SlingPlayer (Kindle Fire Edition)

Want live TV on your Amazon Kindle Fire ($199, 4 stars)? SlingPlayer (Kindle Fire Edition) is a $29.99 app that lets you stream live TV or control your DVR from your tablet, providing you have a Slingbox attached to your living room TV. Since the Kindle Touch is Wi-Fi only, this SlingPlayer app doesn't have a cellular mode the way some of the company's SlingPlayer Mobile apps do. Like those other apps, though, SlingPlayer for the Kindle Fire lets you change TV channels, set up new recordings on your DVR, or just stream live TV and recorded programs to your tablet. The best part: It worked exactly as expected in our tests.?

System Requirements and Setup
For this review, I tested SlingPlayer version 1.3.7. It's a 3.6MB download, and requires both a Kindle Fire and at least one Slingbox connected to a home TV. Sling Media hasn't introduced major new hardware revisions in several years, but the Slingbox Pro-HD ($299.99, 4 stars) and Slingbox Solo ($179.99, 4 stars) still sell, and still function well.

Unfortunately, you'll need one of those two models in order to use this app, as changes in the codec used in older Slingbox firmware render the Pro, the Tuner, the AV, and the Classic models incompatible. The company is offering an upgrade discount to older Slingbox owners, which helps mitigate this somewhat, but we would have still preferred it if Sling Media found a way to enable the older boxes to work with this app.

Launch SlingPlayer, and you'll see a title screen that lets you call up a directory of available Slingboxes for your account, either on the local Wi-Fi network or remotely across the Internet. First, you'll need your Slingbox login; if you've already set up a Slingbox for remote access using its 32-character ID and password, then you'll see it from the Kindle Fire once you log in. You can also set the app to auto-connect to a specific Slingbox and begin streaming as soon as you fire up the app.

Tap the screen on the TV view, and you'll see a "play" button on top as well as buttons to activate the remote, a numeric keypad, and a miscellaneous set of controls that mimic various buttons on your TV or DVR remote control. Tap the screen again below the icon bar, and a volume slider appears immediately below the four main controls at the top. At any point, you can also tap the bottom arrow to bring up a separate bar with shortcuts to your cable or satellite TV guide, your DVR's home screen, the current aspect ratio, a list of devices connected to your Slingbox's inputs, a video quality toggle, and a Disconnect button.

Performance and Conclusions
One of Sling Media's strengths has always been its software's ability to maximize use of available bandwidth. Even in the clogged Wi-Fi environment in our labs, I saw a perfectly smooth picture, with perfectly synced audio at all times. Full episodes of "House" on USA were slightly grainier than a standard definition television feed, but totally watchable, even when zoomed in to account for the widescreen aspect ratio on an otherwise SD cable channel, which introduces black borders on all sides.

I had no problem controlling the DVR remotely as well, including browsing available recorded programs. I could view the Verizon FiOS TV guide, navigate it, and even launch FiOS widgets from the Kindle Fire. If you want to dig in further, the Settings page lets you adjust whether the app auto-connects on startup, whether it automatically adjusts video quality against available bandwidth, and whether it allows gesture controls.

The Kindle Fire app does exactly what it's supposed to do. I didn't see any crashes, weird hiccups, or stutters during the review period. SlingPlayer, when combined with a compatible Slingbox, is still your best option for "slinging" live TV or recorded DVR programs across various devices and screens, either on a local network or remotely. Alternatives like Netflix ($7.99 per month, 3.5 stars) or Hulu Plus ($7.99 per month, 3.5 stars) subscriptions really aren't directly comparable, although they're all worth looking at?either in lieu of a cable, FiOS, or satellite TV subscription, or to augment one. But if you've already got the Slingbox and the Kindle Fire, this $29.99 app is a must-have.

For more, see PCMag.com's roundup of The Best Kindle Fire Apps.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/_8WtaUWGnlU/0,2817,2399827,00.asp

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