If you travel abroad particularly around Christmas keeping up with UK TV is difficult and something I certainly miss. The Slingbox devices offer the promise of being able to stream the content from a Sky set-top box and even control it.
Unlike so many technology toys the Slingbox are a set of devices that actually do appear to work, as can be seen below:
This picture is a crop from a much larger picture, hence a bit grainy, but shows Deigo (Dora the Explorer) being streamed from a Sky+ box in the UK to a laptop in the US which was using a wireless link to an ADSL line. The UK side was just an IPStream Max line, so best bit rate that could be managed was around 300Kilo bits per second.
I was expecting the links to drop out a lot more frequently than they did, but the streaming would work for hour after hour, with perhaps one or two drop-outs per day and usually the player would resume playback.
The best feature was access to the planner of the Sky+ box so I could set it to record programmes while away for two weeks, and also series link things like Spongebob Squarepants that my daughter loves. For me it meant I was able to watch the Doctor Who Christmas special at the same time as the rest of the UK.
I've now switched to a Sky HD box and the same old Slingbox still works, admittedly only at SD resolutions.