Review on 📺 Sling Media Slingbox SOLO (SB260-100): Superior Quality Older Model by Gordie Johnson

Slingbox Solo - Rated 3 stars out of 5Rating is based on good and not so good. Now that the device is working I am very happy with it. With some modifications the rating could have been 5. The summary below is not intended as a complaint, but as an overview that may help others. My situation with the Slingbox Solo and Slingbox Turbo Bridge was computer, modem and wifi. a router above and an LCD TV connected to a Motorola DCX3200M cable box below. I bought a Slingbox Solo and a Turbo Bridge unit (to bridge the wireless distance between the upper and lower floors using the existing house wiring) from Revain.com. What happened next is detailed below: 1. There were problems with the setup as I had to run back and forth to check the light on the sling box below. Two continuous red signals could not be received. So I spent some time on the Slingbox website and also looked at other users' comments about Revain. The top comment I received was the customer service phone number 877 467-5464. Note. When I started, there were many complaints about Slingbox's customer service on various sites. I found both the direct customer service call(s) and online chat support to be very professional and even with the issues listed below I give the customer service a 5.2 rating. One of the CS techs suggested I bring the Slingbox upstairs and plug a cable straight into it from my wireless router so we could finish the setup. I did that, which helped immediately, but of course it didn't solve my problem with the downstairs TV/cable. In any case, removing the Turbo module from the setup allowed us to update the Slingbox software and then proceed to set up the wireless router. Note. Initially I didn't have a login/password combination for the Linksys router so we had to cancel the setup until I reinstalled the router to log in. I then contacted CS again and they were able to remotely add the correct codes for the Slingbox to my router. We now had two solid red lights on the Slingbox Solo, so I was ready to move the Slingbox back down and try the turbo bridges again.3. With the "watch" feature in the web version of the Slingbox software (as well as the $29.95 ipad app), the software continued to have trouble "looking" for the Slingbox, so I contacted CS again. This time the tech suggested that the Turbo units didn't seem to be handling the top-down wireless signal (probably due to the difficulty of finding outlets on the same circuit that are close enough to the wire box). He suggested I return the Turbo Bridge devices and then try the wireless router booster. I did, and it took another week for the new Cisco Wireless Bridge module to arrive. Note. Revain took the turbo back very well as it didn't work "as advertised" (e.g. due to existing household wiring). Once the new Cisco device arrived and was set up (relatively easy) I now had a good upstairs to downstairs connection and with the two red lights on the Slingbox I was able to connect to the Motorola cable box and get both audio and audio also the sling box. to work remotely. But no video! Over the next week or so I called CS several times to resolve the no video issue. As mentioned on the Slingbox website, there is a potential issue with using an HDMI connection from a cable box to a TV. So I switched to composite cable with the help of CS, but it didn't work. Then I bought an S-Video cable, but the combination of S-Video and RGW composite didn't work. So I bought two component (RGB) cables and they didn't work. No video yet! Note. Each time I contacted Slingbox CS, they were assigned a case number so they could see records of the various issues we were struggling with.5. Around the time I was ready to return and/or write off the cost of the Slingbox Solo, Cisco Bridge unit, iPad app, and various cable assemblies, not to mention many, many hours of time (plus CS time ), and a few more hours of travel cable, TV, cable box, sling box, etc. I decided to try again to solve the problem. So call support again. This time the tech went through all the notes and then suggested trying a direct Slingbox DVD player connection to see if the video would work (remove the cable box and TV as factors, for example). There is still no video, so the technician concluded that the Slingbox's video input or output function is not working. He immediately made arrangements to send me a new Slingbox along with an RMA for the old one.6. The new Slingbox Solo arrived a week later and was hooked up in minutes, and guess what? Video and sound worked on both my ipad and desktop computer! Browsing the web didn't work so I called customer service again and the technician was able to remotely remove the code from the faulty slingbox and add the correct code from the new slingbox to my wireless router. Hooray. Finally everything worked. Summary: a) Watching TV on my Ipad (local and remote) is great! b) A very painful experience - some of the problems are undoubtedly related to my physical attitudes. It took hours and hours to eliminate variables like cable, wireless router setup, wireless signal up and down, etc. to finally focus on the poor video issue. c) Despite many issues and calls, Slingbox customer service stayed with me and we eventually resolved the issues. d) By getting rid of the physical layout issues and bad video on the first Slingbox, I think I could get everything up and running on a different setup in under an hour, except for the custom encoding that comes with the router. Luckily, the technicians were able to quickly fix this remotely.