TV addicts have been time-shifting since the analog days of the VCR, but ask them if they know how to place-shift, and you're likely to get blank stares. The newest disruptive technology — disruptive, that is, for broadcasters, cable companies, sports cartels, and Hollywood's pay-per-play lobbyists — is a component that reads the analog A/V outputs from a cable box, satellite receiver, or camcorder but especially a DVR, so that recorded programs or live channels can be streamed over your home network to another room or transmitted to a computer or Smartphone in a remote location via the Internet. A pass-through connection also sends the signals on to your TV, so you can watch programs as usual from your primary sofa — unless another person watching from the remote screen clicks their virtual remote and changes the channel. Now, that's disruptive! But it's far more likely that this wouldn't happen because no one would be home.
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The Short Form
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| A very capable, though somewhat complex, product from the company that first introduced video place-shifting. Price: $250 |
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Plus
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• Two sets of A/V inputs for remote switching between different source components • Embedded Wi-Fi • Sleek design • Streams video to Sony PSP players |
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Minus
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• Steep learning curve • Needlessly complex menus |
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Key Features
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• Built-in 802.11 a/b/g Wi-Fi compatibility • Ability to tweak video and audio bit rates and prioritize frame rate versus resolution • Inputs: component- and S-video, 2 composite-video and stereo audio • Outputs (pass-through): component- and S-video, composite-video and stereo audio • Other jacks: 1 Ethernet, 2 IR blaster • 2 1/2 x 8 x 5 in (vertical orientation, W x H x D); 1 1/4 lb sony.com/locationfree :: 866-925-7669 |
Some refer to this new way of watching TV as place-shifting; others, space-shifting or location-free viewing. Whatever you call it, the end result is just as liberating as time-shifting. It offers a way to keep an eye on home team games, local news, and that TV series you record but never have time to watch while you're away from home. Using a place-shifting device in cahoots with a time-shifter is also a one-two punch against hefty pay-per-view charges in hotel rooms, or as a way to leverage a single cable subscription even while away at your vacation home.
The prerequisites are a home network for in-home viewing, a broadband Internet connection for away viewing, and a desktop or notebook computer.
I installed three place-shifters for this roundup: Sony's monolithic-looking LocationFree LF-V30, Sling Media's trapezoidal Slingbox Solo, and Monsoon Multimedia's curved-in Hava Titanium HD WIFI. Although there are differences, all three basically work the same way. You attach cables between the analog audio and video outputs of your cable or satellite DVR or TiVo and the place-shifter base station (none of the place-shifters provide digital audio or HDMI ports), which compresses a live channel or recorded show into an MPEG format — generally MPEG-4 — and transmits it through your home network or the Internet. Next, you load player software on a computer to receive and view shows. When you click on a graphic depiction of the source component's remote on your computer's screen, signals get relayed to the base station and its IR emitter cable, which sticks to the front of your cable or satellite box or TiVo. This effectively gives you the same controls that you'd have pointing the real remote from your couch.
Sony LocationFree LF-V30
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LocationFree TV on the road: At 6:30 p.m., NBC Nightly News is received in New York but shifted live to a hotel at 3:30 p.m. Las Vegas time. Too bad the hotel's Internet connection kept going down. |
Setup
The LF-V30 has the most comprehensive selection of inputs and outputs of the three place-shifters reviewed here. While this gives you the greatest flexibility for remote switching between two independent A/V sources (each with its own video, audio, and IR control), a shifter newbie may find the Sony's receiver-like back panel a bit daunting. A stand for upright placement of the LocationFree base station is included, along with an IR emitter, standard composite-video/stereo cables, an Ethernet cable, and a CD-ROM with the LocationFree player software.
I connected a component-video cable and the included stereo audio cable between my Scientific Atlanta 8300HD DVR and the LF-V30. After attaching the supplied Ethernet cable to my 4-port wired/wireless 802.11g-type router, I also attached a Canon miniDV camcorder to a second set of A/V inputs. I next placed the IR blaster in front of the cable box. Upon powering up, an LED on the front panel indicated that the LF-V30 had found my network. At this point, I installed software from the included CD-ROM on a wireless notebook computer temporarily planted on the coffee table in front of my couch across from my big-screen TV.
To configure the virtual remote control, the setup wizard prompted me to point my DVR's remote at the LF-V30, which brought up nine possible remotes on my computer screen. The last was meant for use with my cable box DVR — and sure enough, clicking on the graphic produced a compatible remote. As I discovered, though, the remote inconveniently required that I choose one of three modes: Play for DVR functions, Menu for guide info, and 10-key to change the channel. No such mode selection was necessary with my real DVR remote. Sony's technical support e-mailed me the software for the correct remote, and once installed, mode selection was eliminated.
Performance
As I would come to appreciate with all three place-shifters, there's a vast difference in playback quality between streaming within a home network versus over the Internet to a remote computer. The former exhibited full-screen DVD quality whether connected by Ethernet cable or 802.11g Wi-Fi; the latter, VHS quality or less at full screen. Although they could accept a high-def input, none of the place-shifters delivered a high-definition picture to my computer, even over a wired home network. However, with that particular setup the picture looked very sharp, and hiccups were few and far between with a high-def channel as the source.
Having positioned my notebook's 15-inch screen on the table in front of my 50-inch plasma, it was simple to compare the picture quality once I got used to the smaller screen's several-second latency. I first watched Who's Harry Crumb? from the Universal HD Channel on both the big screen and my notebook. After adjusting the aspect ratio to widescreen using the LocationFree software, I accepted its default bit rate and was very pleased to see full 30 frames-per-second (fps) action reproduced on my computer without picture artifacts or audio glitches. I could also carry Harry around my apartment without any loss in quality.
Place-shifting to my parents' broadband-connected home in New Jersey, I was able to use my notebook to enjoy everything available to me on my home DVR. I switched to the video-camera input and spied my wife as she sat on the sofa. (Actually, she knew I was watching, since I already had her on the phone.) There was a 7-second delay between when she said she was raising her hand and when I saw it move, but the video looked pretty close to 30 fps.
A few weeks later, I accessed the LF-V30 in order to jump time zones for a live broadcast of NBC Nightly News from my broadband-enabled hotel room in Las Vegas. ( See "Where's Brian?".) I successfully used my notebook to change channels just as the local news was ending. (Was it really that warm in New York in January?) Nightly News began, but the picture soon went dark, and I had to click the reconnect button. It played in fits and starts, and I had to reconnect again. I soon realized that I was at the mercy of my hotel's overloaded broadband connection.
I generally accepted the system's default bit rates for the programs I watched, though the software lets you prioritize picture resolution or frame rate during playback. (It would have been helpful if genre menus could indicate the best settings for head-talkers on The NewsHour versus ball-kickers at the Super Bowl.) I was able to call up a screen showing the selected video and audio bit rates, but the labels and numbers overlapped, making a mess of the readout (video should be streaming at close to 3 megabits per second [Mbps] on a typical home network, according to a LocationFree TV spokesman). Different screen resolutions were tried, but I was unable to solve my non-readable bit-rate problem.
Incidentally, although you can have up to eight client devices (including PCs and Sony PSPs) registered to one Location-Free base station, only one client at a time can connect and receive the stream. If one person is viewing and another one tries to connect, the interloper will get a message saying the base station is in use. Due to its unique serial key, you can install the software that came with the V30 on only one PC. You can, however, download a free version that can be installed on an unlimited number of PCs.
Bottom Line
Since this is the only one of the three place-shifters allowing A/V switching between two source components, the LF-V30 is probably the best choice for someone who wants to, say, follow a basketball game from their computer in a room lacking a TV (or from anywhere else in the world) and at the same time keep an eye and ear on a sleeping baby from a video camera connected to the base station. An embedded Wi-Fi antenna, which in turn can be used as an access point for other devices, makes the LF-V30 a good choice for anyone with a wireless network (the device is compatible with 802.11a and 802.11g networks). And when you get tired playing games on your PSP, using it to access your DVR via the LF-V30 should rank high up on the scale of cool.
Whenever I drop the phrase "place-shifting" into polite conversation with my tech friends, I hasten to add, "You know, like Slingbox," and the person is more likely to get it. Sling Media has pretty much done for the category what TiVo did for DVRs. The original Slingbox won a 2005 Sound & Vision Editors' Choice Award (February 2006; see the article). So, how does the company out-sling itself? It gives the public less and more. It takes out the tuner (since the majority of customers use cable or satellite boxes) and limits support to one instead of multiple A/V sources (hence the name Solo). And it adds a set of component-video inputs and pass-through outputs that can deliver better picture quality than that of basic composite- and S-video connections.
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The Short Form
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| A product that is easy to install and use, from a company that has become synonymous with video place-shifting. Price: $180 |
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Plus
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• Easy setup • Supports a variety of mobile devices |
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Minus
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• No built-in wireless networking |
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Key Features
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• Auto discovery wizard to help during setup • Automatic video-quality optimization • Windows Mobile PDA or Smartphone compatible • Mac OS X compatible • Inputs: component-, composite-, and S-video; stereo audio • Outputs (pass-through): component-, composite-, and S-video; stereo audio • Other jacks: IR emitter, Ethernet, USB • 8 3/4 x 1 3/4 x 4 in; 2 1/2 lb SLINGMEDIA.com :: 877-467-5464 |
Setup
The Slingbox Solo comes with composite-video and stereo audio cables, an IR blaster, a 6-foot Ethernet cable, and an AC adapter. Using the stereo audio and component-video cables, I hooked it up to a TiVo HD DVR. The Quick Start Guide suggested I use a flashlight to locate the IR sensor on my video source component, and I quickly found the best place to put the IR blaster on my TiVo. Though Sling Media doesn't provide a wireless network option, it does offer the SlingLink Turbo, a HomePlug adapter for extending a network through your home's electrical wiring. But my multi-port router is conveniently next to my home theater, so I used the Ethernet cable to hook up the Solo.
Once an LED on front of the Solo stopped blinking, I was ready to download Sling Media's software from its Web site to a computer connected to my home network (no installation CD-ROM is included). I chose the SlingPlayer desktop software for Windows XP (Vista and Mac OS X versions are also available). The desktop software is free, but there's a one-time $30 fee for player software for the Windows Pocket PC, Windows Smartphone, Palm OS, Symbian OS for Nokia phones, and a forthcoming version for BlackBerry Smartphones.
I knew that installation was successful when Jeopardy and an Eggland commercial all of a sudden started playing a little too loudly in a window on my computer. The install wizard then prompted me to indicate the type of video source I was using and how it was connected. From a list of DVRs, I chose the TiVo Series 3. (The newer TiVo HD wasn't among the choices, but the Series 3's remote commands proved completely compatible.) I also set up the Solo for away-from-home use. Finally, I optimized the SlingPlayer's video quality settings by running the Tuner Wizard, which prompts you to choose which picture looks better, as if you're getting fitted for glasses. Everything ran like clockwork.
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Point and click control: The virtual TiVo remote works with the SlingPlayer, which can be resized or made to overlay your desktop or a work file. |
Performance
According to the SlingPlayer's onscreen readout, shows were streaming from TiVo to my computer at about 3.1 Mbps, which proved more than sufficient to display 30-fps video with glitch-free stereo sound. Viewed in a quarter-screen window, standard-definition programs like Flash Gordon from the Sci-Fi Channel looked crisp, but high-def programs like 30 Rock looked even better. When I switched the player to full-screen mode, I still had artifact-free full-motion video and uninterrupted stereo audio, but the picture resolution for both types of programs looked closer to VHS quality. And as I discovered, aside from the different aspect ratios, there was no difference in picture quality on the SlingPlayer when toggling between a standard-def broadcast-TV channel and its high-def equivalent.
Later on, when I attached the notebook to my parents' cable modem in their home 70 miles away and clicked on the SlingPlayer icon, I was connected to my TV within a few seconds. There was a drop-off in resolution to what looked like VHS quality in a quarter window and bad VHS at full screen. Still, motion looked to be at or near 30 fps. The picture did break up sometimes, but considering that the upload speed from my home was about 450 kilobits per second (typical for most cable modems), I could hardly expect the same performance I witnessed over my wired home network.
The latency that arises when using the SlingPlayer with TiVo can be disconcerting. For example, when clicking the onscreen remote to revert to play after fast-forwarding through commercials, you will have overshot the beginning of the scene by the time TiVo gets the command and the program starts playing on the computer. As a result, I found myself having to use the instant-replay button more than once each time. Also, there's the natural tendency to use the mouse pointer to click on TiVo menus as they appear within the SlingPlayer window. (Nothing happens, of course.) You need to navigate the TiVo program guide using the SlingPlayer's virtual remote to make selections. A nice touch is that SlingPlayer lets you add favorite channels under the viewing window, and the buttons get decked out with the respective network logos.
When away from home, I was also able to use the SlingPlayer to access the Rhapsody subscription music service on my TiVo — but what was the point? I could more quickly start streams using Rhapsody software on my computer connected directly to the Rhapsody server. If I had left my desktop computer on at home, though, I could use the SlingPlayer software on my notebook to pull music or photos stored on it by telling TiVo to move them across the home network.
You can download and install the SlingPlayer software on as many PCs or Macs as you like, free of charge. However, the Slingbox will stream to one display at a time. According to a Sling Media spokesman, the same goes for the mobile software on Windows Mobile, Palm, and Symbian devices and the soon-to-be released software for the BlackBerry. As he explained, "We do this to be in compliance with rights holders and content distributors. We do not want to be perceived as a rebroadcaster of content. It simply opens a can of worms."
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Why is setting up Slingbox like getting glasses? You pick which picture looks better so SlingPlayer can optimize the settings. |
Bottom Line
Sling Media leads the video place-shifter category in terms of installation ease and usability, and its new Slingbox Solo is no exception. The Solo's simple but elegant interface is a joy to work with. And for what it's worth, unlike with the two other place-shifters reviewed here, I never once had to contact Sling Media's technical support.
Among the lesser-known products introduced since LocationFree and Slingbox established themselves in the video place-shifting category are several from Monsoon Multimedia. The company's latest is the Hava Titanium HD WIFI base station. Although less polished than its competitors, the Hava Titanium player goes further than either by integrating both DVR and DVD burning functionality.
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The Short Form
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| Despite some bugs and rough edges, the Hava Titanium HD's DVR and DVD burning capabilities make it a top choice for tech-savvy users. Price: $250 |
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Plus
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• Player software can pause, replay, save, and burn video to DVD when used within a home network • Can save screen grabs from player window • Multicasting feature lets player software run on multiple computers for simultaneous viewing within a home network • Can access tuner card in a networked Windows Media Center Edition PC in lieu of cable box or other TV tuner |
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Minus
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• Occasional video sync problems with 720p programs • Standard A/V cables not compatible with base station's minijack connectors |
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Key Features
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• Wireless 802.11g USB dongle • Inputs: composite- component-, and S-video; stereo audio • Outputs (pass-through): composite- component-, and S-video; stereo audio • Other jacks: Ethernet, 2 USB, IR blaster • 8 1/2 x 1 3/4 x 5 1/4 in; 2.8 lb MYHAVA.com :: 866-937-4282 |
Setup
The Titanium HD's box includes an 802.11g wireless dongle (which plugs into one of the unit's two USB ports), an Ethernet cable, two minijack-to-RCA composite video/stereo cables, two minijack-to-RCA component-video cables, an IR blaster, a CD-ROM loaded with software, and a Quick Start Guide. Unlike the embedded Wi-Fi antenna of the LocationFree model, the Hava model's detachable antenna sits at the end of a 5-foot cable. That provides more flexibility in placing the Titanium HD, but it also means accommodating another cable. (Wi-Fi is supposed to reduce such clutter.)
I used the included component-video and stereo audio cables to connect my TiVo HD to the Titanium HD. I then installed the Hava player software on my home-network-attached notebook. The same program playing from TiVo on my TV showed up on my computer, and I used the setup wizard to install the onscreen remote for the closest match, a TiVo Series 2, which mostly uses the same IR codes. A Monsoon spokesman said that late-model TiVo remote codes were available for download.
Performance
The Titanium HD's picture quality proved to be slightly better than that of the other place-shifters on my home network, though I didn't see any difference when using it away from home. This may be because the Hava player uses MPEG-2 within a home network and MPEG-4 over the Internet, while the others use MPEG-4 exclusively.
However, of the three place-shifters I tested, the Titanium HD was also the flakiest. When it was connected to my TiVo HD, there were minutes when the video in the player looked fine and then, suddenly, a slice of the right side of the picture relocated itself to the left side of the screen, and color registration for the entire image was lost. This typically happened after I changed channels, but not always. Only rebooting the Titanium HD's base station, which can be done from the computer, let me correct the video — for a short time, anyway.
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Scarlett shifted: A scene from the movie Good Company, as broadcast on the TBS high-def channel and playing in Hava with built-in DVR controls. |
I called support, and a Monsoon technician identified a known problem in the Hava firmware and directed me to the company's Web site, where I could download a fix "specifically to resolve the color-distortion/right-to-left-side wraparound issue seen primarily when using 720p HD input." Lucky me. My TiVo was set to a fixed 720p output to match the native resolution of my plasma TV. Unfortunately, the procedure for transferring downloaded firmware from a computer to the base station wasn't obvious, and it took another call before the fix was in. (It didn't help that the fix predated the most current version of the firmware available for download. Also, the setup wizard indicated I had the most current version, failing to specify it was referring to the player on my computer, not the software in the base station.)
By this time, though, I had given up on TiVo as my source component and switched the Titanium HD base station to my cable box DVR. I became more optimistic when the setup wizard gave me the choice of the correct remote, but I discovered a whole new set of problems upon viewing video in the player window. While high-def channels looked fine, the picture from each standard-def channel quadrupled and rolled. Where's the vertical hold knob when you need one?
Getting back once again with tech support, they advised me to adjust the display output settings on my cable box DVR to a fixed 720p format. Finally, the Hava player showed me a stable image. Still, the List button was grayed out on my virtual remote, so I couldn't directly call up a list of recorded programs. My workaround was clicking on the menu button to access the titles.
While I don't wish these setup hang-ups on my worst enemy, let me tell you what I love about the Hava player. Because the included software is the only one of the three systems to embed DVR controls, you can delay viewing of video streamed from your home network while it accumulates on your computer's hard drive. So, even if you don't use a DVR as the main video source connected to the base station, you'll get one on your computer. The default recording buffer is 30 minutes, which requires about 1.3 GB of disk space (assuming a recording bit rate of 6 Mbps). It can be reset based on time or available disk space. Assuming enough of the stream is buffered, you can use your computer's mouse to grab the time-elapsed bar below the viewing window and tug the play point past commercials. And you could do it in a fraction of the time it would take to fast-forward through the same commercials on a regular cable or satellite DVR or TiVo. However, the Hava's DVR (and DVD burning) functions are only available over a home network, not when streaming video over an Internet connection.
Bundling DVR recording and DVD burning capabilities into place-shifting software also enhances a user's ability to open a tightly controlled viewing window. For example, via the Amazon Unbox service on TiVo, I had downloaded the movie Pieces of April. Once I started watching it, I'd be able to watch it as many times as I could within the next 24 hours, and then it would disappear. But if I didn't watch it within 30 days of the download, it would still be erased, and I'd forfeit my fee. As the erasure date approached, TiVo noticed I hadn't watched even a piece of April and flagged the title on my Now Playing list. Rather than lose the movie, I played it over my home network through the Hava player (the movie streamed at between 5 and 7 Mbps, according to the dynamic readout on the lower right of the player screen), recorded it, and burned a DVD.
Another thing I love about the Hava player is that you're not limited to streaming shows to one computer at a time. In addition to screening the movie Good Company from TBS-HD on my big-screen TV, I could watch it simultaneously on my wireless notebook in the kitchen and on my main computer in the home office. Scarlett Johansson was on every screen!
Clearly, when people in different rooms (or states) are watching the same video source and all have access to the same remote, there must be an understanding that one of them won't unilaterally change the channel. That said, separate viewers within a home network could still use their individual Hava players to pause, replay, play catch up, or record the program stream, since they each have DVR software on their computers. While there is no limit to the number of computers streaming the same program on a home network, there is a limit of one remote viewer on the Internet at a time. And the Hava player can also access programs recorded on a Windows Media Center Edition PC, taking advantage of the computer's own TV tuner.
Another unique feature is the ability to use the PrintScreen command to capture a BMP file of not just the player but a still of the video. This works both on a home network and over the Internet. Try using the screen capture command with the Slingbox or LocationFree players, and all you capture are black holes.
Bottom Line
Getting the Hava Titanium HD WIFI to work properly proved the most challenging of all three products tested. The firmware in the base unit was buggy, and the software in the computer could have been more user-friendly. But its MPEG-2 picture looked the best over my home network, and I love the convenience of having DVR buffering and recording controls on my computer, independent from those on the DVR in my home theater. The inclusion of DVD burning capability and the flexibility of viewing on several computers at once place the Titanium HD in a league of its own.
Conclusion
Once I got past setup and tweaking, performance among this threesome wasn't sufficiently different to highlight a true standout. So, rather than choose one as best in show, I'd rather recommend them individually for different reasons: the Sony LocationFree for its multiple source component support and reliable wireless networking, the Slingbox Solo for its setup simplicity and ease of use, and the Hava Titanium HD for its integrated DVR functions and picture quality over a home network.
In terms of being a category killer, all three should strike fear into manufacturers of TV tuner cards and USB tuner sticks. Anyone with a cable or satellite receiver and home network would be well advised to leverage the hundreds of channels coming in using a place-shifter rather than fitting a computer with an add-on tuner typically limited to over-the-air broadcast stations. Endowing the computer in your home office with all the program options available to the DVR in your home theater is a logical extension of your home theater's source components. In-home video distribution from your cable or satellite DVR has never been as affordable, or so prone to being a do-it-yourself project. And if you do happen to be gone a lot, you might miss home, but you won't miss what's on your home TV.