SlingPlayer Comes To Google TV

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After nearly a year in development, EchoStar has released the SlingPlayer for Google TV. And, as the recent Boxee and Facebook Slingbox players, what we’re really dealing with is a Flash-based webpage. As Engadget points out, this means you won’t necessarily have the same level of polished remote keymapping… yet the platform is infinitely more portable/reusable than a dedicated app for each OS. At least until Adobe kills mobile and television Flash. But, hey, at least it won’t run you $30 like Sling’s mobile apps.

Like all SlingPlayers, this version allows you to watch your home television content beyond the confines of your property line… OR within rooms, say, without a set-top box. Originally, the Slingbox streamed video to desktop software or mobile clients, but the advent of Boxee and Google TV provide for television-to-television streaming. So as bad as the Logitech Revue is, for $80 to $100 it makes a better “sling catcher” than the ill fated and discontinued SlingCatcher ($300).

To partake, you’ll need a Slingbox SOLO or PRO-HD ($150 – $300) and the SlingPlayer “app” can be found under the Google TV Spotlight.

12 thoughts on “SlingPlayer Comes To Google TV”

  1. Keeping my hopes up that there will be a better version for Sony’s Google TV. Still, this is pretty awesome…I got a new Solo on monday and going to put my sony google tv in a vacation house my family owns where there is internet but only very basic cable.

  2. Mine’s boxed up again. I’ll pull it out in a few months and see if there are many more (significant, interesting) apps available and perhaps some bug fixes – although Logitech seems mostly done with this platform. I’d still prefer a “normal” remote to go with it, but that’s not happening either.

  3. The custom plugin (not flash)-based desktop web client is a total piece of crap compared to the windows app. I can’t figure out why they did it. I attributed it to yet another misstep by the goofballs in charge at Sling.

    Also standardizing on flash when Adobe is halting development on all mobile devices may have been just a teeeeeensy-bit shortsighted.

    Is it really such a chore to support multiple platforms? This isn’t 2004, there are only two mobile platforms now, android and iOS. GoogleTV runs android, and AppleTV runs iOS.

    The trick with the googletv is to wait for the root. Once it’s rooted, you can modify the flash version string and play Hulu.

  4. I installed Slingplayer on one of my Revues last night, but had problems getting it to work properly.

    I could interact with the Sling directory and pull up the proper Slingbox, but, most of the time, I would get audio only. Rest of the screen would be black.

    Only way I found that I could get video to work for a few minutes was to dial back the “quality” option down to Better and then back up to Best.

    Having 2 Revues, I was really hopeful that I could use these in rooms without a DirecTV box. So far, it isn’t there yet.

  5. Yeah, it worked fine for me. Of course my googletv is wired and less than 3 inches from my slingbox pro HD, so bandwidth was not an issue.

  6. I’ll have to unpack the google tv to try this. What I REALLY want is slingplayer for ROKU and VUDU for ROKU and then my infinitely portable box for all content sources will be complete!

  7. I’d get excited, but I’m the only person I know with a Slingbox, and I live in a shoebox apartment. I’ll stick to watching on my iPhone when I travel :)

  8. I tried it. It sucks. I use a Logitech Harmony remote with my Revue because watching TV with a keyboard is cumbersome. But the Sling Player controls on the Revue is triggered by the space bar, which of course the remote doesn’t have. Also, as with their Flash Player, the buffer time (even on my wired network) is unacceptable for doing any control of the TiVo in the other room. Also the video stream looks odd. I’m not sure why. Frame rate? They have some work ahead of them.

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