SlingCatcher Remote Control
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: SlingCatcher, video, television | Themes: Digital Entertainment
4. SlingCatcher Remote Control
The SlingCatcher remote has the usual set of buttons and controls, but the shape is anything but usual; the back is smoothly tapered on both sides and it comes to a (slightly curved) point at the base. This doesn’t just match the sloping sides of the SlingCatcher (which in turn serve the practical purpose of stopping you from balancing other devices on top of it, as well as echoing the shape of the Slingbox) or make it easy to spot in a pile of other remote controls. It also means it sits comfortably in your hand wherever you grip it.
The balance naturally puts the volume and channel controls under your thumb and they’re the buttons you’re likely to use the most. When you move your thumb up to the pause, play, fast forward and rewind buttons, which you’ll probably need to look at, the balance tilts the remote towards you slightly.
There are separate buttons to control the power and input channel for the TV your SlingCatcher is connected to, so you can turn it on and switch between different AV sources to see the SlingCatcher without needing to juggle two remotes. You need to program these, as well as the volume and mute controls. The manual refers you to the SlingCatcher interface, which refers you to the Sling support site but in the end it’s extremely simple: you press OK and Down on the Sling remote to put it into learning mode, point it at the emitter on the remote you want it to learn from and press the button to program on one remote, and then the other.
The menu, back, info and options button give you the basic features for just about any set-top box (and the options button also lets you control the settings of the Slingbox remotely) . But if there’s a command on the remote for your set-top box that the SlingCatcher remote doesn’t have a button for, you can assign it to one of the four programmable buttons (for many set-top boxes they’ll be mapped to the standard four color buttons automatically) . 
There’s also an extra button on the remote, marked with apair of scissors. This is for the ‘Clip-n-Sling’ service for recording snippetsof TV and sharing them on the Web that Sling has shown in the past, but thiswon’t launch until satellite and cable TV providers decide to support it.
- Previous page Configuring the SlingCatcher
- Next page Video Resolution and Quality
I'd love a SlingCatcher but it's a bit too pricey at $300. I love my little $100 Netflix/Roku box and it seems like the SlingCatcher is a slightly more sophisticated version of it. So I'd expect the Sling to be around $150.....
Also, if the Roku/Netflix can do *pretty* good video over WiFi, I can't see why the Sling doesn't support it -- even at a lower resolution. It makes the unit much less attractive.
I have a SlingCatcher on a bedroom TV which USED to have a subscription cable box and at home it works GREAT...and will indeed pay for itself eventually. I travel alot though and my original intent was to take it on the road. One thing people seem to forget (Sling included) is that you almost always have to click through an I-WILL-NOT-ABUSE-YOUR-NETWORK agreement on hotel networks before being allowed to access the internet. The SlingCatcher gives you no way of doing this so there's no way to get a useable IP address assigned to it from most hotels. Mini-browser please!