Word: box
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...Setting up the Slingbox is easy. I plugged my cable box, a Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300HD with built-in DVR, into the Slingbox, then connected that to my TV and my home network via Ethernet. (There are many ways to do this; fortunately, Sling has many useful accessories, such as the $100 SlingLink which make it not-so-painful.) After everything was plugged in, I ran a simple software installer...
...order to simulate being on the road, I connected a Verizon Wireless BroadbandAccess card to my laptop, and dialed up to the carrier's highspeed mobile network. Connecting to the Internet via cellular modem, I was still able to pull up the cable box in my home, even though we could have been a continent apart. Connecting remotely did cost a lot of bandwidth however: at 300 Kbps, South Park and The Colbert Report were watchable, but game highlights from a Tino Martinez retrospective on the Yankees' YES network were wracked with digital blur...
...Sling newest addition is its SlingPlayer Mobile software for PDA phones ($30, but there?s a free trial). Using Sprint's UTStarcom PPC 6700, operating on a highspeed data network similar to Verizon's, I could pull up the cable box - live shows and ones I had already recorded. My only complaint is that the virtual remote control gets in the way of the on-screen program guide, so you can't see what you're trying to select. My clumsy solution was to keep toggling the remote...
...Sony's LocationFree LF-PK1 connects to a cable box and home network much like a Slingbox. It can take two video sources plus a cable straight from the wall, but unlike Slingbox, it doesn't come with enough wires to do a basic cable-box setup. The software setup was also a little more complicated, though in fairness I did configure everything in a short while...
...biggest complaint was that the LocationFree?s virtual on-screen remote didn?t have the right buttons to control my cable box. There was no List button, so I could not access a single show that I had recorded earlier. Also noticeably absent were the back-skip and live-TV buttons. My viewing options were basically limited to live...