Speaking of mobile TV, why not set up your own personal TV station? I did this during the recent Network World Draft n tests, and it’s very easy to do. I used a Slingbox Pro and simply connected it to an Ethernet switch port on a wireless router. That’s it. Personal TV, anywhere in the house.
The SlingPlayer client is fairly easy to use and will emulate the remote control of your cable box. You can, of course, open a couple of router ports and watch your Slingbox over the Internet theoretically from anywhere, even on some mobile phones. But all I was looking for was to get rid of some cable boxes and still be able to watch TV from anywhere in the house. The picture quality is pretty good and the bit rate is usually around 3 Mbps, so no big strain on Wi-Fi – although I’d recommend .11n here because, well, I always recommend .11n now. You can refine the settings on the Slingbox if effective usable bandwidth is an issue. The Pro model has component video connectors and I have to say that, while it’s not as good as HDTV right out of the cable box, it’s pretty darn good. I may eventually use a wireless bridge to connect the Slingbox to the rest of the network, but it’s not essential as connecting to another SSID is trivial.
I am shortly going to be testing a Slingbox competitor, the MediaGate MG-350HD. Look for the results in this year’s Network World Christmas Gift Guide in the second half of November. Regardless, whole-house, high-quality video distribution is here now.
