Great Reviews on Slingbox Tuner/AV and Pro

The guys over at Sling Community have a great review on the 3 new products that Slingmedia officially announced yesterday but we all have known for a couple days now. It looks like the Confidentiality agreements have expired and the reviews are coming in.

Over at Sling Community they have a few Reviews:

The Slingbox Tuner Review

The Slingbox Tuner seems to be an ideal solution for people with just Analog TV sets. No price released yet but rumor has it will retail at $149. The benefit this box and all new Slingbox is that the Resolution has been upgrade by 400%. Original Slingbox has a default resolution of 320 x 240 and the new Sling's have a resolution of 640 x 480 on LAN and 320 x 240 remotely. So, image quality is substantially improved.

The Slingbox AV Review

The Slingbox A/V seems to be ideal for Tivo and satellite TV owners or anyone with a set top box. Like the Tuner this box is about 2/3rds the size of the original Slingbox. The A/V seems to only support One Input S-Video or Composit with L/R stereo audio. Like the Tuner this A/V supports an improved resolution of 640 x 480 on LAN and 320 x 240 remotely. Retail price is about $179 but you can get it on Amazon Now for $154.99.

The Slingbox PRO Review

The Slingbox PRO is the equivalen to the original Slingbox but now supports the ability to take in HD content. This is exciting for Tivo S3 owners. Now you will not be able to Sling HD content to your PC instead the Slingbox PRO will downsample the signal to 640 x 480. If you are remotely viewing though the max resolution is 320 x 240. Retail Price for the Slingbox PRO is $249.

Slingbox PRO, Slingbox A/A, and Slingbox Tuner Performance Review

Where the performance has been significantly improved is for In-Network Performnce . You now have the ability to stream at 640 x 480 resolution when in one of three high quality model settings.

Options on the new performance Bar:

• Standard quality: Least demanding on computer and network bandwidth
• High quality: 2x increase in quality and works with most computers on wired and wireless LANs
• Full resolution: Works well on all computers: Use if your computer slows down with the Maximum quality settings
• Full resolution: maximum bitrate: For fast computers on fast networks.
  

Streaming Cap on the Slingbox PRO, Tuner and A/V has also been gievn a speed bump.. a dramatic one! If your network bandwidth allows, the new boxes can stream up to 8Mbs, up from the roughly 2.5 Mbps cap on the original.

Slingbox PRO HD Performance:

One of the most anticipated new features on the Slingbox PRO is its HDTV capable input. Though they use a standard HDMI port on the back of the Slingbox, you can’t actually connect a HDMI device directly to it. This port is designed for use with Sling Media’s HD dongle accessory, which is packaged and sold separately at an MSRP of $49. This adapter allows you to connect component video cables from your device to the Slingbox, and includes a pass-thru so you can still connect the component cables to your HDTV.

Only issue with the HD Input is that the Slingbox down samples your video on the fly to 640 x 480.

Overall Impression:

The new slingbox line seems to address the 3 types of TV consumers. Compared to the orignal Slingbox you are gaining the ability to view higher quality Video on a LAN connection or if you have a Fast Upload spead on a WAN connection also. With the new Slingbox when you are watching TV on your local network you are now bascially able to get TV quality on your PC. Which many people will be happy with. Is this worth the price? That I am unsure about being a current Slingbox owner. I think I am holding off or maybe going to pick up another Original Slingbox while they last.