The box is light, but well built.

Not keen on the remote, but you get used to it (although I'll be moving everything over to a programmable remote soon).

I can't really vouch for it's noise level due to the environment it's in, but I can't hear it.

I see that "you can only watch your TV anywhere in standard definition". It's a great shame that Echostar have not built in the functionality of the Slingbox Pro-HD & offered the option of streaming HD video.

Especially as last night the only thing i could stream from the laptop Win Server to the new TV was HD..so it can't be that hard!

For most people there broadband upload speed won't be fast enough to stream HD over the internet.

I have just been upgraded from 1.5Mbps to 5Mbps upload speed so \would probably be OK here but don't forget that one of the neat spin offs of installing a Slingbox is that it allows you to stream TV around the house on your LAN.

So does the hdr now and in HD for unencrypted content. This may explain why HD has been omitted as most HD content is encrypted as it's written to disc.

There's a video here...
http://www.slashgear.com/echostar-sl...ideo-22141533/
...which shows it on an iPad near the end.

Cheers,
David.

Interested in the Slingbox ......

Does the PC app allow downloading/recording of programmes from the Slingbox onto the PC please?

I'm thinking of whether you could transfer programmes to a laptop so you can watch the programmes whilst on a plane?

Thanks.

From what I read it just allows you to play the files from the box and the files stay on the box.
J

Must admit when I first saw the remote I found it strange, however I like the idea that it sits with the keypad showing at an angle. We have 5 different remotes and the slingbox one stands out. Im going to set up the kit tomorrow as Im testing the Sammy just now.

Set the box up this morning. I use an automatic HDMI 3 way splitter, The echostar didnt like that at all. Ended up having to run it through the home cinema before I could get anything out of it but its working fine now.

Fan noise is slightly higher than the Humax but you only hear it when the house is quiet, little chance of that here.

Deleting files is pretty quick, I have one of the Boxes that was used for the press launch so I wanted to take it back to as new as possible without re formatting the drive.

The sling setup was quick & painless, but I have still to try it away from the house.

Will let you know how it goes but at the moment it sems like a good box (unlike the Sammy.

I just got one of these mainly for the slingbox functionality for use in France.

My first thoughts are that the picture is absolutely awful compared to my Virgin V HD cable box. I shall connect up the old Humax Freesat PVR to compare but the video quality really is dreadful. Grossly oversaturated & with brightness way too high. There is so much loss of detail when e.g. watching newsreader on BBC News. Have I got a bad box or is this typical of the Echostar? The machine itself is much faster through the menus than the Humax PVR & in particular the EPG always loads up in a second or 2.

The slingbox functionality was simple to setup & works well although again the picture quality isn't up to match. The iPad app works well once you figure out how to use it as in common with many iPhone & iPad apps there is no documentation available.

Perhaps I was expecting too much but even on the LAN the slingbox picture quality is not great. It's like when I used an analogue TV capture card with Windows Media Center. Compared to what I get with BBC iPlayer it's rubbish.

Another disappointment is that you can only use the web based player when using a Mac or PC.

I need to do some more testing but if the picture quality of the PVR connected to the TV (I can live with iffy slingbox PQ for the convenience) cannot be improved then I shall be returning the box for a full refund including shipping under the Sale of Goods Act as no fit for purpose or of merchantable quality.

OK I checked & I must now apologise to Echostar. The picture is fine compared to the Humax PVR, Freeview & Virgin cable. The problem was that the picture for the HDMI input I was using for the sat boxes had been set to 'Vivid'. I had carefully calibrated the Virgin cable box HDMI & need to do the same for the sat input.

I was going to say... I just swapped my Humax for the Echostar on the same input, and I thought the Echostar looked better than the Humax - particularly on SD content.

The image quality of the Sling functionality does leave something to be desired though.

there is now a review of this on expertreviews.co.uk

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/pvrs/...star-hds-600rs

What a biased review. Especially the section on not able to stream iplayer across the web through the sling connection. Um, hello iplayer is already already on the Internet! Pedantic or what!

I thought the review was quite balanced. Being able to use BBC iPlayer from the Echostar would be a very nice feature when accessing the box from outside the UK. The other criticisms are valid too e.g.



However I disagree with their conclusion that using the Slingbox on a LAN you get quality that's around standard SD broadcast. Picture quality is in fact pretty poor even on a LAN. I suspect that they have only viewed in a small browser window.

No iplayer is for the UK. BBC rules, I understand them and agree. There is however a paid version of iplayer, BBC entertainment channel!

There is no paid version of the BBC iPlayer although one has been proposed but is likely to be very limited in the style of the Pay-TV channels BBC Prime or BBC America that are available outside the UK.

Access to BBC iPlayer via the Echostar Slingbox would be a great boon for expats. If the live & recorded TV can be placeshifted by Slingbox then why not the online TV version?

The iplayer is designed and is only for the UK. It's not the bbc's fault you move abroad and don't pay a license fee.

Does the BBC IPlayer work remotely?

A moderate irritation with the Echostar you can only use the web based Slingbox application rather than the older standalone application & it is very picky about exactly which browser & version (Chrome does not work at all, Firefox version 3 only, Safari must be in 32-bit mode etc). It checks that the browser you are using is one of the blessed ones & refuses to proceed if it is not.

All of the TV accessible on the Echostar is only supposed to be viewed in the UK so whether it's live TV, recorded TV or online TV is irrelevant. Whether someone pays a licence fee or not is also irrelevant as that is a UK tax on using a TV receiver not a subscription fee to access any of the BBC services.

If you mean via the Slingbox then the answer is "No".

Are apps on a standard slingbox available thru the sling media programme? No there are rights issues with that. Iplayer is only given to setop box manufacturers to use on the box nothing else.

Btw not that I want to have a license fee debate. It's not a tax and why should someone who doesn't pay for the content be allowed to view the content?