Sling Media's Slingbox HD Connect up for pre-order
By Darren Murph 
posted Oct 12th 2006 3:55PM
posted Oct 12th 2006 3:55PM
Now that you've had time to let the barrage of new Slingboxen news sink in a bit, you may be eying that crimson-colored Slingbox PRO to use with that oh-so-stunning HD service. Trouble is, Sling Media's making us HD junkies fork over an extra $50 to gain 1080i support from high def tuners / DVRs -- but at least we now know (almost) exactly when we can start streaming that HD goodness to our PCs, laptops, and bevy of mobile devices. Sling has just now opened up the pre-order gates for the HD Connect dongle via its own online store, and while the brief description doesn't tell us much more than we already know (still no HDMI support, folks), those who get their orders in now can expect to start tapping the full potential of that snazzy Slingbox PRO in early November.[Thanks, Aaron]
How does this work exactly? would this be a possible way of connectiong, say, a component out from your 360 to this, to then pipe to your computers LCD? Or is this strictly for the streaming side of things?
These things are useless to me since I just get OTA HD via a built in ATSC tuner in my HDTV. When are they going to come out with one that has a built in tuner so you don't need a stupid dongle to being with?
$300.00 didn't seem worth it to me for something that doesn't actually stream HD content. I'm not convinced that these new boxes are much better than the origianl, especially for remote network viewing.
It's a great device, but Orb does the job for me.
Does anyone else find it funny that on the HD Connect page there is a picture of an HDMI cable even though the HD Connect doesn't support HDMI? It seems kind misleading if you ask me:
http://us.slingmedia.com/page/hdconnect.html
Slingboxen! I saw a flock... of Slingboxen!
I think a few of your questions are answered at this link:
http://www.slingcommunity.com/article/15265/
Namely, the HDMI port that really isn't, and benefits vs. the older slingbox.
For those that can downconvert the HD signal from their cable/DVR boxes to Standard Def via the S-Video port, you don't really need the HD Connect. For example, the Comcast DVR boxes do this. Just keep your sweet HDTV hooked up as is, through the Component cables or HDMI. Then, just tack on a Slingbox by using the additional S-Video port you're not using on the DVR. All ports on the back of that DVR box are hot simultaneously, and it downconverts HD content for the S-Video already. All that's left is to do some audio cable splitting, to feed your TV and Slingbox at the same time.
While I said you don't need the HD Connect for this secenario, the following review makes a case for getting one anyway.
http://www.slingcommunity.com/article/15267/
Hope those links helped!