I get no video with any SlingPlayer on the PC, the Mac, or even on Sling.com. I can't stream video at all. Why?

The football game that you've been waiting for is coming on soon. You already have your Slingbox set up and you're looking forward to watching the game in SlingPlayer while you get that report ready for your boss on your new laptop. When you launch SlingPlayer for the Mac, however, you get no video or extremely poor video. You then try using your networked Windows computer and SlingPlayer for Windows. Same thing. Frustrated, you even try going to Sling.com to watch TV from your Slingbox. It doesn't work there, either.

What may be going on:
Some devices, like DVD players and digital set-top boxes, have copy-protection built in to their hardware. One copy-protection system that’s commonly used is HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection, also known as HD Content Protection). There may not be a label on the outside of the device that says that it has HDCP inside, so you may not be able to tell if it has it. Some movies and videos that you buy or rent have encoding that triggers HDCP to turn on. Each device may also implement HDCP differently, so that they each may do something different when HDCP is triggered.

Additionally, if you try to play a file that includes HDCP triggering on a device without HDCP built-in to it (like an LCD computer monitor or a computer with a video card that isn't HDCP-compliant), you may have problems viewing it.

What does HDCP do?
HDCP first detects that digital information is going through a digital connection, like HDMI. Then it interferes with information going through any other audio or video connection to any other device. It may seriously reduce the picture quality, prevent video altogether, or cause other problems.

What can you do about it?
Connect your video gear with component cables. This includes your digital set-top box (or any other digital device) and your digital TV. These cables are the red, blue, and green ones. Sometimes they're called YPbPr connections. They have the best quality HD-capable connection but they carry no sound-- You’ll also need to connect a set of red and white cables to the audio ports.

With component connections, HDCP is unlikely to interfere with video sent to your Slingbox.

Here's an example:
Let’s say that you have a digital set-top box with HDCP connected to your Slingbox. That digital set-top box is also connected to your digital TV using a digital connection like HDMI.

As soon as everything is connected, you may find that there are problems.

First, HDCP in the set-top box "sees" the digital connection (HDMI) to your TV and detects that there’s digital information going through that connection. Next, it prevents any clear video signals from going from the set-top box to anywhere else besides the digital TV. Even though everything is connected properly, no matter what you do, clear video can’t be sent to your Slingbox and then to SlingPlayer. HDCP interferes with it.

HDCP also interferes with signals when it senses digital information going through other types of digital connections, such as:

DisplayPort
DVI (Digital Video Interface). Often used to connect digital computer monitors.
GVIF (Gigabit Video Interface)
UDI (Unified Display Interface)

As stated earlier, HDCP can also be triggered by signals encoded in some files, as well.