Right off the bat, the Slingbox's basic functions worked as advertised. We were watching our living-room TV on the bedroom PC, able to flip channels at will. The recent improvements in the SlingPlayer software were notable as well: there are now several "skins" from which to choose, and you can easily create favorite channels using the familiar channel logos for one-touch access. But where the interface of SlingPlayer really triumphs is the onscreen remote control. Essentially, you're getting a nearly identical version of the handheld remote of whatever set-top box the Slingbox is connected to. During testing, we were able to toggle between the DirecTV HR20, the DirecTV HD TiVo, the Scientific Atlanta 8300HD, the Dish ViP622, and the Dish DVR-942, each of which had their corresponding remotes available on the screen. The obvious upside is that there's no learning curve: if you can use your home remote, you can use the SlingPlayer software as well.

The SlingPlayer software automatically optimizes viewing quality to available bandwidth via an algorithm called SlingStream. The Slingbox Pro and its second-gen siblings all utilize the same chip, a new Texas Instruments DSP that offers the potential for much better video quality than that of the original Slingbox model. Of course, the quality is largely dependent on the available network bandwidth; you'll want at least 300Kbps on both upstream and downstream connections, with 400Kbps to 500Kbps (and beyond) offering a noticeably better picture.

Of course, the viewing on a home network offers the potential for much greater speeds, and that's where the improved video quality of the Slingbox Pro was most evident. We were able to watch a baseball game streaming from our DirecTV HD TiVo DVR at full screen, 30fps, with only an occasional stutter. In fact, composite and S-Video sources looked great--using the component-video adapter didn't give us a noticeable improvement in video quality. While the Slingbox Pro could accept full HD video signals from our DirecTV HD TiVo, the HD sources actually seemed to be more prone to artifacts, including jaggies and dithering. (That could easily--and quickly--change as Sling optimizes its software.) But let's be clear: in the realm of streaming video, it went beyond watchable to downright excellent. If not the fabled near-DVD quality, it was certainly competitive with--if not better than--the movies and TV shows available on the iTunes Store.

When broadcasting to the outside world, the Slingbox is limited by the upstream bandwidth of your home's broadband connection, which is often significantly less than your downstream speed. For instance, our cable modem seemed to max out at a decent 500Kbps--not bad at all, but far below the 3,000 to 6,000Kbps we were getting on the home network. The result is some "down-rezzing" to accommodate the lower bandwidth, which naturally results in a softer picture with more artifacts. (The SlingPlayer has a helpful meter in the window that shows throughput and frames per second.) You can still expand the SlingPlayer window to fill the screen, but you'll get significantly less sharpness and detail than you would via LAN streaming. Still, as long as you're getting a decent stream, you can get a very watchable video window that delivers 24fps to 30fps. The quality was much better than you'd get with most YouTube videos, for instance, and looked at least as good as CNET's own First Look videos (see above).

When watching on a cellphone or a handheld device, the same bandwidth concerns apply. But because those devices have such small screens (compared to a computer's monitor), the resulting image looked even better. We previously tested the SlingPlayer Mobile software on an old HP iPaq via Wi-Fi and on a Palm Treo 700w over a Verizon's EVDO broadband cellular network, and it worked equally well in both instances (see the CNET First Look Video that shows an early version of SlingPlayer Mobile in action). The mobile version is a faithful recreation of the same solid performance we've gotten on a PC. What's better, of course, is that you can use a handheld or a cell phone service much more often and in many more locations than you could a desktop or laptop PC. Just be sure you have an unlimited-usage data plan on that smart phone, or you'll have a nasty surprise at the end of the month when the bill arrives.

How does the Slingbox compare to the competition? While the placeshifting market is fairly tiny, there are a growing number of options for copying and syncing video media from your PC to a handheld--the most notable being Apple's video-enabled iPod and TiVo To Go. But that's just transferring previously recorded media to a portable playback device. If you want live, real-time video, your options are limited. Those with newer mobile phones can opt for live 3G streaming subscriptions such as MobiTV and V Cast but will be restricted to the few channels offered by each provider. But the hardware competition is growing: Sony's next-generation LocationFree TV products will be available by the end of 2006, and they offer three distinctions from Slingbox: built-in wireless networking support, the ability to beam TV programming to the Sony PSP, and the availability of a client box that promises to turn any TV in the house into a LocationFree viewer. And anyone with a Media Center PC should check out Orb Network; it's a free service that offers remote access to virtually any PC-based media--photos, music, and so forth--but unlike Slingbox, it requires a host PC with a TV tuner card to stream live or recorded television programs.

That's not to say the Slingbox is perfect. Among our gripes is the fact that it lacks any wireless networking component, so you'll need to connect a wireless bridge or a pair of power-line adapters. Furthermore, the Slingbox is only as good as its device support. And while its catalog of supported devices has grown considerably since the product's debut, you'll be out of luck if it's missing the remote codes for your primary video device. We'd love it if the Slingbox software could learn codes or allow modification of its virtual-remote template, much as a PC-programmable remote can. We'd also like the option to program hotkeys ourselves into the software, which would enable easier control via multimedia-friendly keyboards, for instance. Meanwhile, the mobile client is hampered by some obvious limitations of the small screen: the miniaturized versions of your EPG; channel labels; or onscreen text such as sports scores, news crawls, or stock quotes, may just be flat-out unreadable on many devices; as will the finer details of some quick-moving videos; for example, hockey pucks and baseballs will be hard to discern. And while we're complaining, we'd really like to see Sling broaden supported viewing devices beyond the current Windows-centric list.

That said, the Slingbox is one of the few gadgets that adds value to all your other tech investments--including your cable/satellite service, DVR, home network, laptop PC, and handheld device. The second-generation models are an evolutionary improvement over the original model, with improved video quality-- especially via a home network--being the primary step up. Most users will find the Slingbox A/V to be the optimal model in the line. The Slingbox Pro's component video support isn't yet a huge draw, but that's only because the composite and S-Video sources look so good. However, if you need to control more than one device, the Slingbox Pro is certainly a worthwhile option.