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• Reviewed on: Intel Pentium D dual-core 3.46 GHz with 4GB DDR2 SDRAM (Corsair), ATI Radeon x1300 All-In-Wonder running Windows XP, with a U.S. Robotics Wireless MAXg ADSL gateway

Over the past few years, Tellywood has certainly been giving couch potatoes more reason to watch the boob tube, while hardware makers have been beavering away to make sure we don't miss much. For its part, Sling Media is taking the couch and your giant screen out of the equation with its Slingbox, which allows you to control and watch your own TV from anywhere in the world, or from the next room.

Originally released in 2005, the unit is now in its second generation, and allows you to control such devices as a DVD player, a personal video recorder or even a camcorder. The newer models have also been given video chips with a higher octane content.

The problem with sending TV signals using Internet protocol has always been bandwidth, and one really needs a broadband connection to watch outside of the home as well. And it's best to have a pretty fast home network to set it up — the Slingbox requires access to a router, although it can't connect over Wi-Fi.

Once correctly set up, the Slingbox Pro will allow you to control your TV or any other video source in your home-theatre setup from just about any computer with broadband Internet access. And that includes Mac computers, software for which has just been released just this week. Moreover, Sling Media has added mobile TV to the mix, letting users stream TV programming to any Windows Mobile-powered handheld or cellphone with a Web connection. (It could be a killer app, don't bet on it — it will come with a killer cellphone bill.)

Controlling the TV — even programming the PVR — is done by means of an on-screen remote control. In the case of the test machine, that meant connecting to Rogers' Scientific Atlanta 8300 digital set-top box via an on-screen image of the remote control that comes with the Rogers box. Click on the buttons with your mouse instead of your thumb. In Globetechnology's case, it worked pretty much as advertised, with a few glitches — the Mute, Favourites and Last Channel buttons, which are close together, responded as though were all mute buttons.

Sling Media said it has taken note of this issue, and it should be fixed in the next software release. Perhaps it was the fault of the codes that had been programmed into my remote when it was set up to work with this particular TV. But life is too short to figure all this out. Easier to work around the Favourite and Last Channel buttons.

The quality of the result is surprisingly good. This is, after all, an analog setup; it's not a high-definition signal, although it will take purely digital channels and transmit them as analog over the Internet. Still, the picture is about as good as you can get on any analog TV.

You can actually measure your network speed. At the bottom of the TV window is an indicator showing what the signal throughput is. In Globetechnology's tests, it peaked above 3,000 Kilobits per second, or 3 megabits, which is extraordinary, and avergaed in the high 2,000s.

But then there is the setup: It's not quite as easy as Sling Media would like you to believe.

It has three ways of connecting to the TV set: S-Video, component cables and a high-definition port, which requires a dongle and which is not included. This HD cable looks and plugs in exactly like an HDMI cable, but for some reason it isn't HDMI — you need to buy a proprietary HD cable from Sling Media that is correctly configured.

After connecting the component and S-video cables comes installing the Sling Player software, which in itself is interesting. Instead of putting the player on the included CD, Sling Media has included an installer that downloads the latest version of the player; Sling Media also likes to keep upgrading its software frequently, so users can always be up to date.

The software includes a lot of wizards to help users configure it to their preferences and optimal performance. And that's the area where I ran into trouble.

To make the TV signal available outside the home, the Slingbox demands to work on a specific port in the gateway/router, a process demanding port forwarding. In an attempt to help me along, the configuration software kindly offered me a list of router/gateway units from which I would select my make and model. Well, my brand (U.S. Robotics) was there, but not the model, and the instructions were totally different. What to do? That's where manual configuration enters the picture, and it can be a pretty geeky process.

The installation program suggested I turn on the universal plug-and-play (UPnP) in the gateway/router, but mine (a U.S. Robotics ADSL Gateway) had nothing about UPnP in either the manual or in the menus; I finally found it as an option way down under the DHCP tab. Most routers now leave UPnP activated as a default, but not mine. Port forwarding was another fun thing. In USR's language, port forwarding is called "port triggering," and I found it in the Security menu, and then under Virtual Servers.

This will be different for every router/gateway out there, and I can't guarantee Sling Media has thought of all of them, despite what appears to have been a heroic effort.

If, however, you can't configure your gateway/router for remote viewing, Sling Player will offer an on-line chat with Sling's tech support people, who are also be prepared to take control of your machine via Remote Desktop to get it set up. Enthusiastic support — now how rare is that?

Well, once those menus had been navigated, the rest of the installation of the Sling Player proceeded without a glitch. Moreover, the Slingbox has been designed as a totally transparent device. You can leave it on and forget it; it will not interfere with normal TV watching.

And since the virtual remote control on your screen is the same physical one you have at home, there is no new learning curve. The only disappointment is the reaction time.

If you click on the virtual remote on your computer screen, the signal is sent to the Slingbox, which sends it out of an infrared connector that is then pointed at the IR port of your home device. The simple act of changing a channel from the computer took an average of 14 seconds to complete. So it's best to forget channel surfing.

The Slingbox actually has two IR blasters at the other end, allowing you to control two more physical devices in your home theatre from the remote computer, and each must be physically attached near the device's IR sensor (there's stickum on these sensors for this purpose).

To watch your TV from the other side of the firewall — from the office or from Kuala Lumpur — you need to have a computer with the Sling Player installed, and configured from within your home network to find and identify your Slingbox on-line. Or you can use any broadband-connected computer by installing the Sling Player and entering your Slingbox's name and the 32-digit Finder ID given to it.

Although the Sling Player automatically optimizes the video quality, it is still at the mercy of the Web, and your Internet service provider. When you're broadcasting to the outside world, you're limited by the upstream bandwidth of your home's broadband connection, which is significantly less than your downstream speed.

I wish you could get the Slingbox software to learn the codes for your remote control or allow you to change its template. I also wish it could be used over a wireless network — 802.11n should be fast enough without having to run Ethernet cables of power-line Ethernet through the house. And I wish it could be as easy to set up as the new Apple TV.

The Slingbox comes in three flavours. Aside from the Slingbox Pro, there are two junior versions: the Slingbox Tuner ($179.99), which allows you to watch basic cable channels remotely on a PC or cellphone, and the Slingbox AV ($199.99), which can control digital cable, satellite or DVR programming on a PC or cellphone.

This is good technology. At the very least, it might help you get away from your couch more often.