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ATV, Slingbox and Airplay together

madoka

madoka

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 17, 2002
529
156
I have a vacation home in Korea. As part of my monthly maintenance fees, I get cable TV there. Unfortunately, there could be entire years I'm not there.

So, I'd like to attach a Slingbox to my TV in Korea. Then use Airplay (via an ATV) on an iPad to play channels on my TV in the U.S.

1. Is this possible?

2. The TV is 65" and I want to go full screen. Will it look like crap?
 
I just tested this with my SlingBox Pro HD and Apple TV 2 and it worked fine on my 55" Samsung LCD. Quality was great, but then again I'm doing this in the very house where the Slingbox resides. The image quality for your scenario will rely on a number of factors including the latency (measured in ms, often referred to as "ping") and the available bandwidth, specifically the upload speed of your Internet connection in Korea.
 
Thank you very much for doing that. So I guess my biggest question is whether the sling app allows you to use airplay. Sounds like it does?
 
Yes. Sorry, I forgot to specify that. I wasn't using an HDMI cable or anything. While playing video via the Sling app I chose my Apple TV 2 as the display and it worked perfectly.
 
How's the quality of the image when Airplaying from iPad Slingplayer to Apple TV?

Kadman said:
Yes. Sorry, I forgot to specify that. I wasn't using an HDMI cable or anything. While playing video via the Sling app I chose my Apple TV 2 as the display and it worked perfectly.
Click to expand...

Hello,

I'm thinking of buying Slingplayer for the iPad so I could Airplay to an Apple TV connected to an HD TV, but I'm curious about the quality of the image on the TV side. Does it stream in HD to the Apple TV?
 
If I buy a slingbox and connect to my cable box. Can I change the channels from my ipod when I am watching on the road?


Now lets say I am on the road and someone else is at home, can only one person be watching tv at that moment?
 
Forget about the apple tv and go with the wd tv live or the boxee box. Both have native sling apps that are better in quality than the iPad app over AirPlay.

I have the boxee box and lithe sling App works great. And the sling app for boxee box is free.
 
Gator24765 said:
If I buy a slingbox and connect to my cable box. Can I change the channels from my ipod when I am watching on the road?


Now lets say I am on the road and someone else is at home, can only one person be watching tv at that moment?
Click to expand...

Yes to the first one. You can both watch tv but only one channel. Slingplayer will only show the channel that the cable box is currently on.
 
damn thats a bummer.


Well that counts out hooking a slingbox to my parents direct tv box then streaming to my Ipad or Roku..




Now wait a sec. Now how about if I hook it up to a box that they never use. One that is in a guest room?
 
You absolutely can change channels using a slingbox. The slingbox comes with an IR blaster. Point it at the cable box eye, choose the correct remote when setting it up, that's it.
 
I found a great deal on a slingbox on craigslist. It was a couple years old but he never used it. I am going to test this out on my own cable box.



I was thinking of eventually setting this up on a cable box at my parents house. Hooking it up to a box in a guest room that no one ever goes in.

but now I am thinking, how much would this slow down their internet connection..
 
Gator24765 said:
I found a great deal on a slingbox on craigslist. It was a couple years old but he never used it. I am going to test this out on my own cable box.



I was thinking of eventually setting this up on a cable box at my parents house. Hooking it up to a box in a guest room that no one ever goes in.

but now I am thinking, how much would this slow down their internet connection..
Click to expand...
Really depends on the speed of your parents UPLOAD and your DOWNLOAD. Your parents UPLOAD is most important.
I agree with "taeclee99" about getting a box like WD TV Live or Boxee so you can have a dedicated App. This is why I want AppleTV to open up a ATV App Store. I gave up waiting for Apple and ordered a WD TV Live yesterday after reading this.
 
d21mike said:
Really depends on the speed of your parents UPLOAD and your DOWNLOAD. Your parents UPLOAD is most important.
I agree with "taeclee99" about getting a box like WD TV Live or Boxee so you can have a dedicated App. This is why I want AppleTV to open up a ATV App Store. I gave up waiting for Apple and ordered a WD TV Live yesterday after reading this.
Click to expand...


Yeah I am going to test this out a bit before I invest some more flow.

I would prolly just buy a WDTV since the boxee is a bit more expensive.
 
What to know about home network internet video streaming

Just to make sure this is clear to anyone who finds this thread in the future. I've used slingbox and slingplayer since it was introduced back in 2005 or so and have upgraded as necessary to approach HD quality. Currently I stream my Verizon FiOS HD cable box to wherever I am to receive HD football and basketball games to either my iPhone 4s or WDTV box.

At the beginning: Any slingbox you buy make sure to look at the connections available in the back and aim for the best quality source you can accomplish (e.g. HDMI > Component cable (red/green/blue video cables) > S-video > composite (yellow video only)). If you don't use HDMI or component cables (as of 2012) you cannot send HD video signal as you are not sending HD from your cable/satellite box in the first place. There is an IR dongle that acts as a remote control to change the channels of your box that works perfectly with any slingplayer option (comes with the slingbox). Sling has many presets for any common cable boxes to control channels and DVR boxes via this dongle. Works great.

Inside your home network: Whenever possible hard wire your slingbox into your network. Do not use wireless whenever possible. You will always have faster data transfer over wired compared to wireless no matter what anyone may try to convince you. Will wireless work if your slingbox suports it? Sure. However it is not worth the hassle of potentially having it not be strong enough or worse, changing your router later or the wireless name/password and having to reconfigure your slingbox. Set up your slingbox with the given software within your home network. It will also help you set up port forwarding for internet viewing on any devices (e.g. iPhone, WDTV). Plenty of help out there on how to do that. Make sure to set that up before leaving home to watch your slingbox. Also remember if you are changing the channel while watching your slingbox you are changing the tuner on the cable box. If someone else is watching the actual cable box outputting to a TV you are changing their channel too. At this point over the internet I know one slingbox stream to one device. Multiple people can't watch the same slingbox as I guess it cannot send two streams to two different locations. No idea inside a home network. I don't use my slingbox there. Maybe they will update that in the future (post 2012).

Broadcasting your signal over the internet: After setting up your slingbox within your home network connected to a signal source (e.g. cablebox) through the included sling guide you should have your router set up for internet viewing (port forwarding your slingbox to the world). The success of your internet viewing experience is based upon one single aspect: upload speed. If your current ISP package is less than 5 mbps upload you may have issues. Rarely do you ever get what is advertised so a 2 mbps may seem enough but likely it won't be. You need at least a 2 mbps connection to your slingbox from wherever you are watching it (e.g. Dallas, TX with your slingbox in your Chicago home) to receive a steady stream of data to display HD quality. Less will make your video stream more and more grainy and pixel-y. Your ISP package is really the make or break cost aspect of whether a slingbox is for you or not. If your main reason for getting a slingbox is to watch your home TV package away from home then make sure to get a proper internet package. I highly recommend any package with at least 5 mbps upload. Go higher if you can afford it. Can't go wrong except to go broke (so do it within reason...).

Watching your slingbox: Wherever you are make sure your internet download connection is equal or greater than the 2 mbps upload speed threshold required for HD signal from your slingbox. Common sense really here. Make sure you have enough bandwidth to accept what your home signal is sending. We'll go ahead and assume that your home ISP and the ISP where you are watching are the slowest points in the link between you and your cable service. At this point you will have set yourself up for success by having enough bandwidth to send your signal from anywhere to you without bottleneck.

Whenever possible again hardwire your viewing experience (e.g. WDTV-ethernet or computer) but that might not be favorable at this point. I'd at least recommend getting a router with n-wireless or faster for fast enough data transfer speeds. Downloading speeds are often greater than uploading so you can go wireless at this point if you so desire. An iOS device on wifi will get the signal just fine on the receiving end. Go nuts. At least at this point you optimized your connection to your signal source and should be safe to use any views. Remember your device is over the internet and far away. Any delay in response via changing channel is to be expected as it takes time for the slingbox to receive/respond/send.

To relate to the beginning of this thread your Korea sending experience should be fine as long as the speeds are high enough from your Korean home to your viewing location anywhere in the world. As soon as the signal reaches your home router it is on you if the ATV/iPad/airplay option produces a bad image on your HDTV. I'd personally recommend a WDTV at this point as it can be hardwired via ethernet and connected by HDMI to your TV. The WDTV box is ~$100 and has slingplayer built in. Best chance for a quality image. Not sure if the ATV can be hardwired anymore and also not sure if it natively runs slingplayer or relies on your iOS device to do the work and send the ATV a screen mirror signal. Try the ATV first if you already have it and if that doesn't work look into the WDTV.

All of this networking advice also applies to any future video streaming choices. More speed = better quality. A crappy end picture is due to a crappy signal speed/strength. I've found my set up is good enough to only pay one cable bill (FiOS) and simply get an internet plan wherever else I need to be to stream my cable. Life would be even better if the cable companies would simply offer cable streaming from their own websites and remove the need for slingboxes all together.

Hope all this information helps people as home video streaming becomes more mainstream.
 
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