“Just as TiVo and other digital video recorders ushered in the concept of “time shifting” a few years ago, the Slingbox promises to make ‘place shifting’ a reality for households. By letting consumers connect with their cable or satellite hookups when they travel, Slingbox has the potential to splinter further the way television is watched,” Ken Belson reports for The New York Times. “For instance, even people living far from their hometowns could get a Slingbox, allowing them to watch their local television in another city or even country. Sling Media does not endorse this use of its device for fear of antagonizing cable and satellite companies, which may see it as illicit sharing.”
“For consumers, however, Slingbox could not be simpler. The size of a shoe, it sells for $250 and unlike TiVo does not require a monthly subscription. The box can be hooked to a cable set-top box or a digital video recorder, and must be linked to a broadband line so the video can be ‘streamed’ to a laptop or other device. Faster connection speeds provide better video quality,” Belson reports. “Users install software on laptops that communicates with the Slingbox over a high-speed Internet connection at a hotel or other remote location. (Again, faster connection speeds make for better viewing.) Users can watch what is playing live on the cable or satellite service at home, or anything stored on a digital video recorder. A virtual remote control that appears on the laptop allows users to change channels or play, pause or rewind a recorded program.”
“There are drawbacks, though. In addition to having to watch programs on a small computer screen, Slingbox users may also interfere with their family’s viewing back home; in some cases when channels are changed remotely, the television at home moves with it, and vice versa,” Belson reports. “For now, video streamed from a Slingbox cannot be viewed on an Apple Macintosh computer, though Mr. Krikorian says his company will announce a solution to that problem in January.”
Full article here.
Hmmm, January means Macworld. Is this just a routine product announcement about Mac compatibility for Slingbox or something more? “Something more” that might somehow fit into rumors of an Apple digital media hub with DVR-like capabilities to debut at Macworld perhaps?
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