Snowbird wanting home Television while away.

We are snowbirds from Canada and while away love to watch "Home" Television especially the news & of course the NHL Hockey Games!
We are considering getting a Slingbox 350 or 500 or a Vulkano Flow or other alternative (s) like these in order to do this.

Since the Canadian Satellite TV Providers have either changed the footprint of their Satellites (Bell Expressvu) or stopped support and are possibly also going to change their footprint (Shaw Direct) we are thinking of an alternative.

It appears that a Slingbox or an alternative might work.
At our permanent "Home" residence we have the option of obtaining Bell Aliant Fibre-Op which is Fibre right into the home with practically unlimited bandwidth. The standard offering is 15 meg up & down with much higher bandwidths available. At our "Snowbird" home we have 10 Meg download. The Snowbird location is a "contention-based" Ethernet" i.e. shared but could be less but I have tested it in busy times and received 7 to 10 Meg download almost all the time. I believe that to make this work one needs a good upload at the sending location (Home) and a good download at the receiving location (Snowbird Location)
So I think I have good Internet bandwidth service to accomplish getting TV from my home location using this Slingbox or an alternative.

My question is there others that have done this?....I am quite sure there is and what problems if any did you encounter?
I have heard that some have had problems back at the sending end that they could not solve and had to have someone to go there and try to fix. What were the problems if any and how did you fix them? Did anyone run one of these for a whole six months while away?
I have a UPS system at my home end, I think that the Slingbox or alternative might be better on this rather than on commercial power although we do have few outages, anybody do that? Might this help or cure any of the problems....if there are problems?
What devices do most that have tried or are using this like...Slingbox or an alternative?

I have not investigated this for sure but in using these devices can one get more than one channel at the receiving location as we have more than one TV in the snowbird location. I would think that might depend on the type of TV service at the home end. Possibly if Satellite one could use more than one receiver but I would probably subscribe to Bell Aliant TV package seeing as I would be using their Internet at the home end.
Really appreciate any comments, experiences , etc., on this.
Thanks.....Ernie

11 Replies

Canuck_Travelle
Explorer
Sep 29, 2013
Arizona Kid wrote:
I've used a Slingbox for years. Ours is connected with MOCA devices, (Ethernet over cable) so it doesn't have to be next to the router. It is connected to our TIVO, and works any where in the world where there is a decent connection. The wife was just in Manila, and was able to watch from her Hotel room, though the connection was iffy at times.
The only problem you may have is it may need rebooted at some point, so someone will need access to it. With our new Slingbox, I have not needed to reboot it in over a year, but if you loose power to the router, it may need to be rebooted.
Your home upload speeds are important, ours are around 6.75 Mbps, so no problem.
I don't know what the minimum is, so you may want to check with Slingbox if you think that may be a problem.
Hooking to a TIVO or another PVR is, in my opinion, the way to go. Great to be able to watch our recorded shows on the Ipad, or Iphone.
Setup is pretty easy, the apps for Iphone/Ipad are $15, I guess probably the same for other devices.
Wife was watching it in the car today over LTE, and it worked great, just have to watch the data use.
Sometimes we take our Apple TV with us so we can watch the Slingbox on a TV using Air Play.

Arizona Kid: Thanks very much, this is very helpful info that I was hoping for (an actual user).
In our case we can get Bell Aliant Fibre to the home with unlimited bandwidth; 15 Meg being the standard and whatever you want to pay for beyond that, they have one of the most advanced networks to the home in North America. So UPLOAD from home should not be a problem. At my Snowbird home Centurylink has 10 Meg download over twisted pair and it is really good even in busy times at 7.5 to 9.9 Meg so I am thinking that would be reasonable.
I have a good UPS (uninterruptible power supply)system bought from Costco (APC® Back-UPS Pro 1300 Battery Backup) and have used for two years now & presently have my router, modem and phone system on it. It lasts for at least four hours if I lose commercial power which I don't lose very often through the winter but who knows with ice storms now more prevalent than ever. I do have a great retired neighbor who lives across the road who could reboot the system if necessary.
So it looks like I could have a viable TV system remotely should I need to move to it and I may do that sometime in the future as I think Canadian Satellite service outside Canada is coming to a close like Bell Expressvu did in the big move over a year ago.....it's just a matter of time....and it will be better to be prepared pro-actively rather than re-actively.
Thanks again!
Arizona_Kid
Explorer
Sep 29, 2013
I've used a Slingbox for years. Ours is connected with MOCA devices, (Ethernet over cable) so it doesn't have to be next to the router. It is connected to our TIVO, and works any where in the world where there is a decent connection. The wife was just in Manila, and was able to watch from her Hotel room, though the connection was iffy at times.
The only problem you may have is it may need rebooted at some point, so someone will need access to it. With our new Slingbox, I have not needed to reboot it in over a year, but if you loose power to the router, it may need to be rebooted.
Your home upload speeds are important, ours are around 6.75 Mbps, so no problem.
I don't know what the minimum is, so you may want to check with Slingbox if you think that may be a problem.
Hooking to a TIVO or another PVR is, in my opinion, the way to go. Great to be able to watch our recorded shows on the Ipad, or Iphone.
Setup is pretty easy, the apps for Iphone/Ipad are $15, I guess probably the same for other devices.
Wife was watching it in the car today over LTE, and it worked great, just have to watch the data use.
Sometimes we take our Apple TV with us so we can watch the Slingbox on a TV using Air Play.
You_can_t_take_
Explorer
Sep 29, 2013
Here's a link for info purposes.link
Canuck_Travelle
Explorer
Sep 28, 2013
robatthelake wrote:
Shaw Direct will continue to work as before ,for the next 5 Years at least. By then There will be a better solution for Us Canadians!

The Only thing that Shaw have done is moved the High Def Channels to the New Bird! Standard Def will continue to use the original satellites!

I could be wrong but I think the existing HD channels that we were getting before are still on the old satellite. Why I say that is my receivers are not upgraded and they pick up the old HD channels like 331CNN, 301 etc.
I think they only put the newer channels on the new Satellite.
Canuck_Travelle
Explorer
Sep 28, 2013
MrWizard wrote:
you can only watch 'ONE' ITEM/channel at a time
the sling box or volkno will only select and send ONE channel or video stream
you would need 'multiplexing' to send two channels, then separate them at the receiving end

i do not know any 'remote' webcast device for consumers that will do this
even if possible it would mean 'degrading' signal by 50% to place two signals / aka share the bandwidth

YES
you could connect TWO sling boxes to TWO different cable boxes/PC's and stream both from the home network
each one would have its own IP address
and each one would have to share the bandwidth aka data rate, with the other box
but the receiving side in Fl, might not have enough bandwidth to get good streaming for two devices

Thanks for the reply, appreciate that!
Canuck_Travelle
Explorer
Sep 28, 2013
robatthelake wrote:
Shaw Direct will continue to work as before ,for the next 5 Years at least. By then There will be a better solution for Us Canadians!

The Only thing that Shaw have done is moved the High Def Channels to the New Bird! Standard Def will continue to use the original satellites!

Well prior to 2012-07 or so we thought that Bell Expressvu was going to be around for a while longer also. I hope you are right in that Shaw Direct will be available for a couple of years but in case they are not better get an alternative.
A year ago I was assured by Shaw that the Shaw HAFH (Home Away From Home) program was always going to be around and supported by Shaw, now we know they are not supporting it and they could cut one off on a minutes notice if they knew you were out of Canada using their service.....I would not want to bet the farm on them keeping the technology available in the south US or Mexico seeing that Bell changed so quickly and no one thought it was going to happen.
But thanks for the reply & hope you are right!
Canuck_Travelle
Explorer
Sep 28, 2013
darsben wrote:
Doesn't CBC and/or CTV have webcasts where you can watch online?

Here is CBC url
http://www.cbc.ca/player/

Even if it was possible I would want to watch my own local stations back home & I love BNN (Business News Network) although I can watch it after a couple of hours after it's broadcast in Florida on the internet (Market Call & Market Call Tonight).
Also the Hockey Games on the remote possibility that the Leafs (might) win a game or two & the really remote one....the cup....LOL
Fizz
Explorer
Sep 28, 2013
darsben wrote:
Doesn't CBC and/or CTV have webcasts where you can watch online?

Here is CBC url
http://www.cbc.ca/player/

Will not work outside Canada same as you can't watch CBS online in Canada.
MrWizard
Moderator
Sep 28, 2013
you can only watch 'ONE' ITEM/channel at a time
the sling box or volkno will only select and send ONE channel or video stream
you would need 'multiplexing' to send two channels, then separate them at the receiving end

i do not know any 'remote' webcast device for consumers that will do this
even if possible it would mean 'degrading' signal by 50% to place two signals / aka share the bandwidth

YES
you could connect TWO sling boxes to TWO different cable boxes/PC's and stream both from the home network
each one would have its own IP address
and each one would have to share the bandwidth aka data rate, with the other box
but the receiving side in Fl, might not have enough bandwidth to get good streaming for two devices
darsben
Explorer II
Sep 28, 2013
Doesn't CBC and/or CTV have webcasts where you can watch online?

Here is CBC url
http://www.cbc.ca/player/