I had to spend about an hour on the phone with a helpful Sling Media executive to get the SlingPlayer fully functioning. My setup, which includes an older router and an adapter for voice-over-the-Internet phone service, is a bit more complicated than most. But the process will still be daunting for anyone intimidated by terms such as ``IP Address,'' ``Port Forwarding'' and ``Network Address Translation.''

Where I'm stuck, though, is coming up with scenarios where Slingbox makes sense. There are certainly easier ways that deliver better-looking video for moving TV from one room of the house to another. If you want to watch recorded programs away from home, you can get a home DVD recorder for less than $200 and put the programs on rewritable DVDs to watch on your laptop -- again at much higher video quality.