deal with. When connecting the Tuner to an unused RF jack, it’s as simple as screwing one end of the RF cable to the Slingbox, and the other to the wall. If connecting the Slingbox to an RF jack currently in use, you can opt to use the RF pass-thru feature on the back of the Slingbox, or use the coaxial splitter that they graciously included in the box.

Once the Tuner is connected to your antenna or cable connection, the last step is getting connected to the router. Since the Tuner customer isn’t bound by the physical location of cable or satellite receiver, I’d recommend hooking the Slingbox to an RF jack located in the same physical room as your network router (unless you have a whole house LAN. If so, install it anywhere near an open Ethernet jack). This will allow a quick hardwired connection using the supplied Ethernet cable.

None of the new Slingboxes have built-in support for Wi-Fi connections, so if the Slingbox will be installed away from the network router, you’ll need to pick up a Wi-Fi to Ethernet bridge or Powerline network extender to make the connection to your home network. Either option will set you back about 60 to 80 bucks, but since the Tuner is geared toward the untechnical, I’d opt for the plug-and-play simplicity of Powerline products.

Setting up the Software

Once the Slingbox Tuner is wired into your cable/antenna line and home network, you need to install the SlingPlayer Software on your computer. SlingPlayer is compatible with just about any Windows 2000 SP4/XP/Vista/Mac OS X computer running on anything but stone-age hardware.

The Slingbox Tuner ships with a CD that contains a digital user guide, demo, and other information. It does not actually include the SlingPlayer software on the CD, and instead launches an automated program that downloads the latest version from Sling Media. Sling Media continually improves the SlingPlayer over time, and you should expect a flurry of new releases immediately after launch. If it were on the CD, it would already out of date. If you want, you can just skip the disc and download the most recent build of the software from Sling Media’s support site manually.

One area Sling Media has always excelled is in customer support, providing an easy-to-use wizard interface that helps you get your Slingbox up and running.

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