The Olympics

I love the olympics. I make it my priority (after my family) to watch as much of it as I possibly can. I have even dvr'd the stuff that comes on primetime (in the US) so that I can watch it the next day. However, I have noticed a few things that are really different between US coverage of the Olympics and German coverage of the Olympics.

For starters, there are an absolutely ANNOYING amount of commercials with the US coverage...but I kind of expected that, so it really isn't too much of a surprise.

The other thing that I have noticed (in the bit that I have watched so far with the US coverage vs. German coverage...remember, this is just the 3rd day of the Olympics) is that there is really only a focus on US Olympians. There aren't really any interviews with or stories of Olympians from the other countries...I saw maybe one with the US coverage. Of course, the US they give a bit of background on every Olympian that is at the starting line, which is quite interesting, I must admit. Right now I'm watching the luge, and they just had a cute story about the German dude that was up. But really, other than that, there isn't really anything. Last night while watching ski jumping (one of my favs) and biathalon, the Germans had a few stories and interviews with about 5 of the Olympians from other countries. This is probably a bit of an odd observation and will most likely change when we get into the BIG events (downhill, figure skating, etc), but for now, this is one of the things that I noticed that just made me go, "Hmmm."

The other thing that I noticed, that really got on my nerves, is the immense focus from the US coverage on medals. "How many gold medals do WE have comepared to every other country..." I thought that the focus of the Olympics was the focus on sport and good sportsmanship while in competition, not "Haha...my country is better than your country because we have a gazillion meadals compared to your 1." I just watched a report on the women's moguls from last night. That is awesome that the American won, but the report basically called all Canadians pussies. That kind of annoyed me. It gave me the, "Wow...we are bad winners" taste in my mouth.

Now, don't get me wrong, I will probably continue to watch the Olympics from my Slingbox (God how I LOVE my slingbox!), and hopefully, I will be wrong about my observations thus far. We'll see. Please prove me wrong US coverage. (Oh, and with watching this on my slingbox via the DVR, I can skip the commercials, so one down, two to go...)

***Update*** OK, I take that back about the US coverage not really talking about the Olympians from other countries...They did a much better job during their primetime coverage last night (which I am now watching in the a.m.). But the emphasis on the medal count is still there...

The Slingbox Solo

No, my dear gay friends, this is not a sling that you can use by yourself, this is a way for me to watch US television over here in Germany. (You dirty minds you!)

The adventure begins really when I moved to Germany May 27, 2007 (wow, almost 2 years now!). German TV is ok, but really, it doesn't hold a candle to US television. They do have US shows, but there is always something lost in translation, and not to mention that the dubbers seem to all sound the same. I must make the disclaimer here that I am in no way a TV addict. I like TV. I like my horrible reality TV every now and then, but seriously, who could not like Food Network or TLC? You're not human if you don't think what The Barefoot Contessa puts on the table doesn't look absolutely yummy. Come on! It's Ina Garten! She makes it all look so easy!

Ok, enough about Food Network. So living over here, I have begun to like a few shows here and there. They are mostly reality shows though. "Das Perfekte Dinner" is probably my favorite. Five contestants have to cook a three course meal and be judged by their peers. The only problem is that it is on EVERY night. Sometimes I miss watching the contestants that I really want to see...and then you see some people try to cook "American" or "Mexican" food and you see how they utterly mess it up. No my German friends, adding corn to a dish doesn't make it automatically Mexican. I swear.

So there was always this longing for quality programming. Ok, ok, if I am being serious with myself here, I mean to say quality food programming. There, I said it. About a half a year ago, I met a lovely gal named Christina G. She is somewhat of a goddess in the blogger community over here in Germany. Everyone knows her blog and she's been up for a few blogger awards. She is also a pretty awesome person. I read on her blog something about this wonderful piece of technology called a "Slingbox". She is able to watch US television in Germany...legally!

Do you hear the angels singing too?

Holy cow! My prayers have been answered! I can finally watch and see what the Iron Chefs will do with Basil/sardines/sauerkraut/fetal pig as the secret ingredient! I can see if those little people can actually make it in this big world! I can see how Jon and Kate are able to handle sextuplets and twins! I can DVR any show that I'd like! Truly amazing news!


How does this thing work exactly? Well, let me explain the absolute simple wonders of this little, wonderful piece of technology.



There are a couple of versions of the Slingbox. There is the Solo and the HD one. I decided to go with the Solo since if I were to hook up my computer to our TV, it wouldn't be HD, and plus, the solo was A LOT cheaper, so I went with this one. The other thing that I needed to get was an extra cable box. You need to have a cable box that you are able to control remotely (you get these little infrared sensor thingies that you need to attach to the cable box and it acts like your remote.). One thing that I did find out later, since I was so freaking excited about this little bit of technology, was that the Slingbox needs to be plugged directly into the router. Where I was setting this up, the router is 2 rooms away.

Oh no! Crisis! Luckily, those smarties over at Slingmedia have thought about this can came up with the "Slinglink". This is a nifty little device that is like a wireless hookup for your slingbox to the router when you're slingbox is in a different room. Eureka! Problem solved. It was a bit expensive, though, to solve that problem. The Slinglink was about 75 bucks (plus tax). A picture of the Slinglink:

The setup was a breeze. You just have to install the Slingplayer on your computer, type in your username and password (you have to set this up on a computer that is connected to the Slingbox network, i.e. the network which the slingbox is hooked up to) and voila! You are able to watch TV remotely. I was so excited about this I wanted to try it out with my friend Emily's computer at a Starbucks down the street to see if it really worked or if I needed to take the whole thing back. It was a beautiful thing when that picture of Maury popped onto the screen. I tried changing the channels, and it really worked like a breeze. Then, I sent Markus a detailed e-mail (it wasn't long since set-up is so easy) on how to set this up, and he was up and running in about 2 minutes (plus the time to download the player).

The realy nice thing about the slingplayer is that you have two options about how you control the box. You can use a virtual remote control:

Or you can choose from a guide list. The only problem with the guide list is that you can't DVR shows that way, you have to use the remote...however, I'm pretty sure that is a way around that, and I'm still working on that. The slingplayer with the guide list:

So, now I'm back in Germany, and I must say, I am extremely happy with the Slingbox Solo. Of course, the picture quality isn't spot on, but it isn't horrible either! We haven't hooked it up to the TV yet to see how the picture will be, but we are going to try that out tonight when we watch The Daily Show. I'm sure I'll have another update about this later.

So, here's the breakdown of the costs of the Slingbox:

Slingbox Solo: ~$180
Slinglink: ~$75
Cable box: ~$21/month
Watching US TV in Germany: Priceless!