February 4, 2009 6:05 AM

heycable said: I was a fan until recently. Two weeks ago I had connectivity issues. Chat support helped resolve and I connected. Then, tonight, I encounter the same issue (I could not connect). Their response was that I needed to cough up $30 to get help. Simple logic defied them. They could not grasp that this was a recurring issue and not a new case. So, if you want a product with half a**ed support, then go ahead and throw your money away. Otherwise, save the coin and DO NOT PURCHASE FROM THIS LOUSY ECHOSTAR CORPORATION.

After posting my grievances I was able to speak with a VP of customer relations.  He was a nice guy and all and enabled me to continue receiving support for my recurring problem.  However, I still cannot recommend buying these devices if, like me, you travel for long periods of time and don't have anyone at your home base to maintain the box.  Two weeks after leaving home for work, travelling 4000 miles, I lost connectivity.  I don't know if there was a power outage or the router changed a settign.  The point is, I cannot get to the device until I reset the software.  The software, in this case cannot be reset remotely.  So, here I am in a distant land and my $200 (or whatever price) plastic box sits in my living room gathering dust.

 Until Sling figures out how to keep things running, it's a potential waste of money.   Great idea / weak execution.

February 16, 2009 2:55 PM

heycable said:

heycable said: I was a fan until recently. Two weeks ago I had connectivity issues. Chat support helped resolve and I connected. Then, tonight, I encounter the same issue (I could not connect). Their response was that I needed to cough up $30 to get help. Simple logic defied them. They could not grasp that this was a recurring issue and not a new case. So, if you want a product with half a**ed support, then go ahead and throw your money away. Otherwise, save the coin and DO NOT PURCHASE FROM THIS LOUSY ECHOSTAR CORPORATION.

After posting my grievances I was able to speak with a VP of customer relations.  He was a nice guy and all and enabled me to continue receiving support for my recurring problem.  However, I still cannot recommend buying these devices if, like me, you travel for long periods of time and don't have anyone at your home base to maintain the box.  Two weeks after leaving home for work, travelling 4000 miles, I lost connectivity.  I don't know if there was a power outage or the router changed a settign.  The point is, I cannot get to the device until I reset the software.  The software, in this case cannot be reset remotely.  So, here I am in a distant land and my $200 (or whatever price) plastic box sits in my living room gathering dust.  Until Sling figures out how to keep things running, it's a potential waste of money.   Great idea / weak execution.

What a lot of people seem to miss is the fact that both the slingcatcher and slingbox depend on the router. If the router goes down (power outage, malfunction) and it "re-scans" for attached devices and gives the slingbox a different IP address, you won't be able to connect. Is that Sling's/slingbox's fault? No, it's the router's. You can try with a static IP on your router for that matter.

February 20, 2009 8:10 AM

I travel a lot and I have 2 x SlingBox Pro 1 x GB Slingbox with digital tuner.
One Pro is in US, others in UK.
I have 4 sling catchers, 1 in UK, 3 in Greece.

They all work together without complaint, as they should. And have done for months.

Seeing various threads on this forum,some things become clear.

If you are ignorant of Networking, Routers, Ports, Static and Dynamic IP addresses, DHCP and DDNS, you may be in for a struggle.
SlingMedia assume that all their users are pretty stupid and simplistic and provide no higher level technical help in their instructions.
Learn about these things and you will not be dependent on help lines.
For instance, set up your router for remote configuration. Gives you the ability to remotely reset it. As others have said, the router can block. resetting fixes this easily. Fix up your stuff with static IPs. Consider direct access to static IP address:PortNo from your computer. Use a Dynamic DNS server as an alternative path to SlingFinder.
Have realistic expectations of your remote viewing. The quality will be as good as your Internet routing allows. Having a 1 megabit upload speed doesn't mean that you will stream at anything like that. From across a continent or an ocean, it will be 300k - 600k if you are lucky. Still good fullscreen viewing on your laptop, but not so good on a 42inch Plasma.

That said, I'm still not sure if my SlingCatchers will work with a SlingBox HD.
I wish the Slingcatchers would allow direct SlingBox finding, not via SlingFinder.
I have a sore thumb from their stupid stupid alphanumeric entry system. Why can't they do phone button alphanumeric keying like the rest of the world?
(actually I know why, it's because they are engineer-centric not user interface centric. Some engineer comes along and says 'I've found a different way of keying in letters. I thought of it and it's new so it must be better. These unfortunates need locking in a room with decaf only till they come back to earth)
There is absolutely no guidance in the simplest of necessary actions. For instance you have a remote SlingBox controlling a SKY sat tuner. The tuner is off when you connect with the Sling Catcher. How do you turn it on? There is absolutely nothing anywhere that tells you how to do this. ( You have to quickly hit the power switch of the SlingCatcher remote before it drops the connection and tell it not to switch the SlingCatcher off but turn the Remote Device on). Just as the mapping of remotes to the Sling player software is elegant and efficient, so using remote features from the SlingCatcher is a nightmare. Much more work needs to be done here.

Make no mistake, the Slingbox system is a technological tour de force without peer on the internet and it will polish up nicely in time.

August 30, 2009 6:27 AM

Yes, the Slingbox Pro - Slingcatcher - Plasma TV will indeed work straight through without any computer being involved.

The latest software update has improved the usability.

Bear in mind that you really need to test your parents uplink speed to check that there is enough speed to give you a good picture.

256k up in not enough, 512k up is not enough. The picture will be crappy.
756k is getting there, 1 megabit up is usable.
Over an international link you may expect to lose about half of your notional uplink speed.
1 megabit will give you a practical bandwidth of 500/600 kilobits. Good enough to fill a plasma screen reasonably.
More is better if you want it for sports rather than soaps.

Also you need to check that your parent's connection has an unlimited traffic agreement or their monthly allowance will be rapidly used up.

Happy Catching !