Audio

The original Slingbox excelled in audio quality, and usually always sounded good regardless of how fast I was pulling data from the Slingbox. The new line of Slingboxes sound as good, if not better than the original, but it may take a little tinkering to get it just right. The volume output of digital TV devices can vary widely, and Sling has upped the gain on the Slingbox audio inputs enough to cause distortion in certain situations.

Fortunately, there's a new master volume adjustment slider in the Audio/Video Master Settings page of the A/V configuration wizard. If you find your audio clipping or distorting at higher volume, move the slider down until the distortion disappears.

Remote Performance

Unfortunately, there's been little improvement in video quality when streaming remotely using SlingStream. Each Slingbox is still capped at 320x240 provided the upstream bandwidth allows it. It is possible to stream at full resolution by disabling SlingStream settings, but without an adequately fast upload and download conditions, it's not recommended. However, if you have a super-fast upload speed (in excess of 2.5Mbps), you may get a small performance bump from the higher bitrates on the new Slingboxes even with SlingStream on. I'm unaware of any cable or DSL services offering upload speeds that high in the United States, but fiber-based customers will see a bump in quality from the new hardware... and may be able to support their new hardware at full quality.

U.S. Internet connections are quickly stepping up in speed, and I feel its only a matter of time before Sling Media sends out a software update that will give the option to stream video to your remote location at the highest quality settings with SlingStream enabled. Besides, why prevent folks from getting a better remote experience if they have the means?

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