I purchased the Slingbox as a christmas gift for my fiance.  At the time of purchase, he was traveling out of the country for work.  The first couple of trips that he took, he was only able to watch 3 or 4 english channels from the hotel.  This is what inspired my purchase. 

 He was able to set up the Slingbox with minimal effort (he works in the IT field).  Once the slingbox was installed on his laptop, he was able to watch regular programming from any location that had interenet access.  There is a delay in the signal so if you sit in front of your television you can compare the two images. ...