Yes, that’s me doing my day job.

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.

SlingPlayer Mobile is currently available for Palm OS, Windows Mobile Smartphone, Windows Mobile Professional/PPC, and Symbian S60. Symbian UIQ is in beta now and will be out soon, and Blackberry support is in development, expected later this year. The license works for any of the SlingPlayer mobile platforms.

Disclaimer: I work for Sling Media.

And I’m sure there others that I haven’t spotted.

Dave Zatz posted this video to YouTube:

Note that this is a proof of concept, a technology demonstrator, and not the SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone that will eventually be released. This was an engineering project written for jail-broken iPhones to characterize the performance of the platform and ensure that Sling could deliver a high quality customer experience on the iPhone & iPod Touch platforms. This allowed Sling to gain experience with the platform while waiting for the SDK to be released. The official SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone will be written using the SDK and sold through the iTunes App store like other official iPhone/iPod Touch applications. At least that is currently the intent.

If you’re attending the Apple WWDC this week you can get a look at the proof of concept application first hand. Sling Media Product Manager Vicky Shum will be at the Starbucks at 120 4th Street, San Francisco (across from the Metreon) between 10:00 and 16:00 (10am and 4pm) on Monday, June 9th running demos.

Disclaimer: I am currently employed by Sling Media.

You have to love the net – I found out about this from a Twitter message that linked to the deal at dealnews.

Disclaimer: I’m currently employed by Sling Media. But, as I said, my finding this deal had nothing to do with work.

If you’re a Slingbox owner with a Symbian UIQ smartphone, you can apply for the beta here.

Disclaimer: I’m not only currently employed by Sling Media, I’m the Program Manager for the Symbian UIQ beta.

Sling Media today released SlingPlayer Mobile updates for Windows Mobile Smartphone, Windows Mobile Professional/PPC, and Symbian S60. There new versions are 1.6, 1.6, and 1.01, respectively. While not updated, the Palm OS client is still available as well. US versions of the clients are available here, and UK/International versions are available here. The new versions are a free upgrade for existing register users, or a USD$29.99 purchase for new users. You can try the client for 30 days before purchasing to make sure you’re satisfied before purchasing. Of course, you’ll need a Slingbox for the client to connect to as well.

The new releases add support for additional phones such as the Treo 500v, Nokia N95 8GB, Samsung i760, and Nokia N82, as well as improved video streaming on select phones such as the Sprint/HTC Mogul. Additional changes include support for additional set-top boxes, additional channel logos, and various ‘under the hood’ tweaks.

Symbian UIQ and Blackberry clients are still planned for later this year.

Disclaimer: I am currently employed by Sling Media, and I took over as the beta manager for these three beta programs on April 7th. If you’re interested in beta testing register and be sure to keep your profile updated, especially the ‘Test Platforms’ section.

At commercial option comes from Applian Technologies. Early on Applian Technologies released At-Large Recorder, which allowed users to record the streams from their Slingbox. However, Sling Media later made changes to their SlingStream which blocked recording from Slingboxes with newer firmware, so users could only use it with un-upgraded, older units. However, Applian eventually sorted out how to make their software with newer Slingboxes, and they released At-Large Recorder 2. At-Large Recorder 2 works with any Slingbox, and allows for scheduled recordings, turning your Slingbox into a remote tuner for recording on your PC. You can download At-Large Recorder 2 and try it out as a demo, which allows you to record 5 minutes per recording. Which is probably enough to grab clips if that’s all you need. If you like it, you can purchase the activation key for $49.95. The full version allows recording without limitation.

At the other end of the spectrum is the open-source Slingbox SDK developed by Alexandre Lefebvre. Completely free, but really for the geeks. The project includes an SDK for communicating with any model of Slingbox, a basic recording application, and a plug-in to access the Slingbox from within VLC.

There’s another free application, which is a bit more user friendly. Actually, a small suite of applications – Slinger, SLR Recorder, and VSLR Player. Much like Applian’s At-Large Recorder 2 these free applications allow for recording of the SlingStream, including schedule recordings. They’re a little rough around the edges, without the polish of the commercial At-Large Recorder, but that’s $50 and these are free. So take your pick.

And there is another player just entering the field. Reader Natasha Silverfoote tipped me off to them back on March 24th, which is what started the wheels of my brain turning to pull this post together. She let me know that mReplay had just opened up their mReplay Live product for public beta. This is a different kind of application, it is an ActiveX program that runs from within Internet Explorer to allow you to record from any Slingbox from within the browser. It also allows you to edit the recordings and product clips, much like Sling’s own forthcoming Clip+Sling. However, while Clip+Sling will upload the clips directly to Sling.com, mReplay Live allows you to share the clips on YouTube, via email or IM, etc.

Right now it is, frankly, fairly rough. I’ve played with it and it crashed IE a few times. But that’s not unusual for a first beta release. As a Firefox user, needing to run IE in the first place bugs me. But while it is rough around the edges, and is clearly an early beta, it does work. I was able to stream from my Slingbox SOLO and make recordings and clips. The good news is that mReplay intends to bring the same functionality to Firefox via a plug-in, and they also intend to bring mReplay Live support to the Mac and Linux in some fashion. They’re also working on support for the iPhone using the just-released SDK. As well as bringing the software to additional platforms, a planned feature addition is ‘DVR functionality’ to allow scheduled recordings. And to top it off, mReplay Live is a free application.

After I tracked down a contact, mReplay’s founder and CEO, Patrick Riley, was kind enough answer my questions via email. mReplay is based in Orinda, CA, just outside of San Francisco. mReplay started back in 2005 and grew out of Patrick’s Masters Thesis at the UC Berkeley School of Information, and it seems that the folks at mReplay are big fans of the Slingbox, but just felt limited by the capabilities of the official software. That’s generally how all of these things start, when someone thinks “This is great, but wouldn’t it be cool if it could do X?” The founders are sports fans who really wanted a way to use their Slingboxes to grab highlight clips.

Their original effort in 2005 was to develop mobile client software to allow accessing the Slingbox from mobile phones. However, that effort ended up taking a back seat to developing the PC client that has first surfaced as the free mReplay Live application. The next step is for a commercial application called GameDay Professional which will expand on the basic recording and clipping functionality of the Live application to include automatic sports highlight detection and recording and ‘VCR-like’ recording scheduling. While watching a sporting event the professional software while automatically compile a highlight reel of the game. It is still in private beta, but Patrick told me it will be available in June 2008 and pricing is planned to be $30 for PC and Mac.

The mReplay Mobi effort hasn’t been dropped either, it is still in the works for ‘Summer 2008′ with the aforementioned iPhone support as well as support for Google Android planned. The mobile client is planned to go beyond the standard SlingPlayer Mobile client software by supporting the same clipping and sharing features as the mReplay PC software.

mReplay received a Cease & Desist letter from Sling Media last year, relating to their early efforts, and this delayed their work and software releases a bit. But they’re now represented by the law firm Fenwick & West LLP and feel that all of their current products are 100% legal. mReplay hasn’t heard more from Sling Media about their current work, and when I contacted Sling Media about mReplay they officially had no comment at this time.

Patrick sees mReplay as a ‘value add’ for the Slingbox, and not really a competitor. As he put it in email:“We are only going to help Sling Media, by making their hardware more valuable by providing additional free and premium services.” He’d like to see Sling embrace third party vendors who can add features and functionality to the standard Sling products for the power users. He’d really like to see Sling Media release an official SDK for third party developers to use in extending Slingbox and SlingPlayer feature set. mReplay plans to release some of their code as open source to help fuel community development efforts around the Slingbox. When I asked about producing a client that isn’t tied to a browser Patrick said:“[I]t’s just a matter of making a PC and Mac Client that isn’t reliant on the limitations of a browser.”

I asked Patrick if he is concerned about Sling Media updating their products to block third party software such as mReplay, and he replied:

I think it would be a great disservice for Sling to technically or legally tweak user’s Slingbox (their firmware) as to prevent any other companies from making software for this piece of hardware.

I don’t really see the likes of mReplay, or Applian and the others, as competitors to Sling, so I hope they allow the third party vendors to establish a Slingbox ecosystem to support the power users and geeks who look for more than the average user. As we’ve repeatedly seen with other products, community hacking efforts really can’t be stopped, so it probably isn’t worth spending resources on trying.

While the third party applications may offer additional functionality, none of them really feel as user-friendly as SlingPlayer. mReplay Live is still in its first public beta release, so I do have to cut it a lot of slack, but I did have some trouble figuring out how to use it. I didn’t find it very intuitive. But hopefully those issues will be worked out during testing – that’s what betas are for after all.

Personally, I’m looking forward to the release of SlingPlayer 2.0 with Clip+Sling as well as SlingPlayer Mobile updates. I got a taste of SP 2.0 and C+S at CES in January and what Sling has done is really polished and easy to use. I really do wish Sling Media would add recording functionality, as I said back during CES they’re so very close already with SP 2.0:

SlingPlayer 2.0 is an evolution of today’s SlingPlayer software. The new software adds a 60 minute local playback buffer which allows you to pause, rewind, and fast-forward the program locally. The UI has been spruced up and there are a number of updates, including an Electronic Program Guide (EPG) source from Zap2it.com (which is run by TMS, the same company that provides TiVo’s guide data). At this point a Slingbox with SlingPlayer 2.0 is a hair’s breadth from forming a DVR. All they need to do is add recording capability to SlingPlayer and they’d have a functioning DVR. I asked Dave about that, but Sling has no plans currently to add recording. Maybe at some point in the future. While it wouldn’t replace TiVo, I do think they should do it. And it is clear that not doing it is a deliberate choice, as everything is in place for it in 2.0 aside from allowing the buffer to be saved.

Perhaps once the ongoing lawsuit between TiVo and EchoStar (which now owns Sling Media) is settled Sling will be able to add DVR functionality.

In the meantime power users looking to record, and more, might want to check out one of these add-on products.

Company will demonstrate award-winning mobile TV solution at CTIA on a variety of Symbian smartphones including the Sony Ericsson W960i and the Nokia N95 8GB

Foster City, CA and London, UK – March 27, 2008 – Sling Media, Inc., a digital lifestyle products company, today announced SlingPlayer™ Mobile for UIQ on Symbian OS™, bringing the best mobile TV experience to this popular smartphone platform. The company will showcase its new software at the Symbian booth (#4855, Hall N4) at the CTIA Wireless Show in Las Vegas, NV April 1 – 3 2008. Separately, Sling Media is announcing that its existing SlingPlayer Mobile for S60 on Symbian OS will soon support Nokia’s popular N95 8GB, which will also be demonstrated at CTIA.

With today’s announcements, Sling Media adds to the already robust smartphone support it offers its customers and gives Slingbox owners the ability to watch and control their home TV using even more of the most popular smartphones available in the U.S. and in Europe. Sling Media expects to release SlingPlayer Mobile for UIQ worldwide this summer and expects the new version of SlingPlayer Mobile for S60 to be available this spring.

“We are excited to expand our support for Symbian smartphones, providing customers with the best possible mobile TV experience. With over two-and-a-half billion global 3G and WiFi connections the market potential for mobile TV is huge,” said Blake Krikorian, co-founder and CEO of Sling Media. “In order to meet this growing desire for mobile TV, we will continue to expand the availability of SlingPlayer Mobile to as many platforms and devices as possible. Adding SlingPlayer Mobile to such a cutting edge platform as UIQ on Symbian OS is a great step forward in expanding user accessibility to their home TV set-up.”

The personalized mobile TV experience for smartphones is enabled by the award-winning Slingbox, which allows customers to watch and control their home TV on an Internet-connected Mac or PC as well as a range of mobile phone platforms including Symbian OS, Windows Mobile, Palm OS and coming soon, BlackBerry.

Sling Media expects to support the following UIQ handsets at launch and will continue to expand handset support thereafter.

• Sony Ericsson P1i
• Sony Ericsson P990i
• Sony Ericsson W960i
• Sony Ericsson W950i
• Sony Ericsson M600i
• Motorola MOTORIZR Z8

A full list of compatible smartphones for all SlingPlayer Mobile-supported platforms can also be found at http://www.slingmedia.com/go/spm-requirements.

“SlingPlayer Mobile for Symbian smartphones extends the reach of home TV viewing to a user’s phone with the same diverse line-up of viewable content. We’re excited to have the SlingPlayer experience delivered to UIQ — it’s fast, it’s fun, and it offers an enjoyable user experience,” said Jerry Panagrossi, Vice President and General Manager of North American Operations, Symbian.

SlingPlayer Mobile gives Slingbox customers their entire home TV experience, including local channels, local sports teams, video on demand, pay per view, etc. Any program that you can watch on your sofa back home, you can now watch via a PC or Mac, as well as UIQ, Symbian S60, Palm OS, and Windows Mobile-based smartphones anywhere you can get an Internet connection (3G Cellular or WiFi). In addition, SlingPlayer Mobile users can also control their home digital video recorder (DVR) to watch recorded shows, pause, rewind, and fast forward live TV and even program and watch new recordings while away from home.

SlingPlayer Mobile does not require a monthly fee or other recurring charges. Slingbox customers simply need to purchase SlingPlayer Mobile for a one-time charge of $29.99 US, $34.99 Canadian dollars or £19.99 Inc VAT British pounds. All versions of SlingPlayer Mobile include a 30-day free trial and can be purchased at www.slingmedia.com.

About Sling Media
Sling Media, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation (NASDAQ: SATS), is the world’s leading digital lifestyle company offering consumer services and products that are a natural extension of today’s digital way of life. Sling Media’s product family includes the internationally acclaimed, Emmy award-winning Slingbox™ that allows consumers to watch and control their living room television shows at any time, from any location, using PCs, Macs, PDAs, and smartphones. For more information on Sling Media or the Slingbox, visit www.slingmedia.com.