30 June 2005
Slingbox Launched
Posted by Ryan Sarver under: Technology .
As expected, Sling Media launched their Slingbox today. For those of you not familiar with the product, ill fill you in. It is essentially a box that allows you remote access to your home video stream (cable, satellite, Tivo, etc). You can attach to and stream the video from home to any PC or device that they support. This means you can pick up the stream in other rooms of your house or on your laptop while you are traveling. This idea has been coined "place shifting".
Does this smell like the Tivo evolution to anyone else? Let’s see if I can pin this one properly… they have a good idea that has no proprietary lock down which means that the cable companies will be offering this as a service from their own hardware within the next 2 years and effectively shutdown Sling Media. If they are smart they will come up with a business plan that can’t be matched by the big guys… better codec for streaming, more clients available (cell, pda, etc) otherwise you can let the countdown begin now.
In the meantime its still a great idea if you are willing to put that god awful looking hardware in your living room stack.
UPDATE: Om has some initial impressions of the system
