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Quester3
12-09-05, 06:49
Kind of an odd question but I'm going to Argentina to both live as well as enjoy the scene down there for awhile, so hopefully someone here might know -

Anyone know if you can get the SciFi channel down in Argentina? And if so, how? (order satellite, premium channel lineup via regular cable services in Buenos Aires?

Quester3
12-12-05, 20:28
Just bumping to see if perhaps someone might be as much a SciFi channel addict as me.

I plan to be in BA 3+ months, so I suspect that after the first few weeks of the monger-grind wears down, I'll be wanting to watch my US cable shows. I saw I can get Discovery and other US cable channels but haven't seen any argentine site mention SciFi yet.

Regulr Travlr
12-12-05, 23:55
There is a device that you can hook up to your cable box at home and install on your PC that allows you to watch your local channels anywhere in the world. This assumes that you can get a high speed connection while in Argentina.

This may have been written up on this board or on the ISG. Since then one of my friends in the States has gottne it. He uses it for local sports while he travels. Gave it a very positive review.

I think the name is Boomerang, but I may be wron.

Special K
12-13-05, 00:37
The hardware is called a Slingbox. At this moment they are on sale for $200 at Best Buy and CompUSA (normal price $250) I have one and was able to watch my stateside DirecTV while I was out in Buenos Aires last month. It works great. You basically have a feed from your video source (eg. DirecTV) at home connected to the Slingbox, which then connects to your home network. Then you connect via a pc with the viewer software from anywhere in the world (broadband internet required) The image is watchable but not something I would want to watch on a regular basis. I would say it is VCD quality.

Stormy
12-13-05, 00:47
I have acquired a slingbox. Will report from BA on how it works and all.

It works fine at home, but we will see. I can get all my cable channels from home on it.

One Tree Hill
12-13-05, 03:04
More info including a website on this thread.

http://www.argentinaprivate.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2318&highlight=slingbox

Quester3
12-13-05, 10:04
Unfortunately because I'll be gone so long I'll be putting my homes and cars into storage mode, so no PCs on or cable to feed.

On the other hand I'll look into seeing if I can pawn off one of these boxes on one of my friends. Thanks.

Stormy
12-13-05, 10:23
It may not work very well to use a slingbox with somebody elses TV. The problem is that when you change channels in BA, the TV or whatever device you use to change channels will change to that channel in the USA. They might be watching something at home and you in BA decide to turn on the slingbox software and watch something on another channel and all of a sudden they are somewhere else. Or vice versa. It would be like having a neighbor with a remote which operates your tv.

Quester3
12-13-05, 10:30
Darn. I guess unless I can find some sort of Direct TV type satellite service while I'm down there, I'll goto plan be and just have someone FexEx me episodes on DVD.

Easy Go
12-13-05, 19:49
Darn. I guess unless I can find some sort of Direct TV type satellite service while I'm down there, I'll goto plan be and just have someone FexEx me episodes on DVD.Or you could get another cable box and use it just for Slingbox. Better yet, get a PVR (Tivo, TivoDirect, or one from the cable company) and use it with Slingbox.

I've got a PC based solution (ORB, BeyondTV, and a Hauppage TV card) to the problem that works OK but I wouldn't recommend it unless you are a gear head. The big advantage it give me is that I can download my shows after recording them so I can watch them off-line. That way Internet congestion doesn't effect playback.

An important limiting factor on all these solutions is the upload bandwidth at home. Lots of ISPs cap the upload speed at as little as 128kb. My guess is that the quaility is going to be a problem unless you have at least 384kb upload speeds. I have 3M /758kb DSL and still get buffering problems due to network issues.

Quester3
12-13-05, 23:12
I have a 6 megabit down, 768k up Speakeasy DSL line, which is another thing I'll miss while in BA for 3-4 months.

I'm going to get an apartment in BA with internet access, but I'm assuming it'll either be standard 1.5 DSL or equivalent cable.

Stormy
01-25-06, 15:56
I set up my network at home with a slingbox connection and it worked great but here in BA my internet connection is just not fast enough so the picture and sound quality are just terrible. Will see if a faster internet connection is available in my apartment, but do not have great hope. It's only money.

Easy Go
01-25-06, 18:17
I've had to limit myself to downloading compressed copies of the shows I'm recording. The quality is decent enough when I play them using Orb but there are far too many extended pauses and interruptions to make watching practical.

Stormy
02-04-06, 10:53
I spoke to my landlord and he got the internet speed increased. (I agreed to pay for the faster service, a cost of about 25 dollars a month.) The new service is described as 1 meg per second, but real speeds are from about 250 KPS up to about 600 kps on an early Saturday morning.

The good news is this is much faster than my old 60-90 KPS and at about 400

KPS the picture and sound are decent, not as good as at home on the slingbox, or watching the TV directly, but watchable. The difficulty is that this is a cable system and when there are a lot of users on, speeds go down.

Generally, this thing is in its infancy and will get a lot better. If you are a real tech-head, you may want to jump in now, but I would wait. My total costs for the slingbox, home network, technical help (you need someone who understands both networks and television) is about $600.