Slingbox from SlingMedia is one of my favorite things to use. Being rather addicted to watching the Food Network and TLC’s What Not to Wear it’s great to just grab my laptop and check out what’s on wherever I am. My favorite time to use Slingbox? In the car on long road trips.
Normally to watch your cable or satellite box you have to be there, in front of your TV. With a SlingBox you can shift your viewing to any PC after downloading the SlingPlayer and entering your administrator password. A SlingBox can range in price from $129.99 to $229.99.
Today the SlingPlayer for Windows 2.0 was released with some nice updated features. First, and my favorite, a new program guide. Simply click view, choose show program guide and you no longer have to remember what channels are your favorites from memory. You can scroll through the program guide, just like on your home TV. This makes things much nicer to use in my opinion. You can finally find movies with just a click of the mouse.
Another new feature is the live buffering feature which works like a DVR or Tivo in the sense that you can pause, rewind and record up to 60 minutes of TV. Great for when you need a break to go to the kitchen or also if you are getting a crappy signal for some reason you could record a large protion before playing it so things wil run more smoothly.
The third major new feature is the use of Sling Accounts. Basically if you have a SlingBox and you set up an account you can then use your SlingBox on any computer with SlingPlayer. I can see how this could be useful when I visit some of my relatives who don’t have cable TV.