Slingbox coming to the Mac later this year
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Jun 30, 2005 at 4:45am
Sling Media, a digital lifestyle products company, has released the Slingbox for Windows XP systems, butt has a Mac version in the works. The US$249.99 device lets you watch cable, satellite, or personal video recorder (PVR) programming from wherever you are by turning any Internet-connected desktop or laptop computer into a personal TV, according to Blake Krikorian, Sling Media co-founder and CEO.
The Slingbox redirects, or “placeshifts,” a single live TV stream from a cable box, satellite receiver, or PVR to the viewer’s computer, which can be located anywhere in the home. If the Slingbox is coupled with a broadband Internet connection, the viewer’s live TV stream can purportedly be “placeshifted” via the Internet to a computer located anywhere in the world.
The Slingbox requires no new or ongoing subscription fees. All that’s required is a video source providing TV-based entertainment—either cable, satellite TV, or a PVR—and a home router. A broadband network connection is required only if you want to use the Slingbox to view your video source from outside your home.
The SlingPlayer proprietary software includes: SlingStream; a proprietary streaming technology specifically designed to address varying network conditions while optimizing your video playback experience; SlingRemote, a virtual remote control, which displays on your computer screen the buttons found on the remote control of the TV source connected to your Slingbox; and SlingBar, which lets you watch TV while surfing the Web, writing an email, or working on a spreadsheet. Using the SlingPlayer application, the video window and the SlingRemote can be “docked” to one side of the computer screen, in what’s called the SlingBar mode.
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Contributor
Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
