Satelite TV & Various Other Options

Hello Molari.

Welcome to Expat.com!

Aurélie

Dear
In fact beam Anik F1 o F1r is oriented to north america - no south
as you can see on:  http://www.satbeams.com/footprints?position=253
Now my recomendation is to have a good internet connection and see your favorite channels through web TV.

Welcome to Quito - Hostie de satellite !

How about a slingbox? You could look into that option.

Patrick1339 wrote:

In fact beam Anik F1 o F1r is oriented to north america - no south
as you can see on:  http://www.satbeams.com/footprints?position=253
Now my recomendation is to have a good internet connection and see your favorite channels through web TV.

Thanks for the link Patrick. Sadly looking at the link, the Anik satellites don't reach Ecuador.

Patrick1339 wrote:

Welcome to Quito - Hostie de satellite !

Lol @ Hostie de satellite.  Merci pour le bienvenu

Luna2 wrote:

How about a slingbox? You could look into that option.

Wow, thanks for the suggestion, Luna2.

I looked into SlingBox and it looks like a very awesome workable option!

I can surely get family to help to keep a cable subscription with Videotron and the SlingBox device kept at their home. ^^

To those that want to see and understand how SlingBox works:

Wikipedia on SlingBox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slingbox

Canadian SlingBox site: http://ca.slingbox.com/

US SlingBox site: http://slingbox.com/

Video description of SlingBox:  http://ca.slingbox.com/go/slingbox?disp … Q7qXmd3tmo

Anyone else have any alternatives to add to this helpful thread?

Thanks again, Luna2.
Cheers!


Edit: Found this forum where if you create a second "guest user account" on your SlingBox and exchange it with someone in Australia, UK, Canada, USA and etc... who will create a guest account on his for you.

You will be able to watch English tv from all over the world. ^^
http://placeshiftingenthusiasts.com/for … -exchange/

Also, there seems better streaming quality on another box that I heard is slightly better than SlingBox called "Vulkano" http://www.myvulkano.com/index.html

placeshiftingenthusiasts wrote:

Vulkano do several things SlingBox cannot, like multiple lan users and one remote user at same time, can take PAL and NTSC in the same device whereas SlingBox do NTSC or PAL separately,

Recording live streams which SlingBox cannot, remote reboot which sling doesnt have, rollback to an earlier firmware version without using a hex editor as with sling.

Plus they use UDP which means better streaming internationally whereas sling uses TCP which suffers with latency affecting remote streaming speeds, something not afflicting Vulkano.

I have had a Slingbox for about 6 months. I live in the US and have accessed it from Panama and Ireland. In my experience the stream quaility will be a function of the internet link on the viewing end. If you don't have a stable, quick connection where you're watching, don't bother. Otherwise it's great, eh.

billmiller54 wrote:

I have had a Slingbox for about 6 months. I live in the US and have accessed it from Panama and Ireland. In my experience the stream quaility will be a function of the internet link on the viewing end. If you don't have a stable, quick connection where you're watching, don't bother. Otherwise it's great, eh.

How quick?

I got spoiled when I was living in the US with a cable connection that delivered about 15mbps. Now I'm in the Philippines and I'm lucky when I sometimes get 1mbps.

I notice, though, that 1mbps is (just barely) good enough to watch YouTube without the video constantly pausing. Would 1mbps be enough to use Slingbox? And will I be able to get 1 or 2mbps consistently in Quito?

Bob

Here's what the Slingbox ppl say;

Minimum Network Bandwidth

Video quality is dependent on network speed and conditions.
HD Viewing: 2 Mbps
SD Viewing: 600 Kbps
Mobile Viewing: 250 Kbps

Me now. Mobile viewing is via smartphone or tablet.
Any new-ish TV will have a VGA port so you can use it as a large screen monitor for the PC.


Here's exactly how I will set mine up.

At my son's house in the US - My one-time $150 purchase slingbox, whatever it costs monthly to get my own cable service and cable box at his house. I plug the Slingbox into his router and the cable box.

Where I live - No local cable or satellite service to buy. I'll have a PC, Internet connection (hopefully more than 2 mbs), large TV, PC speakers.     Ta  da!!  North Am TV for about the cost of satellite.

The PC connects to your slingbox, you control the DVR via a virtual remote control that on your PC. You'll change channels, set recordings, watch recorded shows, etc.