I don't think they are that big. Also, that picture is the slingcatcher which is different.
However, to answer your question, there are a lot of reason. One, those little tiny tv tuners you are talking about are usually the USB ones. They little usb generally don't have hardware encoding. It lets the computer do that. The Slingbox needs to have a processor to handle that. It also needs a larger amount of memory to store the file info before sending it over the internet. It also usually has more input than just the standard coax that a normal usb tv tuner has. Component, and composite take up more space physically. It also needs it own network card to connect to the internet. It also needs to have its own power supply whereas the tv tuner uses the computers power supply. In other words, the Slingbox is not just a tv tuner, and an entirely self contained computer.
“An engineer explained to us that hundreds of ear impressions were gathered in the name of research, and while each one obviously boasted its own unique shape and size, one single characteristic remained uniform across the board: the entrance into the ear canal is not a perfect circle, it's an oval.”
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I don't think they are that big. Also, that picture is the slingcatcher which is different.
However, to answer your question, there are a lot of reason. One, those little tiny tv tuners you are talking about are usually the USB ones. They little usb generally don't have hardware encoding. It lets the computer do that. The Slingbox needs to have a processor to handle that. It also needs a larger amount of memory to store the file info before sending it over the internet. It also usually has more input than just the standard coax that a normal usb tv tuner has. Component, and composite take up more space physically. It also needs it own network card to connect to the internet. It also needs to have its own power supply whereas the tv tuner uses the computers power supply. In other words, the Slingbox is not just a tv tuner, and an entirely self contained computer.