Tour TV prep

I want to take a moment here to once again, for the millionth time, express my gratitude to the Versus TV network for providing live coverage of most of the world's greatest bike race.

With the Tour a little more than a week away, let's run through the race's TV listings:

US: Versus | 2007 Tour de France broadcast schedule

Canada: OLN lives on north of the border, entering their 7th year of coverage. Here's their full schedule. They'll also broadcast a show called “Lance's France: The Travellers Guide,” first airing this Sunday, July 1st at 8 pm ET/PT.

UK: Reader MJ Ray notes that itv, the official British broadcast partner, has yet to publish a Tour schedule, but he's got a rundown on his weblog based on what he could get from the tvtv listings service.

Australia: SBS broadcasts the Tour for the 17th consecutive year. They've got live coverage of every stage, a pre-Tour special called “Aussie Onslaught: 25 Years of le Tour” on July 5th, and Belleville Rendezvous immediately after.
SBS: Tour de France (I love the headline “Vino poised to make glorious Tour benefit.”)

But what if you're trapped at work during the live coverage? I took advantage of a recent super deal at Woot.com to grab a refurbished Slingbox — my boss has been raving about his for months.

The Slingbox is a smallish box that hooks to your video source -- the coaxial cable that brings TV into your house, or the box that decodes a signal and sends it to your TV, and also hooks up to the internet. Through some awesome magic, when you leave your house, software on your PC, Mac, Windows Mobile device, Symbian phone, or certain models of Treo can find your box, and stream the video and audio over the internet.

The setup works well, even on my pokey 1.2-megabit first-generation ADSL connection, and the picture quality improves with your home connection speed. There's a model with HD support as well as the normal NTSC model at right.