New Slingboxes are out
The Slingbox is popular with many TiVo users. The TiVo does time-shifting, and the Slingbox does place-shifting, making for a good combo. It looks like the second generation of Slingbox products is hitting the streets. Dave Zatz, at ZatzNotFunny, reported finding one of them at his local Best Buy. They’re diversifying their product line, and there will be three different boxes now - the Slingbox A/V, Tuner, and Pro. The AV is similar to the first generation product, controlling an external source - like a TiVo. The Tuner has an internal analog cable tuner. The Pro can control up to 4 devices, and appears to include HD input. The new packaging also indicates that, in addition to Windows (including Windows Mobile) and MacOS support, Symbian support is on the way. (Now if they’d only support PalmOS I might buy one to use with my Treo.)
PVRWire also has a report. And Engadget has pictures of the packaging, which includes a feature matrix:
| Feature | Pro | Tuner | AV |
|---|---|---|---|
| Widescreen support (16:9) | X | X | X |
| High quality programmable video compression | X | X | X |
| Watch/control from any PC/Mac/laptop | X | X | X |
| Watch/control TV from select mobile phones | X | X | X |
| TV/analog cable tuner | X | X | - |
| Pass-through connections for seamless integration into current A/V configurations | X | X | - |
| Connects to set-top box (digital cable, satellite, DVR) | X | - | X |
| Remote control of A/V devices | X | - | X |
| Connect HD component devices | X | - | - |
| Connect & control up to 4 A/V sources | X | - | - |
With the Pro supporting HD input, it’d be an interesting companion to the Series3.
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September 27th, 2006 at 10:16
Interesting how they’ve chosen to split things.
I have the 1st Gen box, and it’s more like the Pro I’d say — it has an internal NTSC tuner, and does the A/V passthru, and remote control of A/V devices. It came in handy when we first moved and didn’t yet have the 2nd TV and Tivo set up - I put the 2nd Tivo down in the laundry room and use the SlingBox to change the setup and mange programs, doing the viewing via Tivo’s native MRV.
Full remote control would truly be a killer feature for Tivo to incorporate though. I think that having “TV’s + 1″ would be a no-brainer if it were easy to manage the headless unit and basically use it as a remote capture device. Then again, that’s sort of what dual-tuners are for so…
September 28th, 2006 at 11:00
Does anyone know of an effective and inexpensive way to do the same thing a Slingbox Pro can do but to another TV(s) in the house? I would love to install several video devices in a rack in my basement and be able to watch any feed on any TV in the house, preferably with seperate sources on at least two TVs. I have a single run of quad shield coax and Ehternet to all of my TV locations as well as Wireless in my house.
September 28th, 2006 at 13:03
If you look up RF modulators online you will find many cool devices to do what you want. I saw one, one time, that let you put 4 devices on 4 separate channels plus it allowed you to control them with special IR receivers that transmitted back down the line the remote signals to the devices. It works with anything that uses a IR remote. The only downside to this whole thing is if 2 people are watching the same thing on the same channel and someone changes the channel/pauses the device or whatever then it effects everybody watching the same channel.