Personal Broadcast of American TV to France

[rox]

I never watched much TV in USA but there were a few shows I really liked. I have been occasionally buying TV shows via iTunes. But now LOOK! An aswer to my prayers. I was looking at video clips over at ABC and saw a newclip form COMDEX, the big consumer electronics show. I think it was COMDEX could have been named something else. Anyway on this newsclip they descried a new product for broadcasting US television over the internet to anywhere in thw world with a high speed internet connection.

The name of the product is Slingbox.

It won a lot of awards as Best Invention of the year from Time Magazine, Newsweek, many others.

Here are some links
http://www.slingmedia.com/indexa.php\

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1833045,00.asp

http://www.cnet.com/Slingbox_personal_broadcaster/4660-10602_1-5620069.html

http://reviews.cnet.com/Sling_Media_Slingbox/4505-6463_7-31423815-2.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/22/AR2006032202158.html

Here is a user Forum which I find especially helpfull, read the User Forums at the below link

www.slingcommunity.com/

Does anybdy here on TBN use a Slingbox and can you share your experience/

 

[RobertN]

Rox,

This is an interesting post. See, I am one of the first 100 or so of the very very first members. This is from before it was "tractorbynet".

A few years ago, during those very early times of pre-tractorbynet, there was a gentleman from Belgium I believe. He had the same tractor as mine. We conversed a little online, and by email. He was very pleasant to talk with.

One day, he blindsided me! He asked me if the people on "Jerry Springer" show were typical Americans??? I just about fell out of my chair laughing! Seems they saw the show in syndication over there. I have only seen about 5 minutes of Jerry Springer, but it was enough to know it was not typical of life around here. I wrote back that in general, that was not typical...

It is amazing what some folks gather about other cultures and countries by what they see on TV.

It is not TV, but for good listening, go to www.kvmr.org for interesting music and radio shows. I personally like thier Saturday bluegrass and traditional country shows, and thier Wednesday eve Irish/Celtic show. I'm a supporting member of thier public radio broadcasting.

 

[bmac]

Rox,

I've been facinated with the Slingbox since its release, trying to justify a reason for having one. Being somewhat of a techno-nerd, I am just attracted to new things like that. To date, I haven't had occassion to actually need a slingbox, but if I ever do.....

Now, with the links you posted, I'm sure you've read enough to know how they work. But, just in case you missed something, I'll offer a couple of factoids that may impact on the usability of the Slingbox for your needs. First, if you want to get American TV, then you know you have to have the Slingbox hooked up to a source that receives the signal you want (most likely, to a tv in the US). As you probably have tons of friends and relatives in the US, that should not be a problem for you. But, the second issue might be. You see, as the "owner" of the Slingbox, you would control the tv located in the US. So, lets say you were ready to sit down to an episode of Jerry Springer and you change the channel to the JS show. Unbeknownst to you, at the same time poor little grandson Bubba over in the US had just turned on Sesame street on the host tv. Well, imagine little Bubba's surprise when all of a sudden he's watching a show about, well, whatever mutants JS has on that day. I'm being silly, but most prople would not want their tv controlled by someone else. Unless, of course, the Slingbox were hooked up to a little used extra tv or if the time differential made it a moot point.

Just thought I'd throw that out in case you did not see that in your research.

Good luck