Slingbox experiences?

greenslim

My wife and I are expatriating to Chennai in Q1 2010 and we have a bunch of questions, but let's start with TV. How accessible are American channels? How easy/ successful have people been using Slingbox. We went to Best Buy yesterday and they have them in stock but nobody had any experience hooking them up. Any experiences to share?

rsk11584

Why will someone watch American Channels in India,

your local cable operator might have some foreign channels not necessary american channels, and if you take DISH TV, you have option TV MONDE a french channel it costs around 150 rs per month, the highest cost of a channel.



Even though I am well versed with all technical terms and electronic equipments in India, this world slingbox is totally new to me.

Just googeled it and found the definition

The Slingbox is a TV streaming device that enables users to remotely view their home's cable, satellite, or personal video recorder (PVR) programming from an Internet-enabled computer with a broadband Internet connection. It is produced by Sling Media of Foster City, California.

Dear once you come to India you will be too busy to watch american channels, and instead of hooking this wierd slingbox, which no technician would ever understand, you can directly watch online channels, through internet, because lots of genuine and pirated softwares for watching TV online are available.

Because for using slingbox you also need to keep your TV at America ON (thus spending more electricity) SAVE ENERGY.

Nick-H

I almost never watch TV, so I am saving all that elecricity (form my computer's power supply, as my chosen form of information, entertainment and quite a lot of social life!).

Having said that, if internet-streamed BBC TV was freely available here, I would probably watch some regular internet TV. I do have regular sessions of listening to BBC radio on the net.

I believe people here have used slingbox. It's not so weird! It is mainstream technology and available at your local store in UK, so doubtless it is in USA.

sg402

I respectfully disagree with the poster questioning why you would want to watch American TV in India...I moved to Chennai a few weeks ago & absolutely miss AMerican TV programming -- trust me, if you are a fan of it, you may too!

I have been looking into the slingbox option too. I believe you have to share the cable with a friend/family member back in the US and you can watch whatever that individual is watching OR watch what you want when they are not. This is my vague understanding of it. I was hopeful when I saw your thread that I may learn more. This is especially an issue if you are a sport fan.

I will tell you that MANY of the websites for major US broadcasting channels (NBC.com, ABC.com, MTV.com) do not allow access to their TV shows to Indian viewers...so I used to watch some MTV shows and NBC's SNL & Jay Leno on the web back home in the States, but now I cannot.

Finally, what has saved me is iTunes Seasons Passes. This option is expensive, of-course, and you will need decent downloading capability (unless you want to wait a week to download one TV episode / movie, etc). I'm able to watch 'Mad Men' & 'How I Met Your Mother', two brilliant shows with amazing writing, which makes life a lot happier. Don't believe the advice that you will be too busy to watch TV...I have a very busy social life, work a full time job, serve as an advisor on a non-profit board, exercise & still find time to veg out with some good ole American TV.

Good luck figuring all of this out!

sg402

also...lots of American friends here use Torrentz to watch downloaded TV shows...but I really love my laptop & am way too afraid to download anything that may contain a virus! I'm probably way over-cautious about this, but I'd just rather not deal with it.

Aishah

Well finally having got completely fed up with my unreliable cable connection I splurged out the other day and got (yes, wait for it, Nick it's that dreaded word!) Tata SkyTV. Joy of joys, I finally have BBCWorld. Not that I watch much TV but when I do, I want to be able to see and hear it decently, and this is what is happening now.

Seems to be a lot of American programmes amongst the channels - CNBC, CNN, Star World, AXN, National Geographic, Fox History, Discovery, Animal Planet, Disney etc. I assume they are all American as the speech accents sound American to me.

Maybe you could look into dish TV programmes - quite a few operators offering these, greenslim. My connection including the dish cost me around 2,300 rupees, plus a sub. of 275 per month, reduced slightly if you pay it annually.

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sg402

I have Tata Sky TV too, and it's got some limited American TV programming. If you are okay with watching old reruns of Friends and other TV shows (Grey's Anatomy, 24, etc -- the selection is random, too, by the way) that are always a season or 2 behind, this will work out just fine.

They do have a great selection of American (sometimes quite recently released) movies -- but I rarely have time to sit still and watch a movie for 2 hours straight. I guess I'm still dealing with my TiVo withdrawals and like being able to decide when I want to watch a 22 min episode of 'How I Met Your Mother', etc.

Nick-H

(We've started buying Tetley Tea. Mrs N likes it better than the previous one. It's a Tata company. I've given up. But I still won't buy their cars!)

I think Tata Sky has far more of the miscellaneous channels than Airtel, so we'd probably go for it too, if we ever did. Mrs N watches the god-bothering christian stuff and the yoga (strange mixture...) as well as doses of Animal Planet. I think our cable bill comes to about Rs100 a month, and although I keep suggesting we get a dish, she says it isn't worth it.

It's funny how we all expect everybody in the world to be watching our TV channels. Is it a result of satellite? I think it is; I don't think we used to expect to see our four or five national channels anywhere else. But, perhaps satellite, with its mix of English/American/European stuff gives a mistaken sense of global coverage, and people are shocked that Indian Sky TV doesn't have the same channels as UK Sky TV. The remote control looks the same; surely the TV should?

For those desperate to watch their favourite stuff via the internet, there are work-arounds for the international prohibition thing, which is based on rights issues. Stuff like proxy servers. Luckily, I went off TV a couple of years before leaving UK, so it wasn't a part of my culture shock.

I would imagine it is worst for those with children, who have their TV schedules written into their biological clocks!

Aishah

sg - because when I first came here we didn't have TV for nearly 3 years, all those old re-runs are often new to me. I don't mind them - also I have missed a lot of good movies over the time I've been here, and now with about 5 movie channels I seem to come across some decent ones more regularly than with the cable - they may be re-runs, but I haven't seen them.

BBC World is probably the most watched of all channels, but I am certainly not glued to TV much in one day.

rbbm

SG-I miss my American shows and DVR features too!!! esp. Entourage and Law & Order and House. My husband misses his American football/NBA and what have you.
I cannot, cannot sit through the old shows/movies they have here.
Let me know if you can get this slingbox thingie...neither me or my better half are techies so I'll need a dummy down version of how to set up.

Nick-H

Whilst I've never seen it, I know it is mainstream department-store stuff in UK, so, hopefully, one would need to be a techie to set it up

sg402

rbbm,

I have all of entourage season 4 & 5 on my iTunes, we should figure out a way to burn you DVDs of the stuff. It's another show I love.

No luck with the slingbox, but I also haven't tried very hard. I've decided to go with Airtel's dish (same as TataSky but it's supposedly newer technology & better picture quality.) even though I watch almost no Indian TV at all. Figured I'll watch news & a few things.

Rockyp44

Could we all just answer the poster's questions and not got into the Why would you want to do that? attitude?

nycank

Easy, provided you have good broadband connection. Works fine. Remember, you do need to have a local cable connection active in US.

Local programming (MSG Network): Yankee Baseball, Rangers games, Knick home games, NCAA, NFL, NHL, NY1.

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greenslim

First of all let me thank all of those who have posted replies (even those who feel I am a cultural low brow for a)wanting to watch TV in the first place b)wanting to watch American TV ---each to his/her own!) In any event, let me know what I have discovered. Slingbox is certainly available to purchase in the U.S. and the high end version is about $300 USD. A "slingcatcher " is also recommended if you want to move the signal from your computer to a TV in India. But this is where things go from facts to opinions. I have been told that you can not use a DVR with the newer Slingbox models (and I have also been told that you can) I have been told that the DVR should be connected in India and I have also been told that it should be connected in the U.S. Even the folks selling the Slingbox are very unclear. Info at Slingmedia.com is not that definitive either. Is anybody out there actually using a Slinbox in India and how do you have it connected in the U.S? Any actual experiences would be terrific. I am coming to Chennai for a couple of weeks in early November so that should give me some first hand knowledge as well about Dish alternatives. Thank y'all! Keep the info coming please.
Greenslim