At this month's Consumer Electronics Show, Sling Media demonstrated how HDTV broadcasts can be relayed to TV sets throughout the home via the combined use of the company's new Slingbox Pro-HD and SlingCatcher set-top boxes.
SlingCatcher is designed to pull multimedia content from multiple sources and locations and then consolidate  that content onto a single TV screen, giving viewers more control of their viewing options. Slingbox Pro-HD gives users the ability to "placeshift" -- stream live, recorded or stored media remotely via the Net or a data network -- their HD programming without sacrificing picture quality.
Pushing HDTV
The $399.99 Pro-HD, which is slated for a third quarter release, is capable of streaming HDTV programs at full resolution to any laptop or desktop PC located in or around the home, including over-the-air HDTV broadcasts, transmissions from cable or satellite TV, DVRs and HD-DVD players.
The Pro-HD can also push HDTV programs to any TV set equipped with a SlingCatcher. Users with access to a broadband connection with speeds of 1.5 Mbps to 3 Mbps or faster can stream their favorite HDTV programs to remote locations such as a hotel room or office.
With SlingCatcher, users connected to the home network will be able to stream programming to any other TV in the home -- or even to a TV set at a remote location -- without the need for an intervening PC. Internet and PC-based digital audio/video content can be pulled from the home's desktop PC and projected onto any TV screen associated with the device.
SlingCatcher features the requisite HDMI, component, S-Video and composite video outputs for connecting to a wide variety of TV models. A standard Ethernet jack is on tap for connecting to a LAN (local area network) or WAN (wide area network) and an optional USB adapter is in the works for providing the unit with a wireless connection to the home network.
Although SlingCatcher was originally announced at CES 2007, it took Sling Media far longer than it had originally anticipated to bring the new product to full realization. However, the new $249.99 device is expected to finally reach the marketplace in the second quarter of this year.
Sling's Cable Pitch
Sling Media also says it has received certification from cable industry research and development consortium CableLabs for a new cable modem that fully integrates the same placeshifting capabilities found in the company's original Slingbox. The new SlingModem will enable cable TV customers to view and control their TV programming on any Internet-connected computing device just as if they were sitting in their living rooms.
Sling Media CEO Blake Krikorian noted that the new SlingModem demonstrates that Sling Media's acquisition by EchoStar last year has not limited its focus to producing products for Echostar's Dish Network or other satellite TV service operators.
Sling Media also demonstrated a new software client that promises to give Slingbox users the ability to relay favorite TV clips to their BlackBerry Pearl handsets beginning later this year.
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