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Slingbox alternative

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12K views 6 replies 3 participants last post by  zx10guy  
Z
#1 ·
I'm at the middle stage of this project. So for those that don't know, there was this thing called a Slingbox. It does what's called place shifting so you can watch content no matter where you are. The box would sit at your home physically connected to a device. In my case it would be my DirecTV receiver. The system worked well as it was able to adjust streams based on the quality of your Internet connection and had a big database of remote codes. Yes, the box would also control the attached device via an IR repeater. They also had mobile apps to allow you to watch content on your smart phone or tablet. They even had an app for the Fire Stick. Things went downhill when the company changed how the system worked by requiring communication to their server on the Internet to broker the communication between the client and the Slingbox. Things went further downhill when running the web app on your PC, they injected ads. The end came when I think AT&T came in and bought out the company/intellectual property. They shortly thereafter announced the shutdown of the brokering servers thereby rendering all Slingboxes useless. This is one of the prime reasons why I hate anything requiring cloud connectivity with a passion as you don't ever own the equipment. And as you can see, we Slingbox owners got screwed. Not all companies are so cut throat. A small automotive diagnostics software company called Ease Diagnostics was bought out by a large parts manufacturer/distributor. The later versions of their software required connectivity to their servers to validate licensing compliance. With the take over and shut down of operations, the decision was made to release a patch which would remove the connection requirement to their servers to keep the software active. THIS is what doing the right thing is.

Anyways, I still wanted an alternative to the Slingbox to allow me to watch my DirecTV content at my vacation home or when I'm out traveling. I think I may have found it. It consists of a video encoder and a remote emulator allowing your smart phone to act as a remote control. I've done the initial set up with the video encoder and got it working. Next step will be to get the remote emulator configured. If the remote emulator works as planned, I now have a full Slingbox replacement solution. I will update this thread as I finish this project with some more specific directions as to how you can do the same.
 
#2 ·
Interesting indeed. And yes... I totally feel your pain.

I know that most of my service providers have apps on my Ipad that are... decent. But many of them then won't allow me to project from my Ipad onto a television. So then (like you're mentioning) I'm left with watching TV shows on my Ipad. It's OK for some, for a limited time.
 
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Z
#3 · (Edited)
Yes. So you feel my pain. DirecTV has an app where I can watch all the live programming I have under my plan on my phone. The problem is to cast it while streaming at the same time has overwhelmed my phone. It's not a really good experience. The other issue is I don't have access to the DVR content on any of my receivers.

This solution isn't cheap but I think it'll be worth it. So far I'm in to this for about $280. The solution uses a player that can connect to video streams. The encoder supports a bunch of different ones. I'm using RTSP with VLC Player. The codec I have the encoder set to is H.265. The encoder supports 4 streams. I've set up the main stream to stream near perfect video. The second stream I adjusted the quality to be good enough for low bandwidth cellular connections.

ETA: I picked VLC as I can install it on Fire Sticks/TVs and any Android based smart TV. Unfortunately Roku based smart TVs don't have official support for VLC. I have to explore Roku based players to see if they'll work with the video streams. If not, I'll just use a Fire Stick for Cable programming.
 
Z
#4 ·
So here's my follow up. So far things seem to be working fine. I had to reprogram many of the default remote buttons with the solution I'll be discussing below in a bit.

The inspiration for this project was this How To I found on the Internet:

Build your own Slingbox Alternative/Replacement DIY (max-soft.com)

In the How To, he lists hardware options for the video/audio encoder and the remote control/IR blaster system. I went with the following:

Amazon.com: URayCoder HEVC H.265 H.264 HDMI Video Encoder Live Streaming Broadcast RTMP RTMPS Encoder WiFi H.265 H.264 HD Video IPTV Encoder for HDMI to SRT RTSP RTMP RTMPS HLS Multicast HTTP ONVIF : Electronics

Amazon.com: BroadLink RM4 Mini IR Universal Remote Control, Smart Home Automation Wi-Fi Infrared Blaster for TV Air Conditioner STB Audio, Works with Alexa, Google Home, IFTTT : Tools & Home Improvement

The setup of the encoder was somewhat straight forward. After setting the encoder to work under a static IP, I made some adjustments on the first sub stream with the video bit rate. I dropped it down so I could use this stream for situations with spotty cellular performance. The main stream runs at high quality. The encoder supports 4 streams where you can adjust quality settings for each one individually or turn on or off streaming methods. I chose to use RTSP.

The next thing I needed to do is to configure the forwarding and firewall rules to allow external connectivity to the encoder. With my SonicWall firewall, I have to configure the NAT and firewall rules separately. For SOHO routers, doing a port forward rule accomplishes both. I have dynamic DNS running so I already have a domain registered that I use to gain access to the stream.

The final step was to configure the Broadlink IR blaster. The Broadlink setup was pretty easy. It asked me what device I wanted to set up for remote commands. I entered DirecTV. They didn't have anything specific for DirecTV particulary for the HD DVRs I have. The basic buttons all seem to be there but I found out through testing I had to reprogram most of the default buttons. Fortunately, going through the learn/relearn process wasn't bad.

So far, everything seems to be working great and equivalent to the Slingbox I'm replacing. The drawbacks to this system is the inability to adjust video quality while streaming. You have to preconfigure the various streams on the encode to simulate the same thing and then disconnect from one stream to try another if the bandwidth doesn't support that level. The other drawback is with the remote setup. If you're streaming to your mobile phone with the remote app on it, when you go to the remote app to send any remote commands, you end up killing the stream. Which you'll have to relaunch after getting out of the remote app.

As stated above, I'm using VLC player and so far no complaints there. The author of the How To is working on an app that allows you to do both playback and remote. He discusses it and provides a download of the current version in his article.

Hope this helps someone looking to maintain what they had with Slingbox or looking to get into place shifting.
 
#5 ·
Won't something like a plex server do the same
You can watch on all devices what you want
from your own network any where you like and records dvr
Or have I missed the point completely
 
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Z
#6 ·
PeterOz said:
Won't something like a plex server do the same
You can watch on all devices what you want
from your own network any where you like and records dvr
Or have I missed the point completely
Click to expand...
I'm running a Plex server too. No, it won't. Plex with Plex Pass does have a DVR. But you still have to use a video capture board. Also, I would be using storage I've allocated for movies and various things on my Plex server for the DVR recorded videos. No additional storage required as I have 4 DirecTV HD DVRs: HR22, 2 HR24, and a HR44. This system allows me to access all 4 as I only need to have connectivity to one sat receiver to be able to access and view all recordings across all DVRs. And the last complication is my Plex server is virtualized running on Windows Server 2012R2 on a ESXi host on a Dell R730 server.
 
Z
#7 ·
Another update. While integrating the setup into my HT system, I found out a short coming of the encoder I'm using. It's with the HDMI out/passthrough. I initially thought there was something off with the configuration of my Meridian surround processor as I was only getting the simulated surround modes with the audio coming from the encoder. After looking through the Meridian configuration and looking at the configuration for the encoder, I realized the encoder will only pass 2 channel audio through the HDMI out.

Since my DirecTV receiver box has a Toslink optical out, I opted to use that as the audio going to my surround processor.
 
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