Sling Media Slingbox 350

• Extend your living room TV experience in sparkling 1080p high definition.
• Connects to your digital video recorder (DVR), cable set-top box or satellite receiver via component or composite sources.
• Ethernet connectivity
• Compact design
• Watch and control your TV and all of its programming on your compatible smartphone or tablet using SlingPlayer software (sold separately).

With this generation Sling has significantly reduced the feature set, compared to the older models. I previously owned two pro-hd units and was pretty happy with them. When one died I got a 350 to replace it but it just doesn't cut it. Back it goes. You can't do advanced network configuration to control the IP address or port used by the box. So if you have a home network with more than one router really anything but a simple, basic network you get problems such as all traffic being routed through your external IP, even when watching locally on the LAN. Lack of port control makes it impossible to use two boxes on the same network. That seems like a revenue-limiting decision by Sling, so you have to wonder what they are thinking.

Antenna inputs have been removed only composite and component. (The 500 has HDMI as well but that's of questionable value given copy protection on HDMI. Not their fault but if you have to connect component anyway, what value does HDMI add?)

Also they stopped supporting the PC-based player unfortunate; you have to use the web player which means you have to have access to their site to sling at all. 90% of our use is internal to our home network so a full-local option would be good.

In general what they have done is remove things to make it cheaper and simpler, but for an advanced user it is a big letdown.

Buy Sling Media Slingbox 350 Now

a bit of background: been a huge fan of these slingboxes had the original and then the proHD and when the new slingboxes came out i purchased the 500 the day it was released. i was so excited to use only a single hdmi cable. turns out you still need component cables (that's highlighted over on my 500 review)...

so i went to the 350 since i have to have component cables wired up anyway. really happy with with the 350, the quality is just as good as the 500 and i actually preferred the web based setup over the 500's on screen setup with the remote (alot easier to type with a proper keyboard). you cable up the 350, give it some interwebz and some power, it'll boot up and then your computer will auto discover the box when on the slingbox site.

it does what it's supposed to: hd placeshifting of your cable set top box at really really good quality. i dig the new form factor of the 350 (actually looks great) takes up less space in my home theatre rig as well than the 500 (500 does look super cool to me, though).

so yeah, so far so great. five stars at this point :)

will be using this heavily over the next two weeks and will update this review.

well done sling. well done.

-------10/19/2012-----------

a minor update after using the device while traveling away from home for the past week:

watched a couple shows from the device on my early 2011 mbpro and using chrome version 22. the experience has been great, the slingplayer in the browser connected up super quickly and i was able to access my dvr right away. the controls seem to have the same latency as the pro-hd, which i am fine with as there is latency using IR signals even when in the same room. the one thing i've noticed on all slingboxes and i am sure there is a reason for it is that the connection does blip at any remote input. it almost seems like the entire connection is consumed when issuing an IR remote request to the set top box (or the connection conduit for video is seemingly paused while an IR command is issued). it's been the behavior since the beginning but it's my one minor (if not negligible) complaint.

as i see it, you are getting a smaller form factor and the same functionality fo the pro-hd for 120 usd less (unless you are using a slingcatcher, which is not compatible with the new units i have read).

really was super impressed at the quality, and the speed at which the data rate increased or decreased when switching quality levels. on a 2mb/s hotel connection, you can get a mostly consistent better connection that looks quite nice. good seems to be where sling begins to encode the stream at smaller resolutions than the native source, as there is quite a bit of interpolation when running in full screen. for some non quantitative, intangible, reason i feel this is purely dependent on my connection and the quality settings seem to do smarter things when you have more general bandwidth available to you. i'd be interested to know how the quality logic works. perhaps i'm over thinking/hyping what they are doing. either way i like it.

still holding five stars!

----------------------------

Read Best Reviews of Sling Media Slingbox 350 Here

The only reason I gave this box a 4 is because for setup, the slingbox has to be wired to the same router as your "Windows" PC it doesnt support Linux which is my main Desktop computer. I borrowed a laptop to set it up. After it was setup it worked fine. My cable box is a MOXI MR1500T3 (or something like that) and when the TV is connected (HDMI) no video is output through component which is how the Slingbox 350 is connected. So when I shut off my TV the slingbox had video but would flicker every 2 seconds, as soon as I unplug the HDMI from the TV the flickering stops so I know its because of my cable box. I really dont have much bad to say about the slingbox because most of these little querks were my cable box. I ended up returning this item and purchasing the Slingbox 500 which has HDMI in and out instead of Component in and out. If you have a cable box connected to your TV with component then there is no need to purchase the 500 just get this 350 it works just as good despite not having wifi. The 500 doesnt require a PC to setup because it has an onscreen setup which is 10 times easier than PC but just remember you only have to set it up once and its $120 difference. The 500 also has a remote to navigate the on screen setup so you can enter your slingbox account info and connect to wifi and configure your inputs if you have multiples. I personally like the 500 better but only by one star and think if you dont need HDMI then get the 350, it sounds from others reviews that this new box is a huge improvement from previous slingboxes because it doesnt lock up or overheat. 350 was barely warm to the touch and never skips audio or video.

Want Sling Media Slingbox 350 Discount?

The Box stopped working after 3 weeks. Dont waste your money. Slingbox customer service was horrible to deal with couldnt help.

Save 1% Off

Ok . . . I did my research. I watched all of the videos on YouTube and the Slingbox website; however, I still was unsure of how it work. But I took a chance and purchased the Slingbox 350 (I didn't feel Wi-Fi was worth $120.00) and I wanted a hard connection to the Internet. I know that too much streaming will degrade the quality of the signal. One question I had was does the Slingbox need to be connected to the main cable box, and the answer is no. It needs the Ethernet connection and the connection to a cable box. I first tested the Slingbox on my Mac Mini that is located in the same room as my router. The mac automatically downloaded a plugin for safari. I had a brief set up, and I was up and running. I changed the quality of the image to HD (I have the Apple Thunderbolt display) and I have to say that the image was great! What's really cool is once you tell Slingbox your cable provider and cable hardware, a representation of your actually remote is on screen and works as if you had it in your hand.

I then purchased the Slingbox app for my iPad (I feel $15.00 is cheap compared to paying monthly), and all I had to do was sign in and all my information was ready. But then I did the real test; I watched one of my DVR shows, and it streamed great. It had delays, but remember it is streaming video. That's amazing!

Then I set up the program on my MacBook Pro, and again a safari plugin, signed into the system and I was up and running. I finished my DVR program and erased it from my MacBook pro. GREAT!!

So, for $200.00 I have complete control of my TV and DVR. The only draw back is that when the Slingbox is in use, that cable box connected to the Slingbox cannot be used by others, so pick a box that is not utilized much. You may want to purchase the Slingbox 500 if you have to set it up in a location that doesn't have an Ethernet connection. I would highly recommend this product.