John Archer looks at two new devices that let you watch your own Sky, Freeview or cable box no matter where in the world you might be

Ever found yourself in a far-flung hotel room at the end of a tiring day, only to find that there’s absolutely nothing on the telly? Where all the channels are either in a foreign language, or else the televisual equivalent of watching paint dry?

Oh, if only you could somehow beam the pictures from your own beloved Sky / Freeview or cable box back in Blighty and into your laptop…. Well, you know what? Now you can. And what’s more, you can even control your distant receiver, right down to changing channels and even watching recordings. Making this seemingly impossible dream a reality are not one but two different ‘TV anywhere’ devices: Sony’s Location Free LF-PK1, and the SlingMedia Slingbox. With a stay in a cheap hotel in Germany looming, it seemed the time was right to give both systems a try…

The Slingbox £180

The Slingbox and Sony systems both work by opening up a two-way broadband internet link between your TV receiver and your laptop, delivering AV information one way and remote control signals the other. The Slingbox installation wizard walks you through set-up step by patient step, and even better, Slingmedia’s associated web site provides a superb guide to configuring even the most awkward of routers.

The Slingbox’s connectivity is impressive

The unit has two aerial jacks, revealing that the Slingbox has its own built-in TV tuner. What’s more, this tuner is digital. So the Slingbox can work as a standalone Freeview receiver for your TV (one of the aerial jacks sends pictures out) as well as a device for ‘slinging’ Freeview programmes all over the world.

There are also S-Video and composite video inputs for connecting external sources such as a Sky Digital receiver, cable box or DVD deck, plus, of course, an Ethernet port for that all-important internet connection, and a socket for attaching an infra-red extender so the Slingbox can control your sources while you’re accessing them from wherever.

How easy is it to use?

The Slingbox installs onto your laptop ‘virtual remote controls’ (onscreen representations of real remote controls) for hundreds of different potential source devices, including Sky Digital and Sky+ receivers. So accessing the programmes and functions of your home TV box is no more complicated than connecting to a broadband internet service where you’re staying, opening up the Slingbox programme, and selecting the relevant buttons on your virtual remote.

Will it only work on laptops?

The Slingbox can now work with smaller, more convenient devices like Windows Mobile phones and PDAs, plus Symbian Smartphones via 3G or wifi. The phone options open up the possibility of watching your own TV receiver on, say, a train, rather than just being restricted to places with broadband internet connection.

How does it perform?

The Slingbox’s software has to convert the pictures from your TV receiver into a compressed form that can be transmitted comfortably over the internet, yet the software used to achieve this does its thing with surprisingly little detriment to the picture quality that ultimately reaches your laptop. Telltale signs of compression, such as blockiness, smearing and rough edges, are remarkably few and far between. Even better, although the broadband link we used to test the Slingbox only supported 256kbps, pictures arrived on our laptop superbly smoothly.

Summary

Ultimately it’s hard to fault the Slingbox. It makes a mind-blowing concept into not only a superbly accomplished reality, but a reality that even diehard technophobes can enjoy without their brains exploding!

Size: 46(h) x 269(w) x 102(d)mm

The Sony Location Free LF-PK1 £230

If like us and many other unlucky souls across the nation you happen to have a broadband router that isn’t a ‘UPnP’ type, getting the LF-PK1 working is a nightmare. The main problem is that Sony offers precisely zero help with the crucial but complex process of ‘port forwarding’ necessary to integrate the PK1 onto a non-UPnP wireless network.

The Slingbox also requires port forwarding, but it’s a testament to how easy that system is to set up that we barely noticed this procedure happening. With the Sony you’ll likely have to do what the PK1’s instructions ‘helpfully’ suggest, and ring the manufacturer of your router in the hope they can sort you out.

Another niggle with the Sony set up is that unlike the Slingbox, you can only install the system’s LocationFree software on one laptop/PC at a time, with discs for further installs costing £20 each. Hardly ideal when the PK1 costs significantly more than the Slingbox in the first place.

Is it well connected?

The PK1 sports neither the S-Video input nor, more significantly, the tuner connections enjoyed with the Slingbox. The lack of tuner jacks naturally means you’re restricted for your sources to external devices (Sky boxes, DVD decks and so on), which can only be connected via two composite video inputs – neither of which offer the same picture quality as the Slingbox’s S-Video port.

Naturally there’s a broadband Ethernet port, and a plug for the remote control extender.

How easy is it to use?

Once you’ve finally got the PK1 working, life thankfully becomes a whole lot simpler, as Sony provides a huge database of easy to use ‘virtual remote controls’ to simulate those of your home equipment.

All is not perfect, however, since bizarrely the PK1’s laptop window can’t show widescreen sources correctly, leaving widescreen programmes looking squashed. Even though the PSP’s LocationFree software handles widescreen programmes well!

Will it only work on laptops?

As we’ve hinted, the PK1 works with PSPs as well as laptops. But for now at least, other devices such as PDAs and Smartphones are off limits. And getting the PSP ‘LocationFree Ready’ can be a very time-consuming process.

How does it perform?

The PK1’s pictures are no match for those of the Slingbox. Using exactly the same broadband connection for the PK1’s tests, its pictures emerged on our laptop and PSP beset by quite considerable amounts of blocking and twitching noise, suggesting that the PK1’s encoding and compression software isn’t as sophisticated as the Slingbox’s. Manually selecting the PK1’s highest quality setting reduces much of the blocking noise - but only at the expense of frequent annoying pauses in the video stream.

Summary

If you’re willing to put in the massive upfront effort, are lucky enough to have a broadband connection with upload speeds comfortably higher than 256kbps, AND own a PSP, then the PK1 is perhaps worth considering. But even then there’s no avoiding the fact that the Slingbox does pretty much everything better (bar the PSP compatibility) while costing considerably less.