slingbox

Will Sling shine under Echostar?

Dish TV satellite company Echostar is buying Sling Media, makers of the innovative Slingbox, for $380m in a classic corporate behemoth acquires startup story. Will Sling be able to maintain its quirky, innovative persona?

The Slingbox is one of those devices that is rather difficult to explain what it does and how it does it to someone unfamiliar with the concept. It's a convergent device - a tight integration of hardware and software - which has been very well executed right from the get-go. Like TiVo before it, it immediately nailed the user experience for a brand new product … Read more

Slingbox sluggish on the new Sprint Mogul?

The new HTC 6800 (or Mogul, as Sprint has labeled it) is the updated version of the 6700. It improves over its predecessor in every way possible, but it seems there's one area of functionality that has been negatively affected--and that is SlingPlayer performance.

While SlingPlayer Mobile does work on the Mogul, it suffers from a frame stutter that ultimately leads to loss of audio sync and other annoyances. It is by no means unwatchable, but one would think that a successor to a model that handled the SlingPlayer so well would at least match that performance.

Various theories … Read more

FCC leaks new Slingbox model

Looks as if a third-generation Slingbox model is on the way. Already making the rounds on AOL's Engadget and enthusiast site Sling Community, the images look to have been originally culled from the FCC's Web site, courtesy of TG Daily. No digital fakery here, either: the FCC site is definitely the original source, and a Sling spokesman we contacted simply replied, "We're not prepared to comment at this time." That's hardly a denial, and it's as close to a confirmation as you can expect prior to an official announcement. … Read more

LocationFree LF-V30: Sony's latest stab at a Slingbox killer

Gadget aficionados are well acquainted with the Slingbox, which lets you stream home TV signals to a wide variety of computers and smart phones. Less well-known is Sony's line of LocationFree products, which actually pioneered the "place-shifting" market a full year before the debut of the first Slingbox. The LF-V30 is the latest LocationFree product that Sony is hoping will steal some of Sling's thunder. The big upgrade on the $250 video streamer--slated to hit stores in September--is its component video inputs and outputs. They allow for HD-video compatibility, though the quality is ratcheted down to … Read more

Deal of the day: Slingbox Pro for $160, free shipping

Summertime means vacations. Time away from home base can also mean missing your favorite shows and/or home team slogging its way through the summer baseball schedule.

Just in time for all of this, Buy.com is having a 4th of July summer sale on the Slingbox Pro. If you've got a laptop or a smart phone, this trapezoid-shaped set-top box will allow you to catch all your own home TV channels from wherever you happen to be.

The Pro model is the most feature-packed of all the Slingbox family, and usually retails for $250. A $90 discount isn'… Read more

San Francisco TV station Slings the news

The Slingbox is known best for its ability to let consumers watch their home TV channels remotely using a laptop or smart phone. But a local San Francisco news station has found a way to utilize the trapezoid-shaped set-top box to cheaply and easily deliver live news, traffic and weather updates wirelessly back to its studio.

The news operations director at CBS 5, Don Sharp, devised a way to replace more than 20 of its cameras affixed to the tops of local bridges, freeways and buildings that use microwave technology to relay video back to the station with smaller cameras … Read more

SlingPlayer for Mac gets an Aqua makeover

After many months of promises, Sling Media finally delivered a Mac version of the SlingPlayer software in October 2006. There was just one problem: the public beta disappointed many Mac owners because--and I'm not making this up--it looked too much like Windows software. For instance, MacWorld's review noted:

Although the Brushed Steel interface skin approximates the QuickTime Player interface, it's betrayed by the series of Windows-style buttons in the top left corner. (It could be worse--they could be in the top right instead!) It's a little thing, but it's still ugly, and I hope that … Read more

Sling, Apple: Streaming music to iPhone?

Sling Media CEO Blake Krikorian says he has spoken to Apple about his company's ambition to stream iTunes music and video to the upcoming iPhone. It's unclear, however, what Apple thinks of the plan.

Krikorian made the comments after participating in a panel discussion at the National Association of Broadcasters conference yesterday but declined to offer details about the talks or say whether Apple welcomed such a plan. He did say Sling Media "would love to support" the iPhone.

"I think the question for them is going to be how are they going to phase … Read more

iTunes streamed to your phone? Possibly

The release of Apple TV a few weeks ago has opened up an intriguing new possibility: streaming music from iTunes on your home computer to your cell phone.

No, Apple TV does not stream over the Internet or across a cellular phone network, but the SlingBox does. And Sling Media, the makers of the SlingBox, confirmed to CNET News.com on Monday that the company is working on making the Slingbox compatible with Apple TV. The most likely--and compelling--scenario would be to allow the streaming of Apple TV content (which is synched with a PC) to a mobile device.

"… Read more

SlingPlayer for PalmOS unveiled

The PalmOS version of the SlingPlayer Mobile software is now available as a public beta at Sling Media's Web site. The initial version of the Palm software is designed to run only on the Palm Treo 700p. The new software adds Palm to the list of supported platforms to which Slingbox products can stream home TV programming. To date, SlingPlayer viewing software has already been released for Windows (2000, XP, and Vista) and Mac OS X (Intel and PowerPC) computers and Windows Mobile handhelds and smartphones. Additionally, a Symbian version of the SlingPlayer is preinstalled on some phones available … Read more