Sling Adaptor Field Reviews

[Hunter Mackenzie]

I thought since some folks will be getting the Sling Adaptor right about now maybe post your thoughts, findings, pros and cons, picture quality, maybe a comparison to a Slingbox Pro HD and how the quality is via the Iphone app and the Android app

Hunter

 

[nsafreak]

Since they just became available the 18th the earliest I would imagine anybody would get a unit would be tomorrow, and that's presuming that they're shipped via UPS 2nd Day Air. Might be a couple more days yet before we hear field reviews.

 

[Tyralak]

I get mine tomorrow. I'll post a review when I've tried it out.

 

[Character Zero]

I get mine today! I am going to test it with a variety of laptops and desktops to see how the streaming in the house will be. And then some android streaming.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Yes PLEASE post your reviews! I want to hear your thoughts!

 

[TheForce]

Mine just arrived 15 minutes ago.

It is the easiest Sling box install ever. Just plugged it into my 722K and went to my PC and logged into My Account. Said to click on "Watch Live TV button, I did and it had to load an app and restart Firefox. Then it just popped up to the channel I had when I turned on my 722K.

I have it on my laptop first and now will try it on other PC's and cell phone.

BTW- I still have my legacy Sling Box connected to my 722K.

The total time to watch from arrival was about 5 minutes.

 

[TheKrell]

How do you know you were using the Sling Adapter rather than your legacy Slingbox?

 

[Character Zero]

Mine just arrived 15 minutes ago.

It is the easiest Sling box install ever. Just plugged it into my 722K and went to my PC and logged into My Account. Said to click on "Watch Live TV button, I did and it had to load an app and restart Firefox. Then it just popped up to the channel I had when I turned on my 722K.

I have it on my laptop first and now will try it on other PC's and cell phone.

BTW- I still have my legacy Sling Box connected to my 722K.

The total time to watch from arrival was about 5 minutes.

Do you mind posting your PC specs and quality (HD, SD ,etc)?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

How is the HD quality Don?

 

[mdavej]

Even though this thing is idiot proof, I managed to screw it up. Plugged it in, authorized, and on the web site, nothing related to live tv. Rebooted, reset, re-authorized, you name it, and nothing. Then I tried internet explorer, and it worked fine. Turns out it doesn't work on Chrome. Tried it on my iPad too and no luck. The iPhone version wouldn't install. Oh well, at least it's a start. On the PC the HD PQ and controls are great. It was streaming HD at about 8 meg on my 2.5GHz AMD quad-core with Win7-32, 4GB RAM, and ATI Radeon 4200 Graphics card.

 

[stimpson]

How do you know you were using the Sling Adapter rather than your legacy Slingbox?

I'm sure you can tell one from the other by the remote control buttons/location, on the display.

 

[TheForce]

How do you know you were using the Sling Adapter rather than your legacy Slingbox?

It's a different access address, via slingmedia. The new sling adapter is accessed via DishNetwork login.

However, I do note that both my cell phone and ipad sling mobile apps have ceased to operate. I get an error message now from sling media that my sling classic is no longer supported. WTF! I paid $29.95 each for these apps. When I went to slingmedia website it just says that my sling mobile now will only support sling HD and Sling Pro and I have to buy a new sling box. That kind of sucks! So, while I used to get sling on my cell phone and my ipad with the ipad app, it no longer works with the sling classic box. Hopefully, soon, I'll have access to sling adapter on my ipad when Apple releases 4.2. More waiting, now on Apple. I should be able to get my windows phone working with the new sling adapter but so far haven't found the link to upgrade the app for that.

HD quality- The install defaults to SD Good quality and to see HD you have to switch to that mode. When I did the video switched from streaming at ~ 2165kbps to ~6985 kbps and my laptop screen at 720 x 1280 resolution clearly showed much higher HD quality. I was on CNBC HD channel at the test. Unfortunately the image video did not keep pace with the audio. I switched back to SD and it the video and audio synced up again. The SD quality is quite good on the laptop sized screen, much higher quality than my old legacy slingbox. I think if this is how the adapter transmission will look on my ipad I will be quite pleased. However, those who want to use this for HD on larger screens may need to do some tweaking on how your 722K connects and how much data bandwidth you'll need for HD large screen viewing.

Just tested on another full size computer with a 1200 x 1920 monitor and this time my bandwidth was up to ~ 9200 kbps and the video and audio maintained sync but the full screen image quality had noticeable macroblocking and lots of mosquito noise. This "HD" technology is not what I would call HD but more like very high quality SD. Nothiong I'm complaining about but then I don't plan to use it to drive a big screen home theater.


On the ipad it just says the browser is not supported. The Dish app says the same thing as the safari direct access.

mdavej- Did you download and install the sling app for Firefox? Need to do that before the sling shows up in the Dish remote access page. I don't believe you mentioned what browser you tried that didn't work.

 

[Character Zero]

Is there a good shortcut for Dish Remote Access. When I try dish.sling.com I get to a login screen but it won't take my email or username and password. But I can log in to Dish ok, so it seems I have to go through my account to get to Dish Remote Access.

Edit: Nevermind, reset my password from the dish.sling.com and now it works.

 

[TheForce]

Re mobile app compatibility-

I still have not found a link for the windows phone app. Maybe it won't work with a windows phone. On the sling mobile web site it looks like I'm SOL on using my windows phone with sling unless I upgrade to a new slingbox as the classic is no longer supported with the mobile player. They will offer a $50 discount toward purchase of a sling solo which will allow my windows mobile phone to work again with the player app. The ipad appears to be supported once the OS is upgraded to 4.2.

Does anyone know if Dish will be offering an app for the sling adapter compatible with windows mobile OS? It's not listed at all in the chart.

 

[mdavej]

mdavej- Did you download and install the sling app for Firefox? Need to do that before the sling shows up in the Dish remote access page. I don't believe you mentioned what browser you tried that didn't work.

Thanks, Don. I got it working. Just didn't realize at first that it wouldn't work with Chrome. Tried another browser and downloaded the app fine. Watching live TV as we speak.

 

[Dirtydan]

Don, Is the Sling app. for Firefox called "Sling Health"?
Dan

 

[TheForce]

Is there a good shortcut for Dish Remote Access. When I try dish.sling.com I get to a login screen but it won't take my email or username and password. But I can log in to Dish ok, so it seems I have to go through my account to get to Dish Remote Access.

Edit: Nevermind, reset my password from the dish.sling.com and now it works.

Something's wrong. I had the same problem but now it takes the PW but gets me just a blank page inside a box.

 

[mdavej]

Just tried streaming some of the Sirius channels. Even at the lowest quality (~100kbps) it still sounds very good.

 

[romtrans]

It works fantastic and if you have good internet conn. it has a VERY good picture on an iMac. on the iPhone works good pic. not amazing but good enough!

 

[TheForce]

Don, Is the Sling app. for Firefox called "Sling Health"?
Dan

No, It's called WebSlingPlayer plugin 1.4.0.102