We have always referred to the idea that the Sling Box, brought to the world by Sling Media, now owned by EchoStar Holdings, should be incorporated into every set top box out there. Sling has gone one better and incorporated the device into a cable modem, and showed it off last week at CES.
New parent EchoStar Holdings also entered the market for digital converters for the 20 odd million US analog TVs that are still at large and which need to be converted by February 2009.
Sling also came out with a second generation version of its client software, gave more details of its Sling Catcher, and announced the capability to receive slung media on a Blackberry handset.
With the SlingModem, instead of Sling marketing the idea to set top vendors for inclusion within their set tops, it can market a finished product straight at cable operators with the technology built in and with CableLabs certification. We’re pretty sure the pitch is at cable operators, not at consumers directly for this product. Of course there’s nothing to stop Sling also targeting other set top makers to include the idea as well.
‘Both Sling Media customers and the industry have asked whether the acquisition by EchoStar would limit Sling Media’s focus to products for DISH Network and other satellite TV service operators. The introduction of the SlingModem demonstrates our operator-agnostic philosophy, as well as our commitment to the cable industry,’ said Blake Krikorian, co-founder and CEO of Sling Media. ‘We are working with MSOs both in the US and worldwide, and we expect to deliver the SlingModem through OEM customers in 2008.”
The SlingModem provides the cable customer with both a broadband connection as well as placeshifting function. Users will have automatically have access to analog cable channels on a PC, Mac, or smartphone and if they have a digital cable set-top, they can connect it to the SlingModem for access to live or recorded TV and video on demand.
EchoStar announced not one, but two digital-to-analog converter boxes which will be distributed ahead of the FCC requirement that all full-power broadcasters cease transmission of analog signals by February 17, 2009.
The cheap and cheerful EchoStar’s TR-40 has a seven-day EPG, program search, parental locks and VCR timers and will be sold under both the EchoStar and Sling Media brands for $40, which just so happens to be the price of the NTIA free coupons. US homes are allowed up to two coupons, at $40 each towards buying converter boxes. The other converter box the TR-50, includes a DVR, which will also be HD ready and includes closed captioning, reminders, Ethernet, modem and USB but EchoStar has yet to price this device, but it sounds like it will need to be around $200.
US chip maker Zoran also said at CES that it has supplied its SupraHD741 processor to drive the RCA branded DTA 800A ATSC converter box, also certified by the NTIA.
We have already talked about the SlingCatcher after last year’s CES show, and now it is being lined up as a rival to Apple TV, being as it does much the same job of delivering internet and PC based content to the TV, among other things. The SlingCatcher acts as a repository for content and can pull it from multiple sources and places, and then gives a single EPG view of it all. The SlingCatcher was on show and will go to retail in the second quarter at $250. Originally it was to be offered for under $200, but the price has slipped upwards.
Whereas the Sling Box takes the analog output of a TV and re-encodes it into an appropriate digital stream to send over a broadband line to wherever you are, the Sling Catcher pulls PC stored or internet video and sends it to a TV. It will work in standard definition or high definition outputs in HDMI, Component, S-Video and Composite video formats, as well as analog and digital audio, and then play it all on TV set.
The device can also pull content from another Sling Box and play it on another TV in the home or remotely over a broadband line and has a hard drive for storing video.
The Sling Catcher comes with three new applications, SlingPlayer for TV, SlingSync and SlingProjector. SlingPlayer for TV offers the ability to ‘sling’ programming to another TV in the home without a PC being involved; SlingProjector projects internet or PC programming to a TV and SlingSync allows customers to sync files over a network connection and store them on a third-party USB flash drive or other portable hard drive attached to the SlingCatcher.
Finally the new client software has a ‘pause TV,’ capability to add DVR function to existing clients such as PCs, and also comes with the previously announced Clip+Sling clip sharing software, and the company said it will introduce its own video destination web site, Sling.com to house clips for sharing.
This week EchoStar Holdings announced its new President as Dean Olmstead, a satellite TV veteran, who will report directly to Charlie Ergen, CEO of EchoStar Holdings, which this week held onto its value of roughly $2.7 billion despite quite large falls in technology stocks overall.