SlingPlayer Virtualized in Mac OSX

Jim McMurry has reported success at running the SlingPlayer within Parallels, a free-during-beta virtualization software for Intel Macs. If you have a copy of XP lying around and can’t wait the 2 or 3 months until Slingbox natively supports OSX, you’ve got your solution. Jim’s Slingbox is controlling & streaming his Dish Network DVR 510 and he has enabled Parallels audio output.

Jim says: I decided to make a project out of getting Slingbox setup today. Not knowing for sure if it would work on OSX, I got everything setup using only OSX and Parallels VM running Windows XP. Overall the video is pretty awesome for a player running inside of a VM on Parallels. Full screen inside Parallels (not full screen Parallels, but Slingplayer fullscreen inside Parallels) works very as well.

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Best Buy Unveils HD DVD (And I Don’t Care)

The first HD DVD player is now for sale at my local Best Buy (Washington, DC), though they have no DVDs to go along with it. In fact, they didn’t even have a sample HD disc in the demo unit. The Toshiba HD-A1 is pretty bulky, even larger than the initial batch of first gen DVD players, but the remote is sexy. At $499 with a questionable improvement in picture quality, potentially restrictive HDMI requirements, and unhacked copy protection I’ll be on the sidelines for at least a year. By the time I get onboard, perhaps dual HD DVD/Blu-ray players will exist or maybe one format will have been decided upon… Yeah, right!

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1080p Over Rated?

Here’s an interesting article which summarizes 1080p, provides a few set reviews, and defines wobulation. It’s a good read, especially if you’re considering a big-ticket HDTV purchase in the near future. They pretty much conclude unless you’re sitting very close to a large screen and have perfect vision you may not notice much difference between … Read more

TiVo Sends Echostar Packing

This just in… TiVo won their patent infringement case versus Echostar! Once the dust settles and more details emerge, I’ll update this post. Update 1: The Wall Street Journal, AP, and Bloomberg are reporting the award is $74 million. I haven’t found out yet what this means for current Dish DVR units. Apparently the judge … Read more

TiVo Sales Update

1. TiVo Lifetime Service subscriptions will no longer be available for sale after 4/15. So call now to activate or forever hold your peace. If you happen to have picked up a Lifetime Service card at a Best Buy or ebay, they will be honored once the Series 3 and Series 2 Dual Tuner come … Read more

TiVo And DirecTV Extend Pact

Huge, huge news! While not unexpected given DTV’s slow start in transitioning customers off to TiVo and the associated expenses, this is very good news for both TiVo as a company and for DirecTV TiVo customers. The original agreement was set to expire in about a year, at which point TiVo would have stopped providing … Read more

TiVo Echostar Round 1 Heads To Jury

To recap: TiVo has sued Echostar for infringing on their “time warping” patent. After a delay last fall, the trial finally began about two weeks ago. Echostar has focused their defense on Dish DVR’s technical variations (“media switch“) while TiVo has been playing the role of David (versus Goliath) and is seeking $87 million in … Read more