[Rail Paul]

Today's Wall Street Journal has an article (from the ComDex show) about some of the new technologies being shown to the trade. One of the hottest areas is the reception of TV programs without the intervention of cable companies or satellites.

One of the hottest products is the SlingCatcher, from Sling Media. Sling produced the device which lets you send content from your TV to your computer. Now, they're delivering a product that goes the other way and lets you get TV signals over the internet.

Quote

Sling, of San Mateo, Calif., is unveiling SlingCatcher, a device that attaches to TVs and comes with both wired and wireless networking to send video and audio to other devices around the home. Blake Krikorian, chief executive of Sling, said one motivation is to let people more easily shift content recorded on their digital video recorders to other TVs around the house. Owners of Slingboxes can send programming from one DVR to TVs in another room equipped with a SlingCatcher, which he expects to go on sale by mid-2007 for less than $200.

SlingCatcher also helps send Internet video from PCs to TVs, a much-discussed possibility that could bring more entertainment options to consumers. Sling does that in a new way.

Other devices, sometimes called media adapters, come with remote controls that let users scroll the content they already have downloaded to a desktop PC in another room. They can't easily call up content that is "streamed," or broadcast, over the Internet.

Apple and YouTube have difficulty with this transition. You can view the content on your PC, but getting that cono your 50 inch HD isn't easily accomplished. ngatti spotted and mentioned the enabling technology here last year.

Quote

Sling, by contrast, has developed software -- dubbed SlingProjector -- that sends virtually anything on a PC screen to a TV through the SlingCatcher device. Mr. Krikorian said he believes the most likely application is for users with a laptop sitting on the couch to instantly send clips from YouTube, images from photo-sharing sites or audio files to the TV.

The SlingCatcher comes equipped with digital-signal-processor chips from Texas Instruments Inc. that can be enhanced with new software to continually improve the way they handle various media formats, Mr. Krikorian said.

Other companies are coming up with new ways to get more Internet video formats on TVs. Netgear Inc., for example, said a new version of its media adapter, called Digital Entertainer HD, can play videos from YouTube and another popular site operated by BitTorrent Inc.

Chip makers also are coming up with technology to do similar tricks. Quartics, a start-up in Irvine, Calif., formed by PC pioneer Safi Qureshey, says its technology can handle any video format and will help consumers view more than a preformatted collection of Internet videos.

Needless to say, this isn't enrapturing cable TV companies. While they'll get some revenue from their internet fees, they'll lose revenue from their cable monopolies. And, they'll need to build out a lot more pipeline to get the increased bandwidth delivered.

WSJ article



Sony showed off an adapter for its Vaio line, which is supposed to accompish the same result. Unlike the SlingCatcher, the TP-1 is not wireless, but it does have DVR features (rewind, pause, etc). However, Sony offers a package which will allow access to Yahoo, Time Warner, and AOL programing. Sony's music units will also participate, the article says.

Quote

Sony also is announcing a more-powerful living-room PC, the XL3, that comes with a hard drive capable of storing 500 gigabytes of data, as well as a high-definition DVD drive that uses the Blu-ray format Sony has been promoting. The $3,300 machine is also expected to be available in March.

Though not a new idea, a growing number companies are stepping up efforts to connect TVs to the Web, inspired partly by an explosion of user-generated online video sites led by the popular Web site, YouTube. Sony's archrival Apple Computer Inc., for example, is planning to launch a $299 adapter--code-named iTV--that will allow users to wirelessly retrieve movies and other digital content that users download onto their personal computers.

Sony's new TV module, about the size of a paperback book, will sell for less than $500 and can be plugged into the back of its televisions unobtrusively, the company said. Users who have broadband connections in their homes will then be able to access "channels", similar to network and cable channels, that are maintained by content companies, Sony said.

Sony

This post has been edited by Rail Paul: 09 January 2007 - 12:11 AM

[Maurice Naughton]

What?

[24k]

I mentioned it in another thread -- I've been doing this for months via TVU Networks.com without having to own a TV.

Okay, not really the same thing as it seems as though Sling will broadcast wirelessly to other devices, but TV on the internet is (I think) the next big thing.

Or will it be what is being announced at the Apple conference in SF this week? Rumour is that it is an all-in-one phone, IPOD, Blackberry device. We'll see...

[Melonious Thunk]

I posted the ad for this elsewhere and Evelyn had it installed it on her cellphone. (I think).

[Evelyn]

I have it on both my blackjack phone and my computer. It is great on the computer and the phone with a 3g signal...with an edge signal on the phone it can be dicey...but at worst you can at least get the audio with buffered video. I love being able to get ESPN gameplan when I am traveling.