Watch Free TV Online via Slingbox
Record and Stream Your Fave TV Series Online for Free the Easy Way
If a person wants to watch TV online they can go to a website and pay a few bucks for the download or they can use the SlingBox to record and stream the video for free.
With the growing popularity of high speed Internet connections, the idea of watching TV online for free or even recording and watching a TV series online for free without a television or a website subscription has emerged as something that will likely become very popular in the near future. Media outlets such as the major television studios already offer some of their television shows for free via their websites, but selection is always limited, until Slingbox, that is.
SlingBox products were conceived by a pair of brothers that had to travel a lot on business and hated to miss their favorite baseball games each week. This concept of "placeshifting" multimedia content has blossomed into a very popular idea that is rapidly catching on with many different parts of society.
What Is The Slingbox and How Does It Work?
While the Slingbox will not win any awards for visual design, the internal workings of the Slingbox Pro and Slingbox Solo are as high tech as they get. With the Slingbox Solo a user can record and transmit video from any standard or HDTV source over the Internet to another computer. The Slingbox Pro adds the functionality of additional video inputs allowing the user to connect more than just one media device such as a DVR, DVD Player, or satellite receiver.
All of these various device options perform the same basic task. They take the video signal from the users cable box, encode it, and send it out to the Internet through the users home computer. A user can record shows to the computer's hard drive much the same as is done with a traditional DVR unit, but unlike with DVR's, the media files can be accessed from anywhere in the world via the Internet and a computer equipped with the proper software.
Other Sling Media Options
One thing that is absolutely required in order to use the Slingbox Pro, Slingbox Solo, or similar product is an Internet connection placed near the existing television or cable box. For homes without properly placed high speed access Sling Media offers a special SlingBox Turbo to wirelessly transmit the video signal from the Slingbox receiver to the main computer. Other SlingBox options include the ability to send the video directly to a cell phone equipped with wireless Internet access.
Low-cost and Free Alternatives to Slingbox Abound
While Slingbox is the most readily known of all placeshifting technologies, it is by no means the only player. With prices ranging in the hundreds of dollars it is not for everyone. A free, open source software only alternative to the SlingBox is Orb and can be downloaded via the Internet. Orb and other similar software based placeshifting products rely completely on the host computer for capturing the video which means that the computer will require a television capture card or HDTV tuner card of some kind.
The possibilities and highly practical nature of Internet television products such as the SlingBox Pro will only continue to grow over time. Look for this technology to become as commonplace as current DVR systems have been in recent years.
