I love gadgets and to be able to watch UK TV when I am travelling around the world.
I am a firm lover of Slingbox, as I travel abroad a lot and watch UK TV in the hotels via my PC. I also have a home in Malaysia, and with Sling Turbo and Sling Catcher, I can watch UK TV on my 32″ Malaysian TV. OK, when I sit down to watch TV in Malaysia in the evening it is early morning in the UK (8 hours difference).
The problem arose when I was say in Turkey and wanted to watch BBC1 and my wife was in the UK home wanting to watch ITV1, two different channels, there would be a fight as I changed the channel and she changed it back.
To overcome the above I rent a second cable box from Virgin Media which is dedicated to the original Slingbox Clasic.
I decided to experiment with the newer Sling Media Solo attached to the other Virgin Media (TeleWest) TVDrive cable box.
I have my TV connected to the TVDrive via the HDMI cable. That leaves output available from the TVDrive to the Singbox Solo via the SCART (A/V, SD), S-Video, or Component (SD) outlets, and I spent even more money on more cables to try to get remote viewing via the PC working.
I could obtain a very acceptable video and audio signal on my PC remotely, and from my remote PC, control the TVDrive cable box back home, i.e. turn the cable box on and off, BUT, there is no text overlay, i.e. menu, information, shown on the PC when hitting the remote control on my PC, YET, the text overlay appears on the TV back at home.
The answer so far is before leaving home switch the output on the TVDrive to SCART, but then my wife complains about the quality of picture she is watching on the home TV.
Result?
Not the answer. Back to the drawing board.
Great product, great service from Sling Media, but I cannot believe I am the first one to have this problem.