The palm PDA part was really the cherry on top! Of, course, back in the day, it wouldn't have been that nice not just for the app not being free but especially because of video streaming sucking up your typically ultra-meager cellular data plan limit from back then. But it was so cool to see it in action so many years later!
Pretty cool. If they work over a local network then seems like they'd still be good to use with a VPN or meshnet solution like ZeroTier with bridging enabled. Would be interesting to know how the 'over the internet' part worked. Did the server in your home and the client apps establish a connection using Slingbox servers exposed to the internet to proxy things (which I imagine would have been expensive for them at the time), or (and this gives me a hernia thinking about this, with a 15 year old device) did they use uPnP to just expose the control/viewing ports on the Slingbox to the internet, and the Slingbox servers just told the client apps what the right IP and port was? Some of the remaining Slingbox documentation suggests the latter is the case.
I knew a couple who had one wired up to their audio system in the living room and being amazed that it could play all their mp3s from their server PC in the basement. It was the future (the very early 2000s, anyway), and it was cool. Edit: the one I’m thinking of was audio-only…
The problems you are having playing the tapes in the VCR are likely due to a dirty mode switch inside the VCR. Dirty mode switches are the most common reasons VCRs eat (destroy) tapes. The mode switch is moved by the mechanisms, and is supposed to tell the VCR’s processor chip what arrangement the mechanisms are in at any moment (rewind, play, eject, etc.). If the mode switch is dirty, the processor will think the mechanisms are doing one thing (say, sitting idle with a tape loaded) when they are actually doing something else (say, playing). The mode switch can be cleaned if you know how.
I got a Sling Box Solo at a thrift store today! Complete in box-except for the software CD! Fortunately, the Internet Archive has both the 2005 manual and the 2005 software CD. I will have to try this out!
I was involved in the Cable TV industry at the time 2007. Netflix was only available by mailing DVDs, there was only Google Video that later became UA-cam. and that was it, interestingly the most used device it was used by Cable TV operators to monitor cable boxes in a remote manner. as of today Slingbox is officially dead, yes a brick as webservices were shut down making the device not able to operate or stream in the previous manner. there is still a GIT project where you can still make them usable
I'm so glad you did a video on this. I remember wanting one back in the day but never got one. I know a similar thing can be accomplished with an HD home run and plex but its nice to see this one working before they finally discontinue it Edit: I had assumed it worked as a tv tuner but if it's just video capture with an ir blaster I wonder if a similar thing can be done with a raspberry pi. I hope people make third party solutions to keep the originals alive tho
Thanks! It seems some of their other models did have TV tuners, but the one I have only had AV/Component input. Yes, there are some nice modern solutions, maybe I'll need to give them a try some day.
Awesome video, I didn't know that this existed. What's funny is that I have a Slingbox but didn't realize what it was until I saw your video! I remembered I have something that looked very similar to your model, and I actually got it working! If it wasn't for your video, I wouldn't have been able to try it out while the service was still functional. I made a video on my channel about trying it out and I featured your channel and video! I managed to get it working with a PlayStation 1 and an iPhone 3GS! Thanks Steve, keep up the good work!
I had one of these! When i moved out from my parents place I set it up there and used it for 'free' tv for years until it stopped working, hardware was fine, software was broken.
10:40 The substance around the head cylinder is white mold. When magnetic tapes such as VHS tapes sit in the wrong environmental conditions for a long time, white mold can grow on the edge of the tape. The mold at best will interfere with getting a clear picture and sound and you will have to clean the heads. (You must never clean the heads with anything made of cotton, including cotton balls, Q-tips, or cotton cloth, or you will never get a clear image from the heads again on any tape!) At worst, the mold will act as a glue for the layers of the tape around the reel, so that when the reel is forced to turn, the tape can tear lengthwise, destroying any hope of ever recovering image or sound from that segment. There are ways to safely remove the mold, but you have to always look at the tape first through the tape case window to see if there is mold before you play it.
Incidentally, those public domain cartoon tapes are notorious to me for being found in thrift stores and with lots of mold on them. I think the nature of the bare-minimum production of them meant low-quality tape material which was more susceptible to growing mold. 📼🦠
I’ve got lot of slingboxes. At the time even local local cable TV company uses them to remote monitoring and even a backup solution to supply fallback when there is a fault in the reception of the local headend
I work for a cable company and we still use Slingboxes even now! We were quite sad when Sling announced they were discontinuing their service and have been scrambling ever since to find replacements for all of them! We do have a solution but it comes at quite a cost impact (both for hardware and support). Thanks for posting the video!!
Got a predicament-I brought put my old iMac G3 DV for the first time in years and I forgot the login. I also don’t currently have a functional OS 9 disk, and that DVD drive is cursed (king story) How shall I proceed?
I wish my Slingbox 360 still worked today - with NEtflix and others trying to stop password sharing and giving us travelers crap when we log in form a different network or state, or even country. That didn't matter with my slingbox.
I used the Sling Box Solo when I worked at a remote location and could use the Cable subscription I had at home. It worked ok depending on the strength of the network connection. I just happened to be rummaging around and found mine and was going to throw it away but I have trouble throwing things away like this that are obsolete because I think they will be a use for it again someday. What do you think ,toss it?
From 2009 - 2015 I gave my parents $18 a month for an extra time warner dvr box at their house. I set up the slingbox on that unit and got hundreds of channels, dvr and all the premiums they paid for. It was a little frustrating sometimes, but I felt like I was getting away with murder 😂. And it really didn't matter that it was SD, if it was any higher quality most people's upload speed wouldn't have been able to handle it anyway. It was just amazing at the time that you could actually do it.
I can’t stop laughing at your VCR/Laser disc dying gear pandemonium! How fitting that you spend almost all your free time repairing old Mac’s and electronics you can get your hands on, and yet still the old electronics god’s show you no mercy! How rude, not even a single thank you from them for saving their electronic brethren, nope they must watch you suffer! Hah, at least the electronic gods have an eye for entertainment and comedic gold!
Haha. Thank you! I try to show how things really are. These things all worked the last time I put them on the shelves, with the shelf, with the exception of the first LD player, I think I bought that and never got to testing it… I guess now I know it’s sad. 😂
This is really cool it sad to see them discontinue the service to watch tv from a distance but these days every tv service has this kind of stuff on apps and what not these days
This gadget used to be brilliant. In 2007 streaming sports via mobile wasn’t as common so I used to watch my parents cable tv on the go. I’m surprised this device wasn’t more popular
The funny thing is after watching the LGR video and saving this video for later I ran across somebody who using a sling box to send video between buildings on the campus Church campus. Oh yes oh yes the archive of past videos can make foor some interesting things.
Why did they get rid of this? I'd buy it today. Super simple idea that seems by all accounts to work really well and offers a nice selection of features. Was impressed with that 'Audio only' touch you could do. Wish I had it back when I was driving across the country all the time. Hell wish I had it it now so I could watch sports while im out. Great video - loved how pumped you were when the palm pilot one worked immediately lol.
It’s very possible to continue using these boxes, there is a lot of reverse engeneering, I’ve even use them via a Perl script that spits out a ASF stream of them. The only that they need from the online service is a directory that associate that serial number to an IP address to be found on the public network.
This 90s Apple Educational Laser Disc is Macintosh Librarian GOLD!!! I need this :O
Not to worry, I will share… I’m trying to track down the HyperCard stack and booklets that go with it 😬
The palm PDA part was really the cherry on top! Of, course, back in the day, it wouldn't have been that nice not just for the app not being free but especially because of video streaming sucking up your typically ultra-meager cellular data plan limit from back then. But it was so cool to see it in action so many years later!
I moved from Canada to Australia in 2016, and put one of these in a friend's place so I could keep watching Canadian TV. RIP slingbox :(
It's not that hard to make something similar of your own.
Came here after watching Clint’s video (LGR) I think I’m going to like your content as well! You got a new sub here!
Thank you for the kind words, I hope you enjoy it as well. There is a backlog of non-live content you may like too.
I will never forget being able to watch Costa Rican 1st division soccer live in Switzerland thanks to Slingbox 😂
Pretty cool. If they work over a local network then seems like they'd still be good to use with a VPN or meshnet solution like ZeroTier with bridging enabled.
Would be interesting to know how the 'over the internet' part worked. Did the server in your home and the client apps establish a connection using Slingbox servers exposed to the internet to proxy things (which I imagine would have been expensive for them at the time), or (and this gives me a hernia thinking about this, with a 15 year old device) did they use uPnP to just expose the control/viewing ports on the Slingbox to the internet, and the Slingbox servers just told the client apps what the right IP and port was? Some of the remaining Slingbox documentation suggests the latter is the case.
I wonder if some group if people are trying to make this thing work when the servers die in the next few months
A Blerb sent me 😃
I knew a couple who had one wired up to their audio system in the living room and being amazed that it could play all their mp3s from their server PC in the basement. It was the future (the very early 2000s, anyway), and it was cool.
Edit: the one I’m thinking of was audio-only…
The problems you are having playing the tapes in the VCR are likely due to a dirty mode switch inside the VCR. Dirty mode switches are the most common reasons VCRs eat (destroy) tapes. The mode switch is moved by the mechanisms, and is supposed to tell the VCR’s processor chip what arrangement the mechanisms are in at any moment (rewind, play, eject, etc.). If the mode switch is dirty, the processor will think the mechanisms are doing one thing (say, sitting idle with a tape loaded) when they are actually doing something else (say, playing). The mode switch can be cleaned if you know how.
I got a Sling Box Solo at a thrift store today! Complete in box-except for the software CD! Fortunately, the Internet Archive has both the 2005 manual and the 2005 software CD. I will have to try this out!
I was involved in the Cable TV industry at the time 2007. Netflix was only available by mailing DVDs, there was only Google Video that later became UA-cam. and that was it, interestingly the most used device it was used by Cable TV operators to monitor cable boxes in a remote manner. as of today Slingbox is officially dead, yes a brick as webservices were shut down making the device not able to operate or stream in the previous manner. there is still a GIT project where you can still make them usable
I'm so glad you did a video on this. I remember wanting one back in the day but never got one. I know a similar thing can be accomplished with an HD home run and plex but its nice to see this one working before they finally discontinue it
Edit: I had assumed it worked as a tv tuner but if it's just video capture with an ir blaster I wonder if a similar thing can be done with a raspberry pi. I hope people make third party solutions to keep the originals alive tho
Thanks! It seems some of their other models did have TV tuners, but the one I have only had AV/Component input. Yes, there are some nice modern solutions, maybe I'll need to give them a try some day.
Awesome video, I didn't know that this existed. What's funny is that I have a Slingbox but didn't realize what it was until I saw your video! I remembered I have something that looked very similar to your model, and I actually got it working! If it wasn't for your video, I wouldn't have been able to try it out while the service was still functional. I made a video on my channel about trying it out and I featured your channel and video! I managed to get it working with a PlayStation 1 and an iPhone 3GS! Thanks Steve, keep up the good work!
Time for some VCR repair videos :)
I had one of these! When i moved out from my parents place I set it up there and used it for 'free' tv for years until it stopped working, hardware was fine, software was broken.
10:40 The substance around the head cylinder is white mold. When magnetic tapes such as VHS tapes sit in the wrong environmental conditions for a long time, white mold can grow on the edge of the tape. The mold at best will interfere with getting a clear picture and sound and you will have to clean the heads. (You must never clean the heads with anything made of cotton, including cotton balls, Q-tips, or cotton cloth, or you will never get a clear image from the heads again on any tape!) At worst, the mold will act as a glue for the layers of the tape around the reel, so that when the reel is forced to turn, the tape can tear lengthwise, destroying any hope of ever recovering image or sound from that segment. There are ways to safely remove the mold, but you have to always look at the tape first through the tape case window to see if there is mold before you play it.
Incidentally, those public domain cartoon tapes are notorious to me for being found in thrift stores and with lots of mold on them. I think the nature of the bare-minimum production of them meant low-quality tape material which was more susceptible to growing mold. 📼🦠
I’ve got lot of slingboxes. At the time even local local cable TV company uses them to remote monitoring and even a backup solution to supply fallback when there is a fault in the reception of the local headend
Very cool!
I work for a cable company and we still use Slingboxes even now!
We were quite sad when Sling announced they were discontinuing their service and have been scrambling ever since to find replacements for all of them!
We do have a solution but it comes at quite a cost impact (both for hardware and support). Thanks for posting the video!!
is a SlingBox 500 Media Streamer HDMI WiFi useable in 2023?
That's actually a CD you're playing, just a tiny Steve -- so freeze frame 13:07 "Honey, they shrunk Steve from Mac84!"
Got a predicament-I brought put my old iMac G3 DV for the first time in years and I forgot the login. I also don’t currently have a functional OS 9 disk, and that DVD drive is cursed (king story)
How shall I proceed?
I wish my Slingbox 360 still worked today - with NEtflix and others trying to stop password sharing and giving us travelers crap when we log in form a different network or state, or even country. That didn't matter with my slingbox.
I remember finding one of these at the PX before moving to Japan. Surprised it lasted so long up to 2022
I used the Sling Box Solo when I worked at a remote location and could use the Cable subscription I had at home. It worked ok depending on the strength of the network connection. I just happened to be rummaging around and found mine and was going to throw it away but I have trouble throwing things away like this that are obsolete because I think they will be a use for it again someday. What do you think ,toss it?
I really enjoyed this video, thank you for making excellent content. The mistakes along the way made it feel authentic.
people will probablt create another service to replace the original servers. it happens all the time
From 2009 - 2015 I gave my parents $18 a month for an extra time warner dvr box at their house. I set up the slingbox on that unit and got hundreds of channels, dvr and all the premiums they paid for. It was a little frustrating sometimes, but I felt like I was getting away with murder 😂. And it really didn't matter that it was SD, if it was any higher quality most people's upload speed wouldn't have been able to handle it anyway. It was just amazing at the time that you could actually do it.
the slingbox shall destroy all
I liked the way you could download your exact “remote”
Cool content! Love that you are making videos again. Thanks for sharing
vcr are going up in value 600
Mine stopped working with the original iPad app. What’s the solution in 2023?
I’m unsure if there is one as the service was shut down.
And this is why you never rely on anything that connects to a server.
I can’t stop laughing at your VCR/Laser disc dying gear pandemonium! How fitting that you spend almost all your free time repairing old Mac’s and electronics you can get your hands on, and yet still the old electronics god’s show you no mercy! How rude, not even a single thank you from them for saving their electronic brethren, nope they must watch you suffer! Hah, at least the electronic gods have an eye for entertainment and comedic gold!
Haha. Thank you!
I try to show how things really are. These things all worked the last time I put them on the shelves, with the shelf, with the exception of the first LD player, I think I bought that and never got to testing it… I guess now I know it’s sad. 😂
This is really cool it sad to see them discontinue the service to watch tv from a distance but these days every tv service has this kind of stuff on apps and what not these days
Thanks for this and there is still a market for this it's just most people don't know about it and just use a home server and razzberry pi instead.
I’ve never watched one of your videos before. Found this while researching the Slingbx. I appreciate the geekdom and share in your lament.
This gadget used to be brilliant. In 2007 streaming sports via mobile wasn’t as common so I used to watch my parents cable tv on the go. I’m surprised this device wasn’t more popular
The funny thing is after watching the LGR video and saving this video for later I ran across somebody who using a sling box to send video between buildings on the campus Church campus. Oh yes oh yes the archive of past videos can make foor some interesting things.
Why did they get rid of this? I'd buy it today. Super simple idea that seems by all accounts to work really well and offers a nice selection of features. Was impressed with that 'Audio only' touch you could do. Wish I had it back when I was driving across the country all the time. Hell wish I had it it now so I could watch sports while im out. Great video - loved how pumped you were when the palm pilot one worked immediately lol.
Cool video. I didn't such thing existed!.
The Palm PDA working at all was amazing!
It’s very possible to continue using these boxes, there is a lot of reverse engeneering, I’ve even use them via a Perl script that spits out a ASF stream of them. The only that they need from the online service is a directory that associate that serial number to an IP address to be found on the public network.
You REALLY need to start tossing out your broken things man.
They worked last time I put them on the shelf 😢 Thankfully most of them are probably just in need of a new belt or a fuse
Why? They're semi organized, not stacked dangerously high, and ultimately they belong to him. If he wants to keep junk, it's not your business.
are you on the right input