In early 2005, Slingbox came out with a device that let you control and view your TV on remote computers, which they dubbed “placeshifting”. A few months ago, Slingbox came out with an all new line: the Slingbox Tuner, Slingbox A/V, and Slingbox Pro, ranging in price from about $100 to about $250 (there are no subscription fees). I’ll cover the Pro model here.

Once a Slingbox Pro is connected to your home entertainment system, you can do a lot of cool things with it. You can watch TV live from your home office computer. If you’ve got a treadmill in a spare bedroom and a laptop, you can watch last night’s recorded shows while you work out. On your lunch break at work, you can log into your home network remotely and watch a DVD. You could be on vacation and flip open your smartphone and check to see if your TiVo is recording your favorite program later that night. After you get a Slingbox, you’ll find yourself using it for all sorts of things you probably didn’t think of on day one.

It’s fairly easy to install, especially with a Series 3 TiVo, since you can simply use multiple outputs to send video to the slingbox. It comes with two IR blasters so you can control multiple sources as well. There’s a nice client application for Windows and they recently introduced a Mac (beta) client that does the job nicely. Once installed, you simply run the app and operate a virtual remote next to a video window. On my 802.11g wireless network, the Slingbox sends video at nearly full quality with good sound.

I’ve been a happy Slingbox Pro owner for a couple months now, using it to watch TiVo programs elsewhere in my house. It’s quick and easy to setup, fairly cheap, and I bet every week you’ll find new ways to use your Slingbox like I have.