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Sling Media Slingbox Pro-HD network TV tuner

Out of tune?

Review It's really hard to recommend a product from a vendor who, having taken £250 for the hardware, then expects you to fork out a further £18 to get the best out of your purchase. At least you get all the cables you need...

Slingbox Pro HD

Sling Media's Slingbox Pro-HD: streams HD - but not Freeview HD

Heck, even Sony gives its iDevice apps away for free - Apple ditto. is Slingbox creator Sling Media really so tight that it can't be as equally generous to its customers?

Its parsimony might not be so bad if said hardware - the latest in the Slingbox line - delivered a more consumer friendly experience than it does.

The model in question is the Slingbox Pro-HD. As a product already adjusted for the UK market - all tuner-packing British Slingboxes have supported Freeview - you'd expect the last two characters in the new one's name to indicate support for the latest in free-to-air digital TV: Freeview HD.

Not a bit of it, alas. 'HD' here means that, like the three-year-old Slingbox Pro, it can accept up to 1080i input from other set-top boxes, thanks to two sets of component-video inputs on the back. Four letters are missing from that last sentence: H, D, M and I, the connector rather a lot of folk use to hook up their entertainment kit to their tellies, these days.

Slingbox Pro HD

No shortage of portage - well, except HDMI...

Like the older Pro, the Pro-HD supports composite-video input too, and s-video, and it has analogue and digital audio ports as well. Networking is handled through a 10/100Mb/s Ethernet port, and there's a pass-through co-ax pair to take the feed from your aerial to the on-board tuner and send it on to another device.

Slingbox Pro HD

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