Slingbox Support for Apple TV

[MacRumors]

CNet's Gadget blog had previously reported that Sling Media was working to get their SlingBox working with the Apple TV. A Sling Media employee confirms that this was accurate:

Yes, I can confirm this is accurate. (I work for Sling Media.) The Slingbox currently supports over 3,000 AV devices (cable boxes, DVRs, DVD players, etc) via IR and we’ve got many more in the pipeline. For Apple TV, you’d use the component pass-thru on a Slingbox Pro with HD Connect to remotely view, or listen, to your content. Our SlingPlayer software (computer and mobile) offers an audio-only mode, so we’re not just talking iTV video here… Select an iTunes playlist, switch to audio-only if you’d like (reducing bandwidth), and listen to your music anywhere you’ve got Internet.

SlingBox is media box that allows users to watch and control their home TV, DVR, or home theatre setup on a Mac or PC over the internet. CNet's Gadget blog also notes that Sling Media has been offering the ability to stream content to your mobile phone and speculates that Apple's iPhone support could be in the works.

This functionality would allow you to have your entire iTunes library available to you on your internet enabled phone (iPhone or not) without directly syncing your entire library to your phone.

[Macnoviz]

nice, so is this something for Mac and PC?

[xUKHCx]

All sounds pretty cool, but at the moment i think a little too expensive to stream(?) the music to your mobile phone.

[hob]

They say the Japanese are 10 years ahead of us here in Europe... And they have WiFi everywhere in their streets... so one would hope that eventually mobile data rates will come down... all I know is that I've been sucked dry for wanting to have a little mobile internet for the past coupla years!

Originally Posted by Macnoviz

nice, so is this something for Mac and PC?

I think I read somewhere that Mac software had just come out for slingbox that was identical to the pc version...!

[job]

Originally Posted by hob

They say the Japanese are 10 years ahead of us here in Europe... And they have WiFi everywhere in their streets... so one would hope that eventually mobile data rates will come down... all I know is that I've been sucked dry for wanting to have a little mobile internet for the past coupla years!

Any you guys in Europe are even farther along than we are. Even if this does pan out (it's a great idea!!) it's a shame that widespread WiFi isn't really available unless you live in the larger cities. I suppose it would be far too expensive to establish a nation-wide WiFi network, but it's nice to dream isn't it?

[pauld]

this is practically made for people on three UK's X-series

[coumerelli]

one word: convergence

[Aniej]

Don't know if anyone saw this thread a couple of days ago, but figured it would be worth putting it out there in light of this article. Question to those who are thinking of getting a SlingCatcher.

[syklee26]

safe to say Korea has passed Japan as the tech mecca of the world...

the problem with US having low tech all over the place has little to do with the actual advancement in technology...it's just that there are so many organizations trying to stop us from doing anything significant, such as "nooo~ mobile phone antenna is bad for our health!", "nooo~ wi-fi on the street will increase traffic accidents!" "nooo~ we need to keep things as is to sustain nostalgic value!"

until that changes, we will be in awe with Razr while Koreans and Japanese will laugh at Americans while watching TV on their cells.

[Macnoviz]

Originally Posted by job

Any you guys in Europe are even farther along than we are. Even if this does pan out (it's a great idea!!) it's a shame that widespread WiFi isn't really available unless you live in the larger cities. I suppose it would be far too expensive to establish a nation-wide WiFi network, but it's nice to dream isn't it?

Not over here in Flanders (Belgium) our population is very dense, and the Flemish governement is considering a nation-wide WiFi network

[massiv]

Originally Posted by syklee26

safe to say Korea has passed Japan as the tech mecca of the world...

the problem with US having low tech all over the place has little to do with the actual advancement in technology...it's just that there are so many organizations trying to stop us from doing anything significant, such as "nooo~ mobile phone antenna is bad for our health!", "nooo~ wi-fi on the street will increase traffic accidents!" "nooo~ we need to keep things as is to sustain nostalgic value!"

I think it has more to do with financial interests rather than health concerns. And we need to remember that the US is a huge country in comparison to a lot of these "advanced" countries. Much more of our population by % is spread out into rural areas. We will get there, it will just take some time and huge investments.

[syklee26]

Originally Posted by massiv

I think it has more to do with financial interests rather than health concerns. And we need to remember that the US is a huge country in comparison to a lot of these "advanced" countries. Much more of our population by % is spread out into rural areas. We will get there, it will just take some time and huge investments.

i can see your point. however, Korea's tech advancement is mainly concentrated in Seoul, the capital and the biggest city of Korea. if you compare Seoul to, let's say, New York, the difference is pretty large. Also, Seoul is much bigger than New York sizewise.

[DB2k]

Originally Posted by pauld

this is practically made for people on three UK's X-series

Do any other networks even support it in the UK?
I work for a company which maintains and supports the 3UK network and I thought the sling stuff was pretty good when I had a play a few months ago.

[princealfie]

Originally Posted by massiv

I think it has more to do with financial interests rather than health concerns. And we need to remember that the US is a huge country in comparison to a lot of these "advanced" countries. Much more of our population by % is spread out into rural areas. We will get there, it will just take some time and huge investments.

Financial interests or just greed, pure and simple eh?

[atszyman]

Originally Posted by xUKHCx

All sounds pretty cool, but at the moment i think a little too expensive to stream(?) the music to your mobile phone.

What I'd really like to see is an inverse relationship as well. Allow the TV to control a Sling Box to distribute a DVR to other rooms in your house.

TV is cheap enough to be tempting if all you're trying to do is build a small multi-media PC to get DVR functionality into a room that does not currently have it. Combined with a Sling Box you can now use the living room TIVO as the DVR and the TV to access it in another room.

I know this ties up the TIVO to be watching what is being accessed remotely but for instances where only one person is watching but needs to be in a different room it opens up possibilities.

[Howmanoid]

Originally Posted by Macnoviz

nice, so is this something for Mac and PC?

This will work with any TV, regardless of whether a Mac or a PC is serving up content to it. All this is saying is that Sling is going to be able to take a video and audio feed from TV and then send IR control signals back to it via its IR blaster. This is exactly what Sling does today with other set top boxes. The only real TV news here is that they will be adding the IR codes for the TV (which you'd expect them to be doing for most new TV interface devices.

It's a nice to have but it's not any great integration or unusual commitment to Apple on their part.

[twoodcc]

glad to see others supporting the whole iPhone thing would be nice as well....but i probably wouldn't use this thing though

[slffl]

I was confused about this story at first. As it seems others are.

This isn't a Slingplayer client for the aTV. This is only a remote and IR codes for current Slingplayer clients.

Not surprising, and not very newsworthy IMO.

[Di9it8]

Originally Posted by syklee26

safe to say Korea has passed Japan as the tech mecca of the world...

What about any city in mainland China??

[j26]

Originally Posted by Macnoviz

Not over here in Flanders (Belgium) our population is very dense...

You should really put the money into education then

[donlphi]

I am at the airport right now using my slingbox w/ my macbook pro and a connection with my Bluetooth enabled A900 (not EVDO rev. A). I cannot wait until they add the APPLE TV remote. It will be exactly what we (I) need.

Unfortunately, I don't see the iPHONE being able to use slingbox anytime soon (this is very sad). I would see them sooner try to develope their own iSLING or add a function to their APPLE TV.

I have seen Slingbox work on a MacBook Pro (intel), my office DELL, a treo running Windows or Palm OS and on a PPC-6700 (looks and sounds amazing).

There are two types of people in the world. People that OWN a Slingbox and people that WANT a Slingbox.

Here's a screenshot from the airport today. Now if we could just get internet in the air. Hmmmm...

[derivativemusic]

A couple of things.

First, what Slingbox does is stream whatever it's fed onto the internet, from where you can access it with their player software. They also have control software, although I'm confused how that would work if you're not using their tuner (i.e. if your tuner is in a satellite or cable box).

But it's also worth mentioning that we have high speed broadband access in the US right now. It's called EV-DO, also known as 3G, and Verizon and Sprint offer it. There's also slower internet access, offered by Cingular and others, called EDGE. That's the one the iPhone will use, of course, and it's the one that's used in Europe (on the edge of the GSM cell phone band they use; EV-DO is on the edge of the CDMA band we also have in the US).

So you don't need Wi-Fi for this.

Next, from what I can see, Slingbox' player software doesn't work on Mac OS X or Palm OS. But maybe I'm wrong about that. Hopefully so.

What I wonder is whether this is a good solution for watching TV on a 30" Cinema display, which only has dual-link DVI input. I've been looking for a solution for that.

[matticus008]

Originally Posted by derivativemusic

What I wonder is whether this is a good solution for watching TV on a 30" Cinema display, which only has dual-link DVI input. I've been looking for a solution for that.

Well, the AppleTV doesn't have dual-link output, so you'll be looking for quite a long time.

[Aniej]

Does anyone know what's up with the SlingCatcher in terms of availability and whether or not it will be able to stream anything from my laptop to the tv, i.e., the ability to show a word doc or web page I am on, or will it only send the same kind of digital media, i.e., music, movies, etc. as apple tv? The reason I am asking is earlier in a press release sling media had made it sound like it could send anything, now it sounds like it can only do apple tv type.

Originally Posted by derivativemusic

Next, from what I can see, Slingbox' player software doesn't work on Mac OS X or Palm OS. But maybe I'm wrong about that. Hopefully so.

Your hope came true. not only is Mac OS supported, they have an entire support section and FAQ dedicated to apple.

[Aniej]

forget this company what a pain in the butt. I just got off the phone with support and they are completely changing the slingcatcher to the way I was hoping it would not go as described above.

looks like it is back to the old hook the mac mini up to my tv plan.