SatelliteGuys First Look Review - DISH Sling Adapter

I already have a DISH Sling Adapter on TV2, but I am now interested in doing placeshifting with TV1. I am just curious what other devices people here have tried and how they compare to DISH Sling Adapter. Also, I assume that I could use both simultaneously, provided that the network would handle that. I could see my family and I traveling and my wife and I could be watching TV1 remote through a device and my sons watching TV2 remotely through DISH Remote Access.
 
When looking for a machine to run dish online video (or any online video) you want to look for one that supports hardware acceleration of Adobe Flash video. The early Atom based netbooks do not support hardware accelerated flash. The newer acer netbooks may, depending on the video card they have. it's a function of the video card and the drivers for it along with the version of Flash.
 
Saw the Vulkano Flow on Engadget tonight. Started reading up on it and thought maybe the Sling Adapter would be better. So all I want to do is placeshift HD content within my own home. In simple terms, I want to watch content from my 722 upstairs in my basement bedroom. Looks like the Vulkano does 720x480. How is that going to look on my 40-inch 720p LCD?

From what I understand, the Sling Adapter is tied to the internet. Meaning I am at the mercy my broadband upload speed. I can't just pipe content inside my home network with the Sling Adapter correct?
 
From what I understand, the Sling Adapter is tied to the internet. Meaning I am at the mercy my broadband upload speed. I can't just pipe content inside my home network with the Sling Adapter correct?
Not true. I get 8Mbps+ streams from the sling adapter on my LAN even though my internet upload speed is under 500Kbps.
 
Not true. I get 8Mbps+ streams from the sling adapter on my LAN even though my internet upload speed is under 500Kbps.
Lets qualify that ... you're getting an 8 meg stream *because* your connection was authenticated to dish & sling.
If you do not have an internet connection, you can not use your sling adapter. Additionally, during playback "administrivia" is continually sent to sling (not so much as to cause a drag on your internet connection) ... and with that information, they sometimes send adjustments ... or so we are led to believe ....

Also ... currently there's a user that swears their Ipad, even though connected via the house internet not 3g ... is causing the stream feed to go up to sling and back down to the ipad ... it could be specific to the ipad, or it could be connected to the whole "i whatever" device line if something special is done to adapt it for the device.. I don't have apple devices (mostly don't want them) so I can't test or confirm what the deal is yet.. but I *do* know that like mdavej ... on PC connections the *data* goes sling to pc ... and administrivia only goes to dish/sling.
 
Good point. Yes, you do need internet connectivity for authentication, etc. FWIW, my iPad catches my sling at full speed/quality on my LAN. Perhaps the OP's network is configured such that the sling and iPad can't see each other on the LAN, so it's treated as an outside streaming client.
 
Perhaps the OP's network is configured such that the sling and iPad can't see each other on the LAN, so it's treated as an outside streaming client.
yeah.. I've proposed that to that other OP on that issue.. but haven't gotten word back... and without having one of my own to see how it works.. I can't tell the guy he's wrong.. :) He says he's seeing the stream exit his routers' wan port and reenter (cisco router not el cheapo soho stuff)
 
This is kind of a long shot, but has anybody here used the Dish Remote Access Android application on BOTH 2.1 AND 2.2? I am just curious if it performs any better on 2.2 than it does on 2.1?
 
This is kind of a long shot, but has anybody here used the Dish Remote Access Android application on BOTH 2.1 AND 2.2? I am just curious if it performs any better on 2.2 than it does on 2.1?

I have only run mine on 2.2..used a hava player before that(2.1)....I have an EVO4g and 2.2 blocked some type of stream, now it is fixed....If you have a problem you ask questions like that at slings web site and you get nothing in return...I just dont get this dish/sling marrage?????

I want them to enable the hdmi output on my Evo, and cant get ahold of them or even a responce???

So to your answer wifi is 70 percent better than 3g while using 2.2 im my opinion.
 
This sling adapter seems pretty neat! I just built a HTPC with Windows 7 MCE on it and am wanting to watch my dish network programming on it (the computer). I want my wife to be able to watch movies, dish, and browse the internet all from the desktop of the HTPC itself. Initially, I was thinking that I needed to find a good TV tuner card to accomplish this feat, however now i'm thinking this little guy could accomplish the same task with a little more simplicity. Does anyone have any input on this idea? I see where the tuner card could have some upsides such as recording dish programming directly to my HDD, but my main goal is simply to get it all on one interface.
 
Yes, this works. The Dish Remote Access web interface is ponderous at best, but it mostly works, eventually. ;) Too bad there is no MCE integration. :( The tuner card can record OTA in HD, but unless it's one of the rare HD DVRs using component inputs, you won't be recording HD from your Dish receiver.
 
I wish there was a way that i could "try" out the interface. I talked to one of the DN tech support guys tonight to see if i could get my money back, if i didn't like it. He said "no". So, basically, i guess I'd better be sure before i buy it.
 
I wish there was a way that i could "try" out the interface. I talked to one of the DN tech support guys tonight to see if i could get my money back, if i didn't like it. He said "no". So, basically, i guess I'd better be sure before i buy it.
Lets be honest ... there are downsides to the sling adapter. and unless someone says otherwise I would presume they are the same or simliar on the 922's.

First downside .. Lag ... while it seems the current version of the sling web player has overcome *some* of the lag (from 2 to 3 seconds down to 1 or 2) from the time you activate a button (like skip, or fast forward, pause, etc) the next big negative might overshadow lag..

Second downside, pause, skip, and play functions combined have unpredictable results. I compare this to my 625 receivers ... they seemed damned near bullet proof. I never had an issue with base functionality ... I had dying hard drives on a new unit 4 in 1 year, where as my older 625 was 5 years old and replaced only because we upgraded to HD ... but in their ability to Skip forward or back, to fast forward and play/pause/stop nearly on a dime... they were ... again.. damned near bullet proof.

I have 722k's now.. and while their "forward" skip usually works, their pause, in combination with skipping back, or with stepping forward is not something to go into unless you're preparred for any combination of wrongful behaviors... THIS issue is even worse when attempting to control the 722k via Sling connection. So much so.. that unless I'm really trying to squeeze my time out of watching remotely on the 722 ... I will just let the commercials play ... let alone that there seems to be no keyboard control for skip forward/back .. and no publically endorsed posting by Dish as to known keyboard commands ... which are necessary when using the web interface full screen.

3rd, Dish is still highly disjointed in their "watch" initiative. This in part because of the full on aquisition of Sling ... We have a different interface in Dish Remote Access, than we do in DishOnline.com than we do in Watch.sling.com ... They all access the same web sling player.. but the controls are different, there was even a problem with one of them (for me) watching online offerings where the content overlay (think of a picture frame's "matted" area) was covered in part by the dishonline.com outline, and so to see parts of the content in a window in the web browser, meant that you had to use scroll bars ...

oh and that's not to mention that there's still the Stand Alone Sling Player that Sling first had created for use with SlingBox devices, and the stand alone interface has a few superior features to the websling players ... the most significant of which would be the DVR like 1 hour "buffer" so that if you missed something you could go back upto an hour in the live TV stream you'd be watching via their stand alone, with a slider rather than attempting to issue a "skip back" or "rewind" to the DVR itself ... and this stand alone player... until they make changes will not work with Sling Adapters (older versions did.. and so some of us run them ... haven't tried their newest in a month to see if they've added the functionality specific to sling *adapters*)

But let me also counter all the negatives with ... had I to do over again.. I would have still bought my Sling Adapter. I might have purchased a stand alone slingbox pro ... and a sling adapter.. but I would not have gone for the 922 ... and the two reasons for that is the 4 dollar a month extra fee, and requiring 200 dollars up front for the 922. If my choice were 922 or no sling adapter ... I would have chosen a 722, and put the 200 toward an external sling box pro.

The 100 dollars I paid for the Sling Adapter added a functionality that works.. with features that *can* improve, even if right now it is only slightly better than hulu because its *my* content and can be current the same night its recorded...

Things that could be much improved.. allowing the UHF remote to control playback functions once Dish Remote Access is opened. ie.. I'm in the same household ... but don't need the expence of another TV when I have a second computer monitor that sits idle unless I'm doing soo much multi tasking that I need the extra space.. and the HD isn't there yet without heavy tolls on system resources (I'm on a 2.1 gig dual core amd system with an nvidia 8500GT video card, and 2 gigs of ram, I can stream full 1080p hd from Youtube, but can't get an HD feed from my sling, and the sling pushes 7 to 9 megs of network traffic in house just to do higher quality <non-hd>)

The new Sling Extender ... that should be out very soon, will be something to see and experience.. unfortunately with it not being a fully released product, there's not enough hard data on it to know which receivers it will work with from the start, and how well it would perform..ect..

So there you have it.. 99 dollars ... not much of a price to pay ... for the sling adapter ... and of course you can re-sell it on Ebay for 50 bucks.. the alternative.. PC Tuner card...

The mention about the HD and PC Tuner cards ... is because none of the dish boxes default with putting out an HD coax output ... if you have an OTA Module (Over the Air tuner add on) that may allow ATSC through ... but I don't know that for sure..
 
when you say "rare", would you have one in mind? are you saying that they won't record HD because of the DHCP thing?
Yes; and you are correct. You can't record anything from the only digital output of the receiver, the HDMI output, because of HDCP. So, for HD, this leaves only the component outputs. The Hauppage HD PVR works for many. If you want "cheap", you'll have to settle for recording SD. I have personally gotten great SD results using a Hava Platinum. I have also personally gotten unacceptably lousy results with NTSC tuner cards, or hybrid NTSC/ATSC tuner cards, possibly because they are just too cheap. Note that all of these recording methods are digitizing and compressing analog outputs, with the concomitant problems afforded us by those analog outputs from the Dish receiver.
 
well thanks for your help. I think i'm gonna go with the sling adapter over the tuner card, with hopes that the issues get resolved in the future with upgrades. FYI, I found a great program that i've been using with my new HTPC that I want to brag about, since its so great. It's called Input Director. It's basically a piece of software that I put on the HTPC and my netbook. It turns my HTPC into a "slave" and the netbook into a "master", allowing my netbook to control my HTPC as if i were using a wired keyboard right at the HTPC. If i want to do something on the HTPC such as open internet explorer, I simply move my pointer all the way to the right of the screen on my netbook and then when it goes off the screen--it appears on the HTPC screen. Its very simple and functional. Almost no need for a media center remote. its free.
 
Has anybody tried using Apple's new HDMI out iPad cable to watch Sling Adapter content on a connected HDTV? When I hook up my iPad (version 1) to my HDTV via the HDMI adapter I'm only getting audio, no video.
 
Has anybody tried using Apple's new HDMI out iPad cable to watch Sling Adapter content on a connected HDTV? When I hook up my iPad (version 1) to my HDTV via the HDMI adapter I'm only getting audio, no video.
First ... MegaPixle ... I noticed you've asked this in other threads too ... while not making new threads of old topics is a nicety ... to add a post like this nearly 2 months after activity on a thread isn't something where you should be expecting results

However ... I did find this at Uncle Google's House of Homeopathy & Personal Responsibility Clinics... (aka www.google.com ) under "... which ipad apps support ..."

http://www.theipadguide.com/faq/which-ipad-apps-support-hdmi-video-out-digital-av-adapter

Don't know the date on that, don' t know if apple updated or added additional applications that would be "allowed" to send video .. but it at the very least gives you a direction to go.

While I'd normally rail on dish to pay any fees or royalties needed to allow the video to work (if it is this restriction that causes it) I'd instead rail on Apple because of its DRM stance and attutude toward users and its use of witchcrafts and spells that keep their minions under their watchful eye never straying and never rising up with pitchfork or flame to burn the house of apple to cinders.. a powerful magic indeed. O:)
 
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Thanks for the response TG2. In addition to the apps mentioned in your link, the regular SlingPlayer software, for example, works via HDMI out on iPad 1. That gives me hope that someday there will be an update to the Dish Network software to allow this.
 
I was out of town in Atlanta GA for the better part of 6 weeks. I used the DISH Remote Access with my DISH 722k and Sling Adapter through my Garminfone a fair amount in the evenings. While the application certainly isn't perfect, I really enjoyed using it to watch local Minneapolis-Saint Paul news broadcasts while I was there.
 

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