iPad Slingbox Player “Almost Here”

The Slingbox folks sent out an email newsletter yesterday indicating that SlingPlayer Mobile for iPad is “about to launch” and “Almost Here!” Like other Slingbox mobile clients, whenever it lands, it’ll run $30. And it sounds like they’re finally moving to H.264 for iPad streaming to provide higher resolutions and hopefully a more responsive client … Read more

Slingbox App Headed to Windows Phone 7

Good news for Slingbox owners contemplating a move to Windows Phone 7, as Sling has announced their intentions to bring placeshifting support to the new mobile platform. The first SlingPlayer Mobile client was built on Windows Mobile and Sling has largely relied on Microsoft’s Windows Media Video (WMV) technology over the years, so a Windows … Read more

Question of the Day: TiVo Premiere + Slingbox?

tivo-premiere-slingbox

Today’s question comes our way from Stephen M:

Has anyone been successful at getting SlingPlayer or SlingPlayerWeb to control a Tivo Premiere? In the player setup, there are no choices for Tivo Premiere or Tivo Series 4.

This should have been a trivial question to answer, even though Sling hasn’t yet published an official virtual remote for the Premiere. Because TiVo’s IR codes and general remote layout are pretty consistent amongst their hardware lineup, classifying the Premiere as a TiVo Series3 or HD for the Slingbox should have handled just about everything other than the four OCAP shortcut buttons. However, after perusing Stephen’s lengthy transcript with Sling Media’s tech support, I realized something was amiss. And, unfortunately, Christina wasn’t able to deviate much from her script to identify that Sling has a problem on their end.

As it turns out, Sling’s online database of IR codes and remote skins has been corrupted or rolled back in some way. Perhaps related to their horribly botched data center migration that resulted in a week or so of downtime for many. Basically, in attempts to set up the AV source via Sling.com as two different TiVo models the remote skins were blanked out and non-functional in several ways/places.

What I did to resolve this problem was to set up the DVR (as a Series 3) in Sling’s stand-alone OS X software client. Once done, I headed back to Sling.com where the remote renders and works properly as seen below.

web-sling-tivo

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SlingPlayer for Android Launches Tonight

After a somewhat protracted (and public) lead-up, SlingPlayer Mobile for Android will enter the Market late tonight. Priced at the same $29.99 as Sling’s other mobile clients (and maybe 1/3rd too much in the current app environment), SlingPlayer Mobile allows you to stream your home television over 3G or WiFi while on the go with … Read more

Yes, Virginia, Hulu Hates You.

OK, so maybe we can’t ascribe hatred to Hulu, an emotionless corporate entity and online pawn of the studio system. Let’s just say Hulu exhibits something akin to disrespect or disdain and clearly calls the shots as they reach into our homes and devices to decide what web browsing technologies are permissible. They talk about content licensing … Read more

Private Android SlingPlayer Beta Launches

Sling Media offers a two part solution for streaming video from your home to an internet-connected PC or mobile phone. First you buy a Slingbox to stick next to your home A/V components (cable box, TiVo, etc), and then you run the SlingPlayer software on a Mac or Windows PC, or a supported smartphone including … Read more

SlingCommunity Shutting Down

Today marks the end of an era as the SlingCommunity shutters its doors. I assume this isn’t entirely voluntary on their part, given Sling Media’s recently launched Slingbox tech support-oriented forum. In fact, years of SlingCommunity content (215,000 posts) will vanish later today when their URL will begin redirecting all traffic to answers.slingbox.com.

As a very early Slingbox owner and, later, as a Sling Media employee, I have a pretty good handle on Sling’s forum arc.

The Slingbox was a hot topic of discussion on AVS Forum at launch in 2005. It’s where I got to know founder and CEO Blake Krikorian. And convinced him the office workers of the world needed a Windows 2000 client. And they turned one around in 48 hours. As the conversation grew, Sling approached the owners of AVS about cordoning off a dedicated Sling area. But they wouldn’t play ball. In fact, I got the sense they didn’t appreciate the company’s public contributions for whatever reason. So Sling took their cash elsewhere and partnered with Capable Networks, who launched the SlingCommunity.

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DISH VIP 922 Slingbox DVR Launches!

380 million dollars and 2.5 years in the making, the world’s first DVR containing Slingbox functionality has arrived. Of course, this is exactly the sort of hybrid product we expected when Echostar acquired Sling Media in 2007. Although it wasn’t actually until CES 2009 that our suspicions were confirmed. And DISH Network’s 2009 launch plans … Read more