Review: Sony LocationFree media streaming device

Sony's LocationFree works in much the same way as the SlingMedia Slingbox. By hooking up to a set-top box, be it a Sky+ box, Freeview receiver or a DVD player, LocationFree allows you to watch your home TV anywhere in the world via the Internet.

The package consists of the slick looking Base Station, the Sony LocationFree  Player software and all the necessary cables. You can hook it up to two set-top boxes and, thanks to the included Infrared blaster, the Base Station will be able to change channels on both.

Installation was a little awkward thanks to the rather jumbled instructions. Sony provides a small quick-start guide on paper, but the majority of the manual is located on a PDF.

Since it’s a UPnP device, LocationFree will automatically talk to your router (this will also need to be UPnP compatible) and sort out the relevant firewall rules.

Once up and running we were disappointed with the interface of the LocationFree Player. It’s not particularly intuitive and the remote control is split over two screens, which takes some getting used to.

Should you have a PSP, you’ll be able to hook it up wirelessly to the Base Station within your home and watch the TV stream on it. However, despite these wireless capabilities, if you want to access LocationFree via a PC over the internet (which you undoubtedly will), it still requires a wired network connection to your router.

Picture quality ultimately depends on the speed of your broadband connection’s upstream; Sony quotes 300Kb as a minimum. We compared the stream quality side by side with the Slingbox and there’s very little to separate the two.

However, with tools such as saturation, hue and sharpness controls, it’s possible to tweak the image on the Slingbox; Sony doesn’t offer this sort of functionality.

If there’s one area we were really disappointed with LocationFree, it’s the fact that Sony charges for the software. You’ll need to install it on each PC you want to watch the live TV stream on and, with each license costing £20, things could soon start to get expensive.

It is possible to simply uninstall the software and reinstall it on another PC, but you also need to fiddle around with the registration settings on the Base Station. With the Slingbox you can access your home TV from any Internet Café in the world (SlingMedia has its software freely available on its web site). LocationFree simply doesn’t have this flexibility.

Sadly for Sony, LocationFree’s problems don’t end there. For some reason, the PC software doesn’t provide a 16:9 widescreen option – truly bizarre since most TV shows are broadcast in widescreen. If you’re watching via your PSP, however, widescreen is supported.

Another downside is that, unlike the Slingbox, you don’t get an integrated Freeview tuner.

More expensive than the Slingbox, yet with less functionality and the fact that Sony charges for the software, we find it very hard to see many people opting for Sony over SlingMedia. If you’ve got a PSP you might be tempted to plump for LocationFree, but for everyone else we’d recommend the Slingbox.

It’s important to state that LocationFree isn’t an intrinsically bad product. It gets the job done and, despite its failings, works reasonably well. However, SlingMedia has done a far better job of implementing a very similar service.

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Verdict: The Slingbox is an amazing piece of technology and in time could pave the way for how we watch and control our televisions
Rating: 4/5
Price: £180