I am curious to know if SlingBox is available in Spain and I have not found any clear info online. My aunt lives in Madrid and I will be visiting in May. My thought was to buy a SlingBox to hook up to her TV while I am there so that I can watch soccer matches etc on my PC when I am back home in the US. I also wondr if anyone els has tried this...

Interesting concept! But I guess if it's already for sale it's no longer a concept, right?

Surely I'm not the only person reading this thread asking themselves, "What the heck is a slingbox?"

From what you've mentioned, seems it's something which allows you to broadcast a television signal over the Internet to a particular receiver which, in this case, would be to your PC in Oklahoma. Can you explain to us how this works? Does your aunt in Madrid already have internet service provider? Is there a phone jack near her TV? Would she have the channel tuned to your soccer match channel in order for you to be able to watch it? What happens if she inadvertently changes the change to watch a movie? Would that screw things up?

Curious, MadridMan

Great questions all, MadridMan, and that is what I am trying to figure out. Ha. She does have internet service so that would be no problem, although it is not near her TV which may be an issue that a LAN line would solve. From what I can understand, theoretically I would be able to tune her TV remotely from my PC. But I am not sure if it would interupt what she is watching (most likely the gossip shows about bullfighters girlfriends) or if she would be able to inadvertantly change what I am watching. From what I have read of the US version this should not be a problem, but my experience with all things Spanish is that I should not assume the same to be true in Spain (I say that with a true love of Spain on my heart so, please, no one take offense).

How very intriguing!! I've just found their website at http://www.slingmedia.com/ - and they have a Spain-based page at http://es.slingmedia.com/ . I gather no one sells it at retail outlets in Spain so you'd have to buy it online, presumably through their website. I see the standard and the PRO products.

Keep in mind that Internet connections in Spain are only a fraction as fast as in the USA because almost no one has cable modems here for lack of infrastructure. Instead, we mostly have ADSL connections through the phone line. Ask your aunt what she has. Ask her to check her connection speed at at least 3 "Test Your Connection Speed" websites and take the average - as they're likely to all be different. Here are some:

http://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk/
http://www.bandwidthplace.com/
http://www.testmyspeed.com/
http://www.speedtest.net/

For example, I have a download connection speed of 8.0 Mbps - but ONLY A FRIGGIN' SLOW 0.42 Mbps UPload connection speed - and the latter is what you'd be dealing with here in Spain to "broadcast" to the Internet. It may be this reason, if there is one, why the SlingBox isn't more popular here.

Please do keep us posted. I, for one, am interested!

Saludos, MadridMan

Thanks, MadridMan! Great info there. I will have her check her speeds and see what we get. I had not even thought about the upload speed being an issue so that is a good point. I will keep you posted.

Hi, benw20! You've been and gone already. What did you find out about the SlingBox? Did it work? Did you try it?