Sling Media Slingbox PRO-HD And SlingCatcher Available For Pre-Order

Posted on Tuesday, September 9, 2008 by MegaZone

Sling Media has just unveiled the product pages for the long anticipated Slingbox PRO-HD and the even longer anticipated SlingCatcher.

The Slingbox PRO-HD is the first Slingbox capable of streaming content in high-definition, up to 1080i, across a LAN. Replacing the Slingbox PRO at the top of the Slingbox lineup, the PRO-HD supports three inputs: component video, S-Video or composite video, and RF. The internal RF tuner is digital, capable of tuning NTSC, ATSC, analog cable, and Clear QAM digital channels. The PRO-HD has another trick as well, it can stream 5.1 audio – from the internal digital tuner, or from an SPDIF coax digital audio input associated with the component video input.

The SlingCatcher, first announced in January 2007 and intended to ship last year, has been hotly anticipated due to the delay. It is the yin to the Slingbox’s yang, a hardware receiver instead of a sender. The SlingCatcher can stream content from your Slingbox – on the other side of the house, or the other side of the world – and put it on your TV. It can also access content from your PC as well as content from the soon-to-be-launched Sling.com online portal and the Internet.

The SlingCatcher has a number of connectivity options, with HDMI, component video, S-Video, and composite video out as well as SPDIF coax digital audio and analog stereo L/R audio out. In addition it has an Ethernet port for the required network connectivity, as well as two USB ports which can be used to connect USB mass storage devices to store content.

Supported media formats:
* Video: WMV, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264, Xvid
* Audio: MP2, MP3, WMA, AAC, AC3
* File formats: .avi, .vob, .ifo, .ps, .ts, .mpg, .wmv, .asf, .mov, .mp4,.m4v, .mp3, .wma, .mp4a, .m4a, .wav

But it is more than just product pages – both units are available for pre-order now! You can pre-order the Slingbox PRO-HD direct from Sling Media or from Amazon, it is $299.99 in either location. The SlingCatcher is also available direct from Sling Media as well as Amazon, and is also $299.99. Though if you’re an Amazon Prime member you may save money on shipping by ordering from Amazon.

I’ve also added both units to this site’s store, which is powered by Amazon.

Disclaimer: I work for Sling Media as a Beta Manager. Guess what I’ve been doing.

Posted in HDTV, Sling Media | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Sling Media Launches SlingPlayer Mobile for Symbian UIQ

Posted on Tuesday, September 9, 2008 by MegaZone

Sling Media today launched the next in their lineup of SlingPlayer Mobile clients, this time for Symbian UIQ. It joins the existing SlingPlayer Mobile clients for Palm OS, Windows Mobile Smartphone, Windows Mobile Professional, and Symbian S60. And it will be followed by clients for Blackberry and iPhone/iPod Touch which are currently in development.

The UIQ handsets that will support SlingPlayer Mobile at launch include:
* Sony Ericsson P1i
* Sony Ericsson P990i
* Sony Ericsson W960i
* Sony Ericsson W950i
* Sony Ericsson M600i
* Sony Ericsson G700
* Sony Ericsson G900
* Motorola Z8
* Motorola Z10

The press release has all of the details.

Disclaimer: I work for Sling Media and was the Beta Manager for the Symbian UIQ program.

Posted in Press Release, Sling Media, Symbian | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

TiVo Promotes The Tivo HD XL

Posted on Tuesday, September 9, 2008 by MegaZone

I got this email from TiVo today. I rather like the color scheme they’re going with on their TiVo HD XL materials, it looks pretty good.

The email:
Continue reading →

Posted in TiVo | Tagged , | 4 Comments

A Death Knell For Requiem?

Posted on Tuesday, September 9, 2008 by MegaZone

The DRM arms race continues. A couple of weeks ago I told you about Requiem, a DRM removal tool for iTunes. At the time Requiem 1.7.3 was out, and since them 1.7.4 was released, and they worked on the latest iTunes, 7.7.1.

Well, today Apple released iTunes 8 and have changed something which breaks Requiem. This back and forth has been going on for a long time, as I covered, so it is too early to say if this is the end of Requiem, or if the community will be able to update it to work around whatever change Apple has made.

There may yet be a new version of Requiem released which restores functionality under iTunes 8. Or some brand new tool could emerge from the community, just as Hymn, myFairTunes, QTFairUse6, and Requiem have. The best thing I can recommend is keeping an eye on the Requiem thread at the Hymn forums for new news.

In the meantime, if being able to remove the DRM from iTunes purchases is important to you, do not upgrade to iTunes 8! As long as you continue using 7.7.1 (or earlier builds) you should be able to continue using Requiem. The real question is how aggressive Apple will be in pushing users on to iTunes 8 by making it a requirement to download content. They’ve done this in the past, forcing users to upgrade before they can purchase newer content.

No matter what, I’m sure the dev community is already actively looking for ways to crack iTunes 8. DRM really doesn’t do anything to stop piracy, and it is especially stupid when the same music is available from other stores, like Amazon, as DRM-free MP3s.

Posted in Apple, General Tech | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Pop Quiz: New Laptops

Posted on Tuesday, September 9, 2008 by MegaZone

Pop quiz time!

Hypothetically, given that someone was considering buying this laptop:

1. Would you recommend another laptop with similar specifications instead? Consider as constraints that a screen resolution of 1680×1050 is considered a minimum requirement, the physical dimensions should be similar and certainly not much larger, Blu-ray support is desired, and, while not a requirement, AMD is favored. A lower price is always a plus.

2. Bonus essay – justify your answer to #1.

3. Extra credit – try to convince this person to consider a Mac. ;-)

Posted in PC | Tagged , , | 3 Comments