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I will look for a company with better hardware and a more reputable support. The idea of paying extra to have an employee read the faq from their website is ludicrous. The first Slingbox went out on me right before warranty, luckily for me. The customer support is most certainly a call center with employees that use scripted solutions. Forget it. All in all I have liked my slingbox, while it worked. I was not so lucky the second time as the hardware failed yet again after the warranty. In my dealings with slingbox I have had to call them roughly 5 times, always miserable.
Unfortunately for me, the 250 dollar device I bought roughly 2 years ago is now unusable. Alas, I will not be replacing it. I have had a Slingbox pro since 2007. I called support to find out that in order to assist me I must pay the out of warranty fee. Slingbox said that they would charge me 100 dollars plus shipping to replace.
We use it all the time. My dad can watch his movies on the TV and my mom can watch her sports on the computer just my turning on the slingbox. It is one of the most reliable pieces of equipment in our house. My mom bought this for my dad. It is fantastic. It is a must.
it was under $300.00 when i purchased it in 07)is not what you will end up paying if your cable box isn't right next to your router ($80.00 for a Sling wireless bridge) or if you want to use the HDMI port ($50.00 I opted out). For $29.99 per incident they would be happy to tell you why your box no longer works as advertised. It's an even greater shame that the folks at Sling Media feel they have to gouge the consumer for their product's obvious shortcomings. You would think that the folks at Sling Media would want to stand behind their product and maybe offer some help and you would be right.
While I would never EVER purchase another Sling Media product of any sort, you might still be interested and if so I hope that this helps you make an informed decision. Certainly, anybody who's had the same experience I've had is going to look at a different brand (Hava, Sony etc) and never buy another Sling Media product again. It's possible that Sling Media only has a short term outlook and they want to make as much money as they can before they go out of business. You had better hope that it stops working within the warranty period or you can just throw it away. If you're shopping for this item or something similar, then you already know the price advertised (this item went up. Here we are again with a box that now has a problem with video distortion that makes it completely unwatchable and ultimately useless. It's a shame that this product works for a limited time before it breaks (and if you buy one it will fail eventually).
If you don't believe me, go to the Sling Media Community forums and browse through the problems others have had and their collective experiences with Sling Media support. While the Sling Box Pro works as advertised, it only works for a finite amount of time and then it stops working. I'm already on my second box as the first one simply stopped working, as did many other owners' boxes, (see Sling Community forums)and they replaced it. In this day and age, while I'm not surprised, I'm still disgusted.
I needed an adapter dongle with R/G/B connections, but those are suprisingly cheap on eBay.Getting the SlingboxPro configured was MUCH easier than a few years ago. You may need to enlist the help of a nerdy family friend or a local expert. Getting video outside of the home network is a bit more of a challenge, since you need to tell your router to let the Slingbox see the Internet and vice-versa. We have a big DLP set in the living room, fed by Comcast cable. After that, bingo--our remote laptops can see the Slingbox (and thus the Tivo box) from anywhere.
This is a very clever concept, but it deals intimately with home computer networking, TV hookups, cable TV complications, and internet variability, so it's no surprise that getting it all to work can often be a challenge.We have a 3-year-old SlingboxPro. So, we bought a TivoHD unit, and now the living room video setup is simple and easy to use.Once the TivoHD issue was settled, I turned to getting the Slingbox up and running again. The setup guide was much more user-friendly than before, and we had video on our home PCs in just a few minutes. Very slick.But as mentioned this setup is not for the newbie. I am a bit surprised by some of the hostility in the reviews.
Six months ago Comcast went all-digital, rendering our Tivo Series2 box less useful, and the Comcast HD converter box they provided was just awful. The automatic setup didn't work for us, but after a few false starts we found the web pages that explained to us how to go into the router (a DI-524 from D-Link) and make the changes necessary.
The minute I got back in country, I tried it, there was a problem with the connection, the first thing that came to my head was "I knew it, just like anything else that states it works anywhere, well it didn't" So when i got back to my actual living area, I tried it again, and man I was like a kid in the candy store. You won't regret it.They sell two types, get the one with the built in tuner, if not, you and your wife/husband will be fighting over witch show you are watching :)(By the way, I am not getting a dime from this company at all, this is my way of "word of mouth" and endorsing a good product, the US Military has nothing to do with this or the Slingbox company). I was watching television from the states in Iraq. I went to the web page and liked what I saw and decided to buy it. At certain times of the day, the buffing is real slow, the video is choppy, but once it is on, it is on.
When I came to the Slingbox icon, I decided to see what it was about. Well when i came home for R&R, I decided I'm going to try it out and if it don't work over here, then at least I can use it for road trips. I no longer had to watch AFN (Armed Forces Network) at all. So, to all my brothers and sisters in arms, deployed or not, or if your family members that want to get you something in your "care" package, I highly recommend you tell them to get the Slingbox, or before you deploy or PCS overseas, purchase the Slingbox. When I bought my laptop, I usually delete all the extra's stuff that is installed on it.
When I deployed to Iraq this past spring, I didn't get the box because the majority of the things I see that says "watch any where or use any where" it is usually for businessmen going in and out of the country for a few days. The only draw back and I say again, the only draw back is the internet connection.
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