Unannounced Slingbox surfaces on the web
Original Slingbox revamped?
Sling Media is working on a new incarnation of its Slingbox TV-over-the-internet box, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) website has revealed.
Sling Media's 'Slingbox 3': in the labs
Details of the new box, mentioned in FCC electromagnetic emission testing documentation, are sparse, but it appears to sit between the current Slingbox Pro and the lesser Slingbox AV. While the Pro offers a wide array of input and outputs, and incorporates a tuner, the AV is a tuner-less box with just RCA audio, s-video and composite-video inputs. Both boxes take the input, compress it and stream it via an Ethernet port to the local network and the internet.
The Slingbox in the FCC filings appears to have an on-board analogue tuner, s-video, RCA audio and component-video inputs. The single pic of the device in the documentation suggests it also has composite-video output too and possibly a TV output port.
All of which seems to point to a device more like the original Slingbox, but smaller, making it handy for folk who don't have a set-top box receiver but who don't need the full port array offered by the Slingbox Pro - and perhaps the Pro's HD support too.
Meanwhile, we're also eagerly awaiting news of Sling's promised Slingbox-in-reverse, the SlingCatcher, a hardware version of the company's SlingPlayer software that can pick up a stream from a Slingbox and display it on a regular TV.
Sling announced the SlingCatcher in January 2007, promising to bring the device to market during the middle of the year.
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Sling Media SlingBox networkable TV tunerCOMMENTS
Why does everyone miss the big news?
I've seen a lot of blogs and such cover this - but I seem to be the only one who noticed the big change: This is a *cable modem*. Look at the FCC Test docs and the manual. This new box is a combination DOCSIS modem and Slingbox - they've never done that before. It is an entirely new direction for Sling Media.
Chris - Slingbox does local media streaming. Not UPNP, but it does work locally.
Rob - The SlingCatcher will supposedly do that.
Mike - 128Kbps is too slow, you need at least 256Kbps for a usable stream - more is always better. The Slingbox accepts video input, then encodes it using VC-1 (WMV9) and streams it to the client. The resolution and bitrate are dynamically adjusted to handle the available bandwidth and the quality of the pipe. Remote streams are sized up to 320x240, local streams at 640x480. And it will go up to about 8Mbps at full quality for a local stream.
Curious
Can someone point me to an unbiased explanation of just how this thing works?
I have internet connectivity via Comcast cable-modem, and as spotty as the "6Mb" downlink is, I am dubious about the reliability of the "128kb" uplink. And even if it were to be rock-solid, how does one pipe tolerable video though 128kbps?
Thanks
why no upnp
why don't these otherwise great little guys support local media streaming too?? talk about missing a trick!
Original Slingbox on sale in Currys
At £99.99 it's worth considering, and that usually suggests that something new is due...
Very Cool if..
It would be very good to have the slingcatcher be able to capture IR remote signals and pop them down the web to the slingbox, much akin to the RF video transmitter/receiver I use to get Satellite TV upstairs.
