Slingbox 500: Not bad, but not ready for Primetime

Slingbox provides a major source of TV content for me.  Mine is setup in Japan so I can stream broadcast Japanese TV to my TV in the US. There are no reasonable alternatives to this among the cable packages or online content available. 
Please see my full review on Amazon and "like" or leave comments. 

Introduction
Slingbox is the original "place-shifting" device.  It allows you to watch a video source (over the air broadcast TV, cable TV, TiVo, DVR, satelliteTV, DVD/Bluray, HTPC, etc) anywhere there is an internet connection.  Hence the term place-shifting.  Essentially users access the video stream from the slingbox website that connects to your home where the physical slingbox is kept. Only one stream can be accessed at a time(multiple users cannot access the same box simultaneously).  The video stream can be seen thru PCs, mobile devices (with purchase of a separate app), and select media players thru which Slingbox has created a SlingPlayer.  (More on this later)

I'm a long time slingbox user. I currently keep a SlingBox in Japan, and watch in US on the web slingplayer. I'm really excited about a new product from slingmedia, but I can see the placeshifting community will have a little time to wait until this is a fully functional system (which in my mind includes the remote home theater experience). 

Here's what I've noticed so far:

1. Utility of HDMI feature: This is probably the #1 concern. All the documentation cautions you to use component as a backup because HDCP content will not be allowed on the box. I don't completely fault slingbox for this implementation. I pretty much expected it. It's not a technical challenge as much as it is a legal one. I suspect this is the reason an HDMI product from ANY company has taken so long. That being said, I tested it with most of the channels I get thru my "Extended Digital Cable" package thru Comcast. I received all channels so far(about 70 channels) directly from the HDMI of the Motorola cable set-top box. I can't comment on premium channels because I don't have them. There do seem to be some handshaking issues when I'll get a blank screen to start, fiddle with some inputs, and it will work. I'm not entirely sure about what the specific process is that gets it working, but once it works, it is nice. If I figure it out, I will post it. Component has not had any issues at all (again, as expected). On both HDMI and component, I must say that the picture quality is almost indistinguishable. Another unfortunate drawback to inputs is the lack of a separate digital coaxial audio input that used to exist on the Pro-HD, so if the HDMI doesn't work, you also lose the digital sound.

Continuing on the HDMI. There are no products that I'm aware of that remove the HDCP and go from HDMI to HDMI. (You can go HDMI to component or to DVI) with some dongles but HDMI to HDMI is basically non-existant. Correct me if you know otherwise. Other theories I have that remain to be tested, if a the source signal is split between the slingbox 500 and a HDCP-compliant device, it is possible that the one HDCP-compliant device will provide the handshaking that allows the signal to be passed to both signal splits. Again, I'm new to this, so feel free to jump in and set me straight.

A couple of remarks on quality:
When I first hooked up the 500, I had an extraordinarily difficult time distinguishing any picture difference between the 1080i stream that my Pro-HD was sending and the one from the 500. I recently became convinced that there has been a slight improvement in the picture quality with regards to refresh rates. The difference is subtle, but probably best appreciated when watching scrolling stock tickers and sports that have alot of camera panning. The movement seems a little smoother. The fact that it's really taken this long to appreciate that speaks to the really marginal improvement in quality (which was already excellent to begin with).

2. SlingPlayer for Connected Devices & SlingCatcher: Want to watch your slingbox on a real TV or home theater? Surprisingly this segment has very few supported platforms including the SlingCatcher(now discontinued), BoxeeBox(recently discontinued), Western Digital TV HD Media Player, Logitech revue(discontinued) and Sony NSZ-GS7. Of these platforms the SlingCatcher is considered to be the best and most reliable. However, the new 350/500 does not work with SlingCatcher(confirmed by SlingMedia) and possibly not with the other slingplayer platforms listed above(unconfirmed, as there have been reports of it working for some and not for others). This could be because slingbox no longer uses port 5001 for internet traffic, but uses 5201 instead(not changeable, see network bullet below). In the SlingCatcher, my Slingbox500 appears in the directory of available devices, but it requests a password to access it. Since there is no manual setup with the Slingbox500(see above) there is no place to assign a password. Therefore you cannot gain access.As announced at CES 2013, The Netgear line of media players (NeoTV series) will be adding SlingPlayers, including the soon to be released NeoTV Prime which is GoogleTV based (and therefore will run the same software as Logitech Revue and Sony NSZ-GS7). I have amazon reviews for most of the slingplayer enabled devices. While the list of compatible players is increasing, none have functioned as seamlessly as the original SlingCatcher. Additionally, there are two glaring omissions from this segment: Roku and AppleTV which probably hold the number 1 and 2 spots of marketshare of this segment.

EDIT(4/8/2013): I reviewed the NeoTV Prime and left a review on Amazon. It basically is the same as the Sony NSZ-GS7 in terms of software interface, however I found the remote to be not as good yielding 3 stars. I think the Sony is the best of the lot right now. Please see my other review for more details.

EDIT(5/3/2013): I have recently decided to forgo my loyalties to the venerable SlingCatcher (at some point we have to cut our loses, right?). It still remains as the best "off-the-shelf" solution for watching your slingbox on an HDTV screen. The qualifier of "off-the-shelf" is important as the emergence of home-built HTPCs has started to gain traction and become more mainstream. I built my first HTPC which uses the Web SlingPlayer as my streaming engine, in large part because it is the most supported solution by SlingMedia. I'm very happy with the results, but it has not been a cheap solution ($700) compared with other media players that generally do not exceed $200. I suspect HTPCs will continue to gain popularity as computing power becomes cheaper, smaller, more power efficient, and easier to use.

EDIT(11/30/2013): This month Slingbox announced a SlingPlayer for Roku. This is a long requested addition that is very welcome. I will be reviewing the SlingPlayer experience on Amazon shortly. Of course the big elephant in the room is when will SlingPlayer be available on AppleTV (currently only possible thru AirPlay which is not a true solution.)

3. IR Remote Setup: The previous online setup is abandoned and replaced by a handheld IR remote. Why was this done? Perhaps so people without computers could set it up? I'm not sure. That said, the setup process is relatively painless(not that the previous online method was bad): choose a wireless network, put in the access code, then just follow instructions. It takes a little while to punch in addresses with the remote. I'm fine with having remote, but it's a huge mistake to drop the online setup. Here's the problem: The whole point of the slingbox is to watch tv while AWAY from home, so limiting the setup functionality to a handheld controller makes remote administration virtually impossible. With computer based setup, you could login to your home network with a free package like LogMeIn to perform administration setup tasks & resets on the Slingbox. Let's face it, you're going to be away from home when you discover something broken. The remote controller isn't going to help you at all when you're thousands of miles away. You'll be stuck until you get someone at home to rerun the setup or reset the box. What happens if the dog gets the remote, or it breaks? Furthermore, I found that my Slingcatcher remote uses different codes too(I checked), so there's no backup. I hope this gets added back, because it's a major oversight. My understanding is that the 350 has a web-based setup(someone please confirm), which would be better.

EDIT: As of 10/19/2012, there is a working web-based setup

4. Network settings: you can use either hard-wire ethernet or wireless. The setup for both was easy to do, but lacks transparency in what it's doing. For most people this is probably OK, but for people who want more control of their home networks, this can be a problem. What really disappointed me about the setup is that I can no longer manually configure the IP address and the ports used. It appropriately picked up IP addresses from my DHCP server, but didn't let me assign one manually. I can think of a work around by reserving an IP address for the MAC address on my router, but that shouldn't be the way to do this. Without configuration ability it seems that the port will be locked on 5201. That could be a problem for people who have it blocked for whatever reason. I really think Slingmedia needs to make this configurable like before.

5. There is a bug with detecting valid email addresses of slingbox accounts. I tried logging into my long-held slingbox account thru the new IR remote setup interface. For some reason, it kept saying that my email address was invalid. I think it has something to do with a syntax checking routine which has some poor rules programmed. The acct it was refusing was in the format xxx@xxx.xxxxxxxx.edu. I'm not sure what the issue was(maybe .edu is bad?) but it accepted my yahoo acct. Slingbox confirmed to me that it is a bug and they are working on a new update that will fix it.

6. Controlling your devices: It seems all the previous device remotes(PL binaries) that have been amassed over the years are still available(many thanks to the user community who spearheaded this). I use a somewhat obscure tuner/dvr in japan that was added sometime last year, and it's still available. Unfortunately the capability to "teach" new controls is missing in action. The website that allowed this with the Pro-HD was taken down several months ago. There has been no word if the site will be revived (although we know there is a physical IR eye on the box that could potentially be used to "learn codes"). In the meantime there doesn't seem to be anyway to manually upload NEW PL binaries(quite a handy function with the previous boxes). This leaves a big question as to how NEW device codes will be uploaded to the new box. Don't count on Slingbox staying on top of this in a timely manner, as they have been notoriously slow for adding new devices. Without the generous user community creating these on request from other users online, many of the existing codes would not be available. It is unfortunate that we as users can no longer tap into this self-supporting resource.

UPDATE: Fixed! As of 12/4/2012, there is was a new webplayer that allowed the uploading of custom remotes.

7. Basically inconsequential observations: the new power supply is 12V. (The previous plug was 5V). I know there were alot of problems with the previous supplies, so I don't know if this is better, but it's unfortunate that they aren't compatible with the older models. (Previously the slingbox pro-hd, solo & slingcatcher used the same plug). Also, it's been pointed out that there is no longer a coaxial tuner on-board but as far as I understood this would prove to be useless now that all tuners must be digital. I don't miss it at all, I don't need another tuner.

8. A couple of nice things: it looks like the built-in IR blaster(built into the unit itself) is pretty strong. My cable set-top box didn't need any specific pointing or angling to see the signal. Although there is an external blaster included in the box, you probably won't need it. This makes for an easier and cleaner installation. Also, the box doesn't seem to get very hot as compared w/ previous models.

Overall, I think this product can only be considered a minor enhancement to the Pro-HD in terms of Wifi-access and possibly HDMI (which seems dependent on your channels and source hardware). In terms of accessibility it is a major stepback due to lack of support for SlingCatcher, SlingPlayer for PC, and now one less supported media player(recently discontinued boxeebox). I think the network and email problems I pointed out could easily be fixed with a firmware update. Overall, I am very disappointed in this product. Until these items are addressed, I find it difficult to give more than 2 stars for now. I would like to give more, but not in it's current state. I will update my review as the situation changes. In the meantime, my trusty Pro-HD will continue to be my main streaming device.

UPDATE(5/3/2013): I gave one extra star to my original assessment due to the slight (and I stress slight) improvement in picture quality (which notably has taken me 6 months to discover). However, given the importance of picture quality to the viewing experience, I am weighting this factor very heavily. My assessment of the other features of the Slingbox 500 still stand. I would therefore likely recommend the 350 over the 500, unless you absolutely need wifi. In addition, there have been several minor bug fixes since the original release.

UPDATE(11/30/2013: I'm glad to hear this month's announcement for Roku support, however you must be aware getting the SlingPlayer to work on Roku REQUIRES A PAID application on a mobile device. Not really the kind of solution I'm interested in. If Slingbox can work out a deal with Roku and Apple for an real application on the Roku & AppleTV, I may be able to raise my rating by half a star.