I was finally able to switch from a Dish 622 to a 722k this summer and I want to add Sling Box capability. I am not in a real big hurry, but I was looking online and I see that the Sling Adapter is "coming soon". Does anybody have any helpful tips on whether I should wait for that or simply buy something that is available currently? I can't really seem to tell what the likely differences are between what the adapter will offer vs. existing boxes. Is the attraction of the Sling Adapter going to be simplicity in installation, small size, or is there something else I am missing?
Dish 722k: Wait For Sling Adapter or Buy Now?
- Thread starter Jim1348
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I am pretty sure the Sling adapter is transcoding entirely within the digital domain. If that is true, then the quality should be as good as it can get vis a vis external place shifting devices such as the Slingbox. The latter is doing an analog-to-digital conversion before encoding.
Not sure if you checked out Sling's site Jim, but the adapter is the Slingbox 700u. It's connected with only a USB cable so, as TheKrell correctly said, it stays completely digital (and HD) the whole way. I'd think it's the better of the two solutions....whenever it's released...
Hypothetically,if you had a 722k & both of your USB ports were occupied with both an external hard drive & wireless ethernet bridge,could you attach a USB 4-port mini hub to one of your existing USB ports if,& when,the sling adapter comes out,to attach it also to your receiver?
I wouldn't count on that. And I don't think a pass thru would work either. Might be time to invest in something to plug in to the ethernet port.
Or buy something other than a EtheWi Compact Ethernet to Wireless-G Bridge in the first place.
I would assume the sling adaptor uses the same tech the 922 uses. If that's the case, I wouldn't ever get a sling adaptor when you can purchase a regular sling box.
Look at it this way. What percentage of time can you not connect to your 722K through dish.sling.com? Double that percentage and you'll have your failure rate for not being able to watch the sling adaptor.
The benefit of going with the 722 and the sling add-on is that the 722 will do 2 TVs and sling, while the 922 will only do 1 TV and the "second TV" is remote access. I believe using a normal Sling, although more costly, would be a better solution instead of the adapter OR the 922.
If you can wait a week and see what people say about the Sling adapter.
I do like the fact that is one wire to hook up, no power supplies, no IR blasters... just plug it in and go.
I do like the fact that is one wire to hook up, no power supplies, no IR blasters... just plug it in and go.
Quality with Sling adpater will be much better than standalone Sling player as it is connected with USB 2 .
I agree with Scott. Wait and see. I been using stand alone orginal Sling player(non HD) for years..Remote viewing Quality is not that bad as long as you have upload speed of 1 MB at home and remotely you have download speed of 3 MB. HD sligplayer gives you even better quality. Only limitation with sling adapter I can think off (compared to stand alone) is that it is limited to your 722K. With stand alone HD slig players, you can connect your Dish receiver, DVD or any other video source for remote viewing.If you can wait a week and see what people say about the Sling adapter.
I do like the fact that is one wire to hook up, no power supplies, no IR blasters... just plug it in and go.
It makes sense in an analog world. Just look at the inputs available on the standalone Slingbox. Any digital inputs there? Nope. So input is analog, and the regular Slingbox does a capture and conversion to digital, and then compresses that and encrypts it too before streaming.
Now the Silng Adapter according to the Sling Media press release does a decrypt-transcode-rencrypt over USB. The satellite or OTA digital stream is (apparently) first encrypted so that people sniffing the USB can't capture the digital data in all it's pristine loveliness. Then, internal to the adapter, the 3 steps above are performed, and then back up the USB to the receiver for streaming over the net. The overall result can be good or bad depending on the quality of the source and transcoding. But at least it remains in the digital domain throughout the process, and this at least has the opportunity to provide better PQ.
Now I hope, but I don't know, that the 922 does the same thing. But nobody has been able to tell me whether the 922 converts to analog first before going into the Sling portion of the receiver. It could be like the satandalone Slingbox, or it could be like the new Sling Adapter.
