Hauppauge Broadway 2T a Slingbox killer?

[PaulR]

Last bit of play for this morning.

I've given up on the Boxee for the moment as making rapid alterations is impossible and it's much more convenient on the laptop.

I now don't think that it's necessary to have the local speed set higher, that must have been something else that caused the problem at the time. Setting the Internet speed to 2200Kbps gives a lot of Predator type effects where movement is a shimmering in the background scene. 1200 seems to be the best compromise on quality against shimmering and I have now noticed some audio delay.

Gotta go now.

 

[incold]

Would be interested in an update. I have some questions.
I am preparing for Astra 2f in Italy - ie I assume my 3.4 metre parabola will not work. I have a Slingbox HD installed in London and can watch it here in Italy on a 42 inch LG connected via HDMI to an Acer Aspire Revo to connect to the internet at 5mbps. The upload link in London is on Sky Broadband and although the uplink is said to be 5 mbps I only get a bit rate of 764 kbps in Italy. Connecting to another UK slingbox HD on BT Infinity gives a bit rate of 1600 kbps maximum. (So a lot of headroom, why? Both slingboxes give a few stuttering events, and some slight problems with audio delay, but overall results are viewable. I think the Slingplayer software gives about the same result as viewing in a browser.
The compression appears to be H264 (but is this correct?).
What compression does the Hauppauge produce?
Does the Hauppauge use a remote server (to give a fixed IP address) or do you connect direct.
I don't know what dyndns is - is this someway of tracking dynamic dns addresses for remote connection

I can operate a S** + HD box over the slingplayer to the London Slingbox but have to reboot the S** box every so often which seems to be a S**box problem. However apart from the lack of bit rate I am not trying to decode the S** HD to componentas I need to buy another box to do this. I have looked at other boxes on the internet.

 

[rolfw]

May be able to give you a trial slot on the Broadway over the next couple of days, will let you know when available.

 

[PaulR]

I don't know what compression the Slingbox Pro HD uses but it's supposed to be more efficient than that used on the Classic so it may be H264.

AFAIK the Slingbox uses a remote enabler of some type and the Hauppage does not. The Slingbox enabler is a way limiting the remote connections to one as well as being a DynDns equivalent. DynDns is a way of getting around the uplink not being on a fixed IP address as otherwise every time you rebooted your router you'd lose your connection.

Note that some ISPs offer fixed IP addresses for a fee so DynDns would not then be needed. For instance I know that O2 used to offer a fixed IP option for their top of the line package which also offered a higher upload speed (theoretical maximum 2.5mbps against theoretical maximum 1.5mbps) for the lower packages - important for Slingbox uploads. Doing a quick search of the O2 site has only found that business users can pay an extra £6 a month for a fixed IP so this may not be available now.

I'm not sure what you mean by headroom between the two sources as a Slingbox will always (if set to dynamicaly adjust) seek to use the maximum upload speed it can. In fact you've shown it adjusts by the figures that you quote.

I doubt that $ly offer 5Mbps upload speed but the BT Infinity should offer better than ADSL I'm sure. Possibly better than the figure you're seeing.

Out of interest I've just fired up my Slingbox Pro HD in the UK and the speed optimised to around 1070Kbps after a minute or so. If you truly do have 5Mbps download in Italy then the $ly upload speed seems a bit low. Are there other user users at the UK property? No-one is using the Internet at UK property is empty at the moment so I was absolutely sure that I was the only user of the upload bandwidth.

 

[incold]

The Sky in London is my daughters' and not shared with anyone. I believe the Slingbox does not use all the available space (hence headroom) on the upload link, because if it did it would vary when we use the same uplink with Skype, and it does not. The download speed never varies (the Slinbox is normally set to Auto, but we tried all the other settings which make no difference, and turning Skype video on and off makes no difference). The change from a old BT link to BT Infinity immediately put the download speed up to 1700 (approx), and for interest Skype connection on that link also does not affect the Slingbox speeds - but the Skype is far better on Infinity. It seems obvious that the Slingbox cannot be using the full capacity of either link. We are going to try two Slingboxes on the same link for fun! As soon as FTTC reaches my UK address I will also try several other experiments in the UK (but that will probably be 2018 at the present rate, if I live that long as we are in Hastings, where it is theoreticallyavailable but no one can get it!)
We are also going to switch from a fixed line to an area WiFi link in Italy, as we live in the middle of nowhere so we can get 10 mbit download and 1 mbit upload cheaper than a fixed line; will be interested to see if the Slingbox reception varies with that end as well, even if we can't see why it should. Would always be interested in connecting to other sources for experiments if they are available, as I am convinced better speeds are possible on the existing connections

 

[Captain Jack]

I ditched the Slingbox and Slingcatcher due buggy software. Have now acquired Vulkano Flow and Lava and have never looked back. The Lava can be used to watch the Flow from my parents' location as well as stream from my home. I find quality is much better on lower upload speeds (1Mbps and less) than Slingbox and has never crashed yet!

 

[PaulR]

A bit more info on that please Jack. Does the hardware have a built-in Freeview tuner? At present that's all I actually use.

 

[Captain Jack]

Paul, no there are no tuners built in. Just like a new generation Slingbox Solo, it will only take inputs from external device. You can also record stuff remotely and stream them later to your "catcher" device/PC player.

The "catcher" also doubles up as a streamer ... and it's also cheaper. The Vulkano Lava and Flow devices both cost me under £200 new delivered from the States (ebay).

 

[incold]

I have seen this and read one or two peoples opinion of it. It seemed the biggest drawback was setting up, which was not as easy as the slingbox. Does it need a fixed IP address, or is there some kind of relay server? How do you control the connected external box, does it include an IR transmitter - sounds as if it does- and can the Lava produce an on screen remote emulator for example of a Sly remote.

I have experience of two Slingbox Pro HD operating for over two years and haven't had any indication of "buggy software". If you have time would be interested to know what the problems were as maybe we have just been lucky!

 

[Captain Jack]

The answer is yes to all your questions. I can control my Dr HD F15 and the Uno remotely without any problems on my PC. Vulkano even has a learning feature in case you cannot find a remote control bin file that works with your satellite receiver.

Quite nice and easy to work remotely and take screenshots.