CES 2006: Slingbox Readies Mobile TV

by Sean Fallon on January 3, 2006

in Household

Slinbox 

Last month I offered up a review of the Sling Media “Slingbox” - awarding it a Nerd Approval for die hard T.V. fanatics.

Well, now there is even more to love as word comes that Sling Media is expected to announce that they will be adding software to the Slingbox that will allow you to watch your home television, TIVO, and even your home DVD’s from a wide array of portable devices – including cell phones.

“The new mobile client, as the software is known, works with any device that uses Microsoft’s Windows Mobile Platform versions 4.0 or 5.0. A visual version of a remote control pops up on the screen, making it a fairly straightforward process to choose whether to watch television live from their home cable set-top box or satellite receiver or something recorded on their digital video recorder.”

Sling Media PR director Brian Jaquet even took a jab at Apple saying “You can watch ‘Lost’ the day after it airs without paying two bucks.”

And the best part about the Slingbox is that no fees are collected for this service (on Sling Media’s end) beyond the $250 list price for the device itself.

Needless to say, opening up the Slingbox to portable devices makes an already enticing product a definite must have. Plus, at $250 it is an absolute steal.

The announcement is expected at CES 2006, which begins on January 5th.

Source: Reuters

Posted by Sean

 

  • http://www.cnet.com/4831-11405_1-6414329.html?tag=ltstimg Marcelo

    Monsoon Multimedia’s HAVA tries to one-up Slingbox

    IPTV is everywhere at CES 2006, whether as a replacement for traditional broadcasting or as a way to get your video media around the home–or around the world. In 2005, one of our favorite devices in this category was the Slingbox. But as cool as the Slingbox is, it’s a very bachelor-oriented device: it can stream to only one PC client at a time. That’s where Monsoon Multimedia’s HAVA device may have an edge. It offers a similar model to the Slingbox, encoding your TV signals and digitally streaming them to a PC or a mobile device. But instead of being limited to just one PC (as the Slingbox is), the HAVA is designed as a “multicast” device for viewing on multiple clients throughout the home. (Sending video to Internet-connected PCs and devices elsewhere on the Net is still restricted to one client, however.) Monsoon is claiming that its device bests Slingbox in other ways, such as its built-in 802.11a/b/g wireless and the ability to record streams on PCs for later DVD burning. The HAVA is intended as an OEM device, so it should appear under multiple third-party brands when it becomes available later in 2006. The target price tag is $250 to $300.

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