Today TiVo Australia set out an email which indicates progress is being made in preparing TiVo for the market there – they’re now signing people up for testing. Of course, you need to live in Australia, and meet these requirements:
- I love to watch TV
- I have broadband
- I receive Free To Air TV via an antenna
- I am not afraid of doing some serious homework (about 5 hours a week) on an exciting new product
This is the email:
Continue reading
First let me just say – I CALLED IT! Sling has developd a SlingModem – a cable modem with integrated Slingbox. As previously reported, it has already been certified by CableLabs. According to Dave Zatz, Sling is in talks with a number of cable MSOs, both domestic and foreign to bring the product to market. They don’t have any current plans to market it independently. Having been, apparently, the first person to notice Sling was working on a cable modem, it is nice to see it officially confirmed. But that’s not all…
I also called it! The SlingLink Wireless is Sling’s branded 802.11g WiFi adapter. It will be available in 2Q08 for $49.99. While, currently, it will officially only be supported on the SlingCatcher, note that the Slingbox SOLO also has a USB port, as does the just announced Slingbox PRO-HD. I think it is reasonable to expect the SlingLink Wireless to be supported on these units as well in the future. The design of the SlingLink Wireless looks somewhat familiar, but I can’t place it off-hand. You have a USB WiFi dongle and a kind of docking station with a cable that allows you to position it better. So you could stick it right into the box, if that works for you, or use the cable and position it away from the Slingbox for better reception.
And, speaking of the SlingCatcher, after being teased with FCC and packaging leaks, we have more official news. Having been postponed from late 2007, Sling has now set the release for 2Q08 with an MSRP of $249.99. We’ve previously seen the SlingCatcher and the remote, and there isn’t really anything new there. The SlingCatcher will work as a client for Slingboxes, of course, including support for streams up to 1080i from the Slingbox PRO-HD. We’ll have to see at the show if all the leaked specifications are accurate. But Dave did say that, while it was displayed at CES 2007 with a branded hard drive ‘dock’ that the SlingCatcher would sit on top of, Sling will not initially be selling the drive. The chassis has still been designed to support the dock if it is shipped in the future, but for now it will be ‘bring your own storage’. It supports USB mass storage devices – USB flash drives, hard drives, etc. So you can supply the amount of storage you want.
The SlingCatcher has two USB ports, with the second port intended for the above-mentioned SlingLink Wireless. It also comes with software applications. SlingSync will synchronize a variety of content, including HD content, from a PC to the USB mass storage device attached to the SlingCatcher. SlingProjector will stream content from a PC to the SlingCatcher in real-time. It can stream anything form the PC’s desktop, including select regions. And it has some intelligence to recognize specific content, such as a video playing from YouTube, to make it easy to stream just that content to the SlingCatcher.
Also on display at CES 2008 is SlingPlayer 2.0, which includes the Clip+Sling functionality. You’ll be able to grab short clips of the shows you’re streaming and share them online. Sling Media has already parked the domain Sling.com for use with Clip+Sling. SlingPlayer 2.0 will be available in 1Q08 as a free download for Slingbox owners.
SlingPlayer 2.0 also includes an Electronic Program Guide, with data from TMS, which makes it easy to find programs to stream from Live TV. Especially useful for those who feed their Slingbox directly from a cable or satellite receiver, or those with a Slingbox Tuner, Slingbox PRO, or Slingbox PRO-HD, which have built-in tuners. And, finally, SlingPlayer 2.0 includes a 60 minute stream buffer that allows you to pause, rewind, and fast-forward locally even if you don’t have a DVR feeding your Slingbox.
The official press releases will be up on Sling’s site in the morning.
Buy.com is having a sale on the Panasonic DMP-BD30K Blu-ray player for $409.99 from 1/7 through 1/13. This is one of the few Profile 1.1 BD players on the market today, and it is considered one of the best players available, with extensive support for advanced audio codecs.
Also 1/7-1/13 they’re selling a bundle of the Slingbox PRO and HD Connect cable for $195.00.
Unlike the HD DVD camp, which seems to have slunk off with their tail between their legs thus far, there is a ton of Blu-ray news already coming out of CES. Lots of new players being announced. Samsung announced the BP-P1500 BD player and the BD-UP5500 BD/HD DVD combo player, which update the BD-P1400 and BD-UP5000 respectively. The P1500 will be a Profile 1.1 player with extensive audio codec support and an MSRP of $399 and the UP5500 will basically share the functionality of the P1500 but adds HD DVD playback (any point to that now?) for an MSRP of $599. That’s the lowest MSRP for a combo player to date. And you now that they’ll be available for less online. The P1500 is due in June, and the UP5500 in 2H08. While they both have Ethernet ports, neither is certified as a BD-Live player. Though there is a chance they could be upgraded in the future, as they have the hardware.
Philips announced the BDP7200 a Profile 1.1 player due in April with an MSRP of only $349. I’d expect to see it for less than $300 online. I think that’s the lowest MSRP for a Blu-ray player to date.
Sharp announced the BD-HP50U Profile 1.1 player with a $699.99 MSRP. The press release makes it sound like it may support BD-Live, which would help justify that high price, but I tend to doubt it:
In addition, the BD-HP50U supports BD-ROM Profile 1.1, or BD Live, the latest version of the Blu-ray format. BD-ROM Profile 1.1 provides secondary audio and video decoders for Picture in Picture (PIP) capability, as well as an external storage.
Profile 1.1 is ‘Bonus View’ or ‘Final Standard Profile’ and not BD-Live. BD-Live is also known as Profile 2.0. I tend to think this is a press release writer crossing their wires.
Sony is releasing a $200 BD-ROM drive for PCs, the BDU-X10S, making it easier for PC owners to add Blu-ray support to their machines. They also reportedly have two BD-Live players on display in their booth, and we’ve heard yet again that the PS3 will be receiving a BD-Live update this year.
And Panasonic had a lot to share. They announced a ‘home theater in a box’ with integrated Blu-ray support, the SC-BT100. It is Profile 1.1, of course, and will be available in May – but pricing isn’t available. They also announced what they claim is the first BD-Live player, the DMP-BD50. However, they haven’t revealed pricing or availability yet. Perhaps we’ll hear more once the show officially opens tomorrow.
Picked up from numerous press releases, vendor web sites, Engadget, EngadgetHD, Gizmodo, High-Def Digest, and Blu-ray.com.
In a press release that was probably prepared before Friday’s Warner bombshell, Toshiba is talking up their third generation HD DVD players. The players went on sale this fall in time for the holiday shopping season and did sell fairly well. But I find it interesting that at CES, where most vendors launch their next-generation of products, Toshiba is touting their current generation. No fourth generation of products to announce? Considering the industry seems to have nearly universally declared the pending death of HD DVD in light of Warner dumping the format, it could be that the third generation of HD DVD player is the final generation. Toshiba has got to be thinking hard about how much money they want to keep dumping into HD DVD if the rest of the industry is moving to Blu.
Toshiba held their CES press conference today – and they avoided the issue. They only briefly touched on Warner’s move, and pretty much said what they’d already put in their press release. And they didn’t do any Q&A at the end of the session. It seems like they’re in avoidance mode at this point. They don’t have a good story to counter the devastating loss of Warner, and they know it.
The press release:
Continue reading
