Slingbox Tech Support?
I am interested in getting a Sling Media Slingbox Pro-HD. I've found some very friendly friends who are willing to install it in their home so I can watch American TV over the internet. The Pro-HD model has its own tuner, so I can change the channel and not affect what they are watching.Here is the catch. In order for it to be installed, my computer has to be on the same network as the Slingbox during the initial setup. Considering the Slingbox will be in North Carolina, and I am in England, is there any way to make my computer here appear on their local network there?
posted by Justin Short at 5:53 PM
5 Comments:
You've got a few options.
Is it that every client machine has to be initialized on a US network, or is it that the Slingbox has to first be configured by a PC with a US IP?
10/06/2009 06:22:00 PM
is american tv really that great? cant you just hulu.com?
10/06/2009 07:09:00 PM
Dan, My understanding is that the Slingbox has to be configured on the same network as the PC and the network it will be functioning on. I had thought about buying one here, setting it up on my network with my PC, and then sending it to my friends in the US, but I am afraid that it won't recognize the network configurations if I do that.
Raven. Yes, yes it is. I mostly only watch American programming here anyway. The problem is, its so far behind, and I dont get to see stuff that I woudl really like to see, like Pro football. We get 2 games per week on Sky Sports, but generally they are the lower ranked games that would end up on the NFL network in the US. I can't watch Hulu because it recognizes that I am not in the US and blocks me.
10/07/2009 04:35:00 AM
Gotcha, I see.
Your options are essentially VPNs of various flavors. If you need to be on the same subnet as the Slingbox, your only real option is to set up a VPN to wherever the Slingbox is.
If you just need an IP in the US, you've got a few more options, and can either buy a VPN account or use something like TOR (The Onion Router) and hope you get lucky.
10/07/2009 09:01:00 PM
And since you're headed to the US, you can always just give it a shot once you're on God's soil.
If you're going to set up a VPN, I would start with looking for "home VPN" solutions. About.com seems to have a pretty good list. I haven't tried any of these myself.
One final option is that a surprising number of home routers have VPN software built into them these days. That may be another solution, although it's probably harder to configure than the software in the list above.
--D
10/08/2009 01:45:00 PM
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