The Engadget Interview: Blake Krikorian, CEO of Sling Media
This week I'll be combining my questions with a few that our readers have posted on the site.I saw those, and I was like, "Wow! Pretty impressive."
Let's start with the basics. How many employees do you have, where are you located, and when did Sling Media get started?
We have 30 to 40 folks. We're headquartered in San Mateo in the Bay Area, as well as in Bangalore, India. We merged with DiTango a year ago.
How did you get interested in this space personally?
Myself and several other folks on the team have been in this digital convergence space for about 15 years. I started out in this field at a company called General Magic-a spinout from Apple-back in the early 90s. We were out to create an operating system and programming language for a variety of devices as well as a new electronic marketplace. This is before the Web came along.
Where did the idea for the Slingbox come from?
Five years before founding Sling Media, I had a company with my brother Jason called id8 Group Holdings. We were advising many large, established companies in this convergence space: Microsoft, Samsung, Toshiba. We helped them define new products. We were traveling quite a bit in the summer of 2002 and we were pretty diehard San Francisco Giants fans. That was the year they finally wound up going to the Series, before falling apart in the sixth game. We were on the road and just dying to watch the ballgames.
I signed up to hear the Giants on Real before I discovered that the fine print said you couldn't listen to your
local teams. Then I was on CNN.com and once again there was a virtual hand reaching out to ask for another $10 a month.
Then I got a new mobile phone with video services for another $10 a month. But none of them gave me what I wanted to
watch: the Giants, or Comedy Central, or any of my shows.
I said, you know, I'm paying $80 a month for cable, and for high-speed data in and out of my home. I've got a TiVo and
all these display devices — laptops, PDAs, cell phones. Why can't I just watch and control my living-room TV wherever I
am? So the Slingbox was born out of consumer frustration.
We created Sling Media, and our view is that, with a lot of hard work and a little luck, we will be able to scale the
business and create families of products for the digital media lifestyle.
Can you describe what the Slingbox is in 20 words or less?
It's a $249 box sold at retail that lets you place-shift your living-room TV experience to wherever you happen to have
a broadband Net connection.
The Slingbox place-shifts that TV experience—whether it's cable TV, a TiVo, satellite receiver, anything. It will
redirect your TV signal to a laptop or desktop PC now. Eventually we'll have other handhelds and platforms. You can be
halfway across the world in a hotel room in China, or in the backyard in the hottub with a wireless laptop.
What do you need for this to work?
You need a home network—and a lot of consumers say, "I don't have a network but I have a wireless router." So OK, you
have a broadband router. You also need a TV signal, and a Windows XP laptop or desktop computer.
So what Tivo did for time-shifting, you hope to do for place shifting?
Exactly right, couldn't have said it better. The DVR, especially pioneered by TiVo and Replay, delivered on the
original promise of the VCR, to allow you to time-shift and watch when you want. We're just taking that and extending
it to the next level, so you can watch TV wherever you want to be. Importantly, it doesn't have to be pre-recorded, it
could be live TV.
Can you explain "personal broadcasting''?
We needed a term to explain this new category. We call it a Slingbox personal broadcaster because it place-shifts your
TV experience, but it can also be used for a variety of other forms of redirecting content. Maybe you want to
personally broadcast some of your own content. I may want to film my daughter at her swim meet and broadcast it to my
parents halfway around the world.
With the notion of place-shifting and the core technologies in the Slingbox, we have visions for where this can go
beyond the TV application. But at the start, it's important for us to focus on one or two core scenarios to help people
get their arms around it. Given that people absolutely love television and their TiVos, we wanted to focus on that
solution first.
Can you sling your personal video to friends or family today?
Technically, it's possible to do that now, but it's a pretty kludgy solution. We've seen people who wanted to
immediately use the Slingbox to broadcast a live amateur rock band. You need a video camera, a Slingbox, and you need
to configure it manually, but it can be done. But we want that functionality to come with utter simplicity. The people
who read Engadget have the sophistication and they'll probably go start using the Slingbox for uses like this now and
start demanding that we accelerate some of our development efforts.
How are early sales going?
They've been overwhelmingly brisk, we've been blown away. It's still early, but the sales are bordering on insane. We
launched the product on June 30 nationwide at CompUSA's 300 stores. BestBuy just brought it out on July 11. Within the
first four or five days, we were sold out.
[Note: The interview was interrupted for a few hours while Krikorian appeared on the TV program "Access
Hollywood."]
Welcome back. How did the TV taping go?
Man, it's been insane today. We were taping right next door to Jay Leno's show, with a whole bunch of crazy people
running around. The thing that's interesting is how mainstream the interest in our product is. Typically you'd think it
would take a long time for the non-geeks to get excited about something like this. But for whatever reason, I think
people kind of get it.
With DVRs or TiVo, you're talking about time-shifting, something that's abstract. But people know their TV experience
and they can visualize themselves in some place other than their living room. They just go, ah ha!
Who are you targeting at the outset?
Clearly the overall market is large. It's people who just love television and have broadband. Yes, there are the heat
seekers who love doing cool stuff with their media, and they'll be there no matter what. There are also the mobile
professionals who are on the road frequently and want to watch TV.
But we see two other core groups: There are also people who are TiVo or DVR users who are interested in having that
experience in other rooms in the house. There's another set of people who are tethered to their desks at work and they
have a keen interest in television, whether it's news junkies who want to be tapped into world or financial news, or
avid sports fans at work, or those who want to watch their local team on their laptop while barbecuing in the back
yard. We've gotten emails from people who say they love it because they can watch their team in the bathroom. There are
also those who may be living abroad for an extended period.
Mike Langberg in the San Jose Mercury News wrote the other day, why wouldn't you just burn your recorded TV
shows onto DVD and watch it on your laptop?
Sure, that could be done. The Slingbox isn't the only way of enjoying media. But there's something about having the
instant gratification, not having to worry about planning ahead and burning a DVD. People want instant access to stuff,
they don't want to have to deal with it.
You mentioned TiVo. Why would TiVoToGo be a better solution than buying a Slingbox?
No. 1, I'm a huge TiVo fan. Unfortunately, TiVoToGo applies only to the Series 2, which is like 15 percent of the TiVo
market. Besides that, TiVoToGo is a solution that's good for planning ahead. It takes hours to dump the stuff over. So
while it's useful, it doesn't address the kind of instant gratification the Slingbox provides.
But the two are pretty complementary. In the future, you may see TiVoToGo functionality built into the Slingplayer
client. We don't have a religious issue about it — we just love TV and we think there's a lot of different ways to
watch it.
Let's talk business model briefly. Without subscriptions, are you depending just on sale of the boxes to make
money?
That was a major decision for us, and consumers are responding positively to it. There's subscription fatigue out
there, and it's a barrier for products to be adopted. When we set out we said, we need to hit a certain price point,
and we need to create a business model where we can make money selling a box. That's counterintuitive, especially if
talk to the VCs on Sand Hill Road, but we said, "It's time to get back to basics and keep it simple and sell a
device."
Over time there could be additional features and applications we could add to a Slingbox for incremental revenue. It's
hard to tell. After people start buying our boxes, we'll make a bunch of other products, some hardware, some software,
some service.
It sounds like you're willing to take the Slingbox places that TiVo fears to tread, but perhaps not quite as
far as ReplayTV. Tell me about that delicate balancing act you're doing with Hollywood.
When we set out to make this product, you can bet we did a whole lot of homework up front to make sure that what we
were doing was under the fair use provisions of copyright law. After all our analysis and the functionality we
introduced and the limitations, we feel really, really comfortable. Some of those limitations include making sure the
Slingbox is not a one-to-many device. Certainly it will stream to multiple devices, but it will only do so one at a
time.
The very first fear you heard from the folks in Hollywood was, my God, now J.D. is going to serve up television to
50,000 of his closest friends with one Slingbox in his house. When they started to dig into it, interestingly the
discussions we've had have been incredibly positive, and the light starts to go on when people see this is additive and
not a cannibalistic application.
Let's take the television networks. We recently had a sit-down with one of the national networks. One of the execs
said, "You're tripling the number of television sets on the planet. Look, we've got our decades-old distribution model,
where we have the content, it goes through the pipes into people's homes. What you're doing is selling this $250 device
to a consumer to let him watch our programming more often than he used to and helping extend our reach. The TV business
and ratings have been hemorrhaging for the past 20 years. This is an opportunity for us to regain those
eyeballs."
Yet, a recent article in the Hollywood Reporter quotes a CBS executive as saying they see you as a
threat.
Historically, when you look at how the television industry came about, the industry was built on a notion of
exclusivity for certain geographies. You had these affiliate stations and you had the right to get "Oprah" for this
part of the Bay Area while another station aired it in Carmel. But the Internet has changed our notion of geography and
boundaries.
Look, any time a new technology comes about, it disrupts old business models. Any time there's a new technology that
empowers the consumer, some people in the industry get nervous because it's all about control, and there are a lot of
people in the industry who don't want to see the consumer have control. But you gotta deal with this. Let's look at the
benefits that come out of this.
In a lot of ways, a DVR is much more disruptive than the Slingbox, because the DVR empowers consumers to skip
commercials. That's not really what we're doing.
We hear complaints that it's possible for someone on the West Coast to get a friend on the East Coast to beam them
"Desperate Housewives" three hours ahead of time. But you could do that today without the Slingbox. With a DirecTV
account, I get a Vonage account with a New York area code and I can watch it early in high definition.
We don't condone piracy, and we're not out to say, "Screw you" to the broadcast community. Our focus is: we know who
our customer is—the end user—and we're not going to forget that. We think there are win-win solutions, but we've also
seen companies that are more concerned with serving the industry than solving the consumers' problems.
Fred von Lohmann of the EFF fears that after Grokster, companies like Sling Media will begin putting DRM, or
"hobble-ware," into your products. Unfounded?
We haven't had any requests by anyone saying, "Please do this or make the product in a different way." Who in their
right minds will stand up and say, "You the consumer don't have the right to watch a television program you're paying
for"? You ask the man in the street and they'll say yes 100 percent of the time.
I think Fred's right that there's a battle going on and it will only heat up further. It's going to be about control
and does the consumer get control, or does the industry get to decide everything? It concerns me. Those are battles
that need to be fought. If we start going down the path of hobble-ware, no one knows what implications that has for us
in the future. It could start to stifle innovation. We could get surpassed by other countries who start out-executing
us. Or new technologies are not going to come to market.
Does the Slingbox have fast-forwarding and skipping-ahead capabilities?
All we want to do is give you the exact TV viewing experience of your living room. If I connect to my TiVo, the
Slingbox's virtual remote control comes up on my wireless laptop and the remote looks exactly like my TiVo remote. Our
UI is fully skinnable, so you'll see more of these customized UIs that will evolve. We now support 5,000 devices out
there — tons of DVD players, set-top boxes, cable and satellite receivers, DVRs, VCRs.
If you happen to have a 30-second skip button on your remote control, we'll give you the same experience. If on your
TiVo you've figured out how to create your 30-second easter
egg thing, we'll do that. You know, I think DirecTV blows it out every week.
That happens to you, too?
Yeah! They're sending something over the airwaves to delete it. I've been going online and haven't seen anyone report
or blog about this. It's weird. Why is this being deleted?
The other thing I've never figured out is, the Microsoft Media Center has a 30-second skip built into it, and why
don't they get shit about it? You record shows on your Media Center, those suckers are in the open. You can take those
MPEG-2 files and email them to people. Why hasn't there been a big uproar about that?
One of our readers asked how much bandwidth you need for a satisfactory viewing experience with the
Slingbox.
You definitely don't need a T1 line, though it would be sweet. One of the core requirements for us was we had to make
sure that the product works with the existing infrastructure. To watch TV over the laptop over your home network, all
you need is 802.11b. Some people say that's impossible, but we've created some proprietary algorithms and optimization
technologies, which we call Slingstream. It dynamically will adjust your video stream to work within whatever bandwidth
conditions you have, which change in real time. The same thing applies with your upstream bandwidth outside of the
house. It's subjective, but I think you really need a DSL or cable service with a minimum of 256K up, which most people
have these days. If you're watching it on a smaller screen, then even 100K looks pretty darn good.
Will you be bringing the Slingbox out in the UK market soon?
Yes. We'll probably have it by the end of the year. We're soliciting feedback from consumers to determine how we want
to roll out in that market.
We made our first delivery to a UK customer last week. We had a guy in a forum who was dying for it, and he got some
NTSC-to-PAL converter and figured it out. Our VP of operations was flying through Heathrow, so I had him bring a unit
and he met the dude in Heathrow and the guy's going crazy on it. We'll have a PAL version in the third quarter. We
might just sell it online at first.
When will a Windows Mobile and Palm version come out?
We're looking to have Windows Mobile in the next few months. It'll clearly be there by the end of the year. Palm is an
interesting one, I'll be getting together with members of their executive team later this month. The first Treo sucked
in terms of video performance, but the new 650 has actually got a lot more horsepower and it's pretty sweet. No date on
that yet, but it's looking like we'll support the Palm sooner rather than later.
What about a Mac version?
We don't have any announcement yet. We intend to release it in the next few months. Sometimes working with Apple
involves getting our Slingstream technology to fully work on a Mac, which means we might need some cooperation from the
company that holds the keys to that. That company is not necessarily the easiest to partner with. But it's great to see
the demand from the consumers, because that gives us a lot more ammunition when we approach them. So I actually love
the Mac guys complaining and pounding on it, so I urge them to keep it up.
Would Virtual PC be a solution?
I've tried to run Slingstream on my G5 iMac with Virtual PC, and the performance is terrible, but I've heard from
others who run it on Powerbook, and they say the performance with Virtual PC is pretty good.
Is there a way to know if someone else is watching the TV while you fiddle with the Internet-connected version
of the Slingbox?
What happens is, the N on the front of the Slingbox lights up when it's slinging, so you can look at it and say, "Hey,
man, someone's watching my TV, what's going on?"
Can I watch U.S. television when I'm in Europe, or vice-versa?
Today you can be traveling in Europe or anywhere in the world and watch your U.S. programming, no problem. Now, to use
the Slingbox in your home in the U.K., if you want to plug it in and use the built-in tuner, you need a PAL tuner. The
Slingbox currently uses NTSC only.
If you're in the U.S. and wanted to watch programs from your home in the U.K., there are no requirements on the player
side, it's all about that Slingbox back in the U.K. needs to support the PAL video standard, so there's a PAL-to-NTSC
converter you can get.
Can one Slingbox stream to multiple desktops in a corporate setting?
Right now, because of the limitations we've imposed, the Slingbox does only one-to-one, but we've gotten a lot of
requests, and we're considering building a corporate box that would allow multicasting inside a local area
network.
Is it possible for a ground-breaking technology to find acceptance in the U.S. marketplace without a BestBuy
distributorship or a name brand like Sony?
We're really proud of the fact that, from day one, we've launched in over 1,000 stores at BestBuy and CompUSA.
Companies like BestBuy will typically not take your product if you're a new company and if they do they'll work with
you on a trial basis. Here, they've rolled it out nationwide, and that's a pretty rare thing. They're one of the few
retailers that do their own user testing before they decide to carry a product.
What about OEM relationships?
In the convergence space, it doesn't make sense to plant a religious flag. One day you're a product, and the next day
you're a feature. You can't take a religious stance, you have to embrace where the market goes. Should this technology
be a feature that's embedded into a set-top box someday? Sure, why not?
From day one we've basically built it as a core place-shifting engine in the Slingbox and a core set of software that
can be applied to a variety of other features and products.
What about the ability to place-shift other media like images, jpegs and music on a home
network?
Video, from a technical perspective, is the real hard one. So then if you decide you want to support other forms of
media, by all means we can go do that. I want to hear from the users and consumers on whether they want that. When I
hear of things like place-shifting your audio or pictures, there are a lot of great ways to do that already. I have all
my pictures on my laptop and my music on my MP3 player. I don't want to start supporting all these features that will
confuse the heck out of consumers. You want to do one or two things really, really well.
What about supporting high definition?
We have stuff in the labs right now. It's a question of when is the right time to do so and at what price point. It's
dangerous for a startup company to make a product that costs $1,000 from the get-go. You might see a hi-def version
from us sooner than you might think.
One of your readers asked about connecting 1394 from an HD cable box to the Slingbox. That's really cool, because then
you could take the native HD MPEG-2 and the Slingbox can be a real-time transcoding engine. Technically, it's
absolutely possible. The question is, what's going to happen with the broadcast flag with copy-once, copy-never
content, which is still tied up in the courts.
This is where it gets scary. There is a law out there, the DMCA, that states very clearly that you cannot circumvent
encryption schemes, and if you do you've violated federal law. Depending on how some of these battles play out,
consumers may not be able to do what they'd like with their media. Today, we're taking in analog video so we're not
violating that law.
Why did you decide to use the Windows Media format rather than a video codec like H.264?
That was a funny question. If anything, Windows Media is the most open of those standards—it has the best quality,
performance and has the most straightforward licensing. H.264 we might support in the future, but licensing H.264 is
kind of a nightmare because there are several patent holders and it's not clear who do you pay.
What's ahead for Sling Media?
First, we'll take direction from our customers and let them know we're responding to their needs. For example, when we
initially shipped the product, we were getting tons of requests for Windows 2000. Our VP of software spent a few
all-nighters, created a new build, and as of tonight we're going to release a new beta that supports Win2K.
As a company we'll be focusing on better video quality on a Slingbox, some new upgrades coming soon will improve the
codec, supporting more clients. But besides that, our vision for Sling Media is we want to become a brand that people
expect great products from. We want to create a family of products that address the digital media lifestyle. With a
little luck and a lot of hard work, we'll have some other interesting products that could be quite different from the
Slingbox, but that will empower the consumer to enjoy that lifestyle.
Any chance you or one of your managers can stop by and post answers to some of the
other questions our readers have asked?
Absolutely.
J.D. Lasica's new book about the digital media revolution is Darknet : Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation (Wiley & Sons).
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Dave Schroeder @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
"Why did you decide to use the Windows Media format rather than a video codec like H.264?
That was a funny question. If anything, Windows Media is the most open of those standardsit has the best quality, performance and has the most straightforward licensing. H.264 we might support in the future, but licensing H.264 is kind of a nightmare because there are several patent holders and its not clear who do you pay."
Um, wow, that's complete bullshit.
Windows Media is completely closed. VC-1 (the WMV 9 codec) has been submitted to SMPTE, but until it's a standard, that means nothing - it has to go through the patent pool process like everything else.
H.264 (MPEG AVC, MPEG-4 Part 10) is a completely open ITU-T and ISO international standard.
And it's perfectly clear who gets paid with H.264 - MPEG LA: http://www.mpegla.com/avc/avc-agreement.cfm
It's all spelled out in black and white, clear as day. Apple had no problems doing this with QuickTime 7.
What a copout answer. Great, another Microsoft Windows Media lock-in with a total bullshit justification to back it up. Hooray.
Conrad Quilty-Harper @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Well I'm glad us UK people will be getting a PAL version, although I'm still a bit confused on when Mac users will be getting it. Just send an email to Apple! Get them involved!
Otherwise great interview jd.
Dave Schroeder @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Conrad Quilty-Harper:
"Just send an email to Apple! Get them involved!"
Um, huh?
Yeah, nice how he tries to lay the blame for them not having a Mac product off on Apple.
Perhaps they should have used an international video codec standard, like H.264, and then it would be as simple as writing a simple Mac OS X application that uses QuickTime 7, which of course supports actual standards, like, oh, I don't know, *H.264*. And they wouldn't have even had to worry about licensing, because Apple pays the playback caps to MPEG LA for H.264. The only thing they would have had to worry about was the server (encoding) end.
But instead, they went with Windows Media, and makes excuses about Apple being "hard to partner with" for why THEY didn't make a Mac version of their product. He should be a politician!
Conrad Quilty-Harper @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Oh and yeah, good luck with a Mac version when you're supporting a closed standard video codec namely WMP 9.
H.264 is the way to go.
Errol @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
It's always good to see Armenian CEOs.
Kozanator @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Can the IR transmitter control all of my devices at once. Giving me the option to watch my Satalite then switch to my 400 Disc DVD jukebox.
Nick @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Okay, like it or not, Windows Media is the most used streaming codec currently on the internet. Pocket PC's can support it (and with a pocket pc slingbox client on the way, this is important), smartphones can support it, most laptops easily support it (since Microsoft owns nearly 80% of the market share on computer OS's). As much as I, personally, hate to admit it, just because it's microsatan...sorry, I meant microsoft...doesn't mean it is AUTOMATICALLY evil and inefficient.
What would be inefficient is creating a place shifting device that DOESN'T work with the majority of PC's on the market right out of the box. Using the windows media codec was just smart business practice in their case, and I (for one it seems) applaud that choice (being a smartphone owner myself).
Besides the codec issue, I'll stand with a company who's CEO was working with General Magic. Never was there a PDA (or PIC for you who know what I'm talking about...you know who you are) operating system as stable as Magic Cap. (drops a parade label on the main street and watches the show :) )
J @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Not one question about the grotesque box?
There must have been 10 comments about it when they asked for questions. I can't believe there was no mention of it.
(cough)softball(cough)
Steve Fisher @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
I purchased the slingbox the day it came onsale here in NY. Set it up in 4 minutes.
I have family traveling in the middle east this summer. All I did was email them the links for the Sling player.
The reply to my email was only one word long....."WOW!" Now they are watching their Tivo just like they do at home.
cant wait for the windows mobile player.
Great product SlingMedia!!
If you need employees in New York..... sling me an email.
Steve
Jay Contonio @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Hey Nick, Quicktime 7...Macs and PCs =)
I hate when people call windows media a standard.
1337freek @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
This Slingbox is so awesome - even if i dont end buying it, at least it will put the Sony Location Free Tv over here
http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_BrowseCatalog-Start;sid=CH3SAoBDNc7SJMKfL1TYCc9NMOvAy9umXWg=?CategoryName=tv_LocationFreeTVs&Dept=tvvideo
out of business. Take that you Sony F/ckers!
Tom @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
I have a feeling that anyone who reads this blog has a fairly decent technical background thus making us the minority. The majority of people have windows installed which inludes an installation of windows media player. So to get to the point the easiest way to reach the most people with the best package of quality, compression and compatability is by using windows media. I watch .wmv on my debian box, decent quality too; so just because you "hate" Microsoft and all that they stand for doesnt mean using thier products makes for a bad business model.
JD Lasica @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Actually, I thought this was one of our better interviews. Blake was very forthcoming. You don't like some of his answers or his company's business decisions? OK, that's your right. (And, yeah, I didn't ask, "Some people think your box is ugly. Comment?" Not sure what useful information that would have elicited.)
No one has commented on the most interesting parts of the Q&A: about this startup's relationship with Hollywood, and whether the TV exec is on to something when he sees these new delivery systems as a way to extend their reach (and yes, I hate the "eyeballs" reference) by reaching us wherever we are. Will that stop the hemorrhaging that the networks have been experiencing over the past two decades?
What's most striking, to me, is how eager Sling Media is to hear from users and potential customers about what we want to see in their product. That's smart business. So let's hear it, Engadget readers, you have their attention.
Nate @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Wait... it's based on Windows Media? Screw that; it ain't touchin my PowerBook.
H.264 or bust.
JFM @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Great interview. I like my slingbox - yes, I wish it worked with my mac Powerbook, but hey, at least they recognize that the Mac is important. It's products like this that demonstrate just how evil DRM/trusted computing & DRM are - fast forward ten years, if the MPAA/RIAA had their way, there would be no cool new gadgets like this because they'd have everything completely locked down and pay-per-view.
Jay Sparks @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
I can take my powerbook - plug it in to my DVR via 1394 and get HD and and SD video. It's so easy. The SlingBox does the same thing but puts in on the Internet (minus the HD). There should be a box for the Mac.
I think that all DVRs, by law, have their 1394 ports enabled. Which should make DRM a non-issue.That gives Sling Media great leverage to go forward with a 1394 and a Mac interface. They should really do it. Heck, give me a job.
blake_k @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
PART I reply to Dave Schroeder:
Hey guys, ok, so i just read the interview and as about to send something to JD to qualify one of my statements on H.264/Windows Media...and then i just read the first post from Dave Schroeder on the same topic, so wanted to reply publically:
Dave says:
>Um, wow, that's complete bullshit.
>Windows Media is completely closed. VC-1 (the >WMV 9 codec) has been submitted to SMPTE, but >until it's a standard, that means nothing - it >has to go through the patent pool process like >everything else.
Sorry Dave, it's not complete bullshit. Windows Media is not completely closed. We have source code access, so it can't be that closed. go and check it out for yourself:
Windows Media Licensing: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/licensing/licensing.aspx
To Request a License: http://wmlicense.smdisp.net/LicenseRequest2/LicenseRequest.aspx
One of things I was just about mention to JD was that I don't beleive that WMV/VC1 is technologically superior in terms of quality compared to H.264. WMV/VC1 was the best choice for the first codec on the slingbox because it had the best quality/cost(MIPS)/robustness at the time.
blake_k @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
PART II Reply to Dave Shroeder
>And it's perfectly clear who gets paid with >H.264 - MPEG LA: http://www.mpegla.com/avc/avc->agreement.cfm
With all due respect Dave, your comment is complete bullshit. There are actually two patent pools...you only mention one. In addition to MPEG LA, there is also the VIA patent pool (a subsidiary of Dolby): http://www.vialicensing.com/news/via_pr_0503_AVC_PatentLic.html
As you may know, once you have two patent pools, things can get stickier.
Also, there are other large IP holders such as Thomson who refrain from joining any patent pool and then come with their own claims afterwards.
This is not to say that licensing VC1 is a total slam dunk, but clearly 264 licensing is no simple walk in the park.
>It's all spelled out in black and white, clear >as day. Apple had no problems doing this with >QuickTime 7.
While i don't know the details of Apple's deal, it would not surprise me in the least if there had been some private cross-licensing deals with the Thomson's of the world to make this happen.
>What a copout answer. Great, another Microsoft >Windows Media lock-in with a total bullshit >justification to back it up. Hooray.
Whatever dude. There is no Windows Media lock-in here btw...we have implemented our codecs in software (on a dsp) and hence will be supporting additional codecs in the future. Basically, like i said in the interview, we do not have religious issues when it comes to technology choice or business model...we are focused on how we can provide the best possible experience to our consumers.
blake_k @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
...and yet another reply to another post from mr. shroeder:
Posted Jul 18, 2005, 4:17 PM ET by Dave Schroeder
Conrad Quilty-Harper:
"Just send an email to Apple! Get them involved!"
>Yeah, nice how he tries to lay the blame for >them not having a Mac product off on Apple.
i am not laying blame on anyone dude.
>And they wouldn't have even had to worry about >licensing, because Apple pays the playback >caps to MPEG LA for H.264. The only thing they >would have had to worry about was the server
>(encoding) end.
you are right, we need to worry about the encoder end. do you think that Apple will pay for the playback caps on the Windows platform as well? I am asking this with all seriousness, because I simply don't know. If they would, that would be great. Sounds like you know a lot about this, so perhapse you can educate us.
blake_k @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
One last comment on the whole WMV thing:
While i have no interest in being the WMV/VC1 poster boy that Dave seems to want to make me out to be, I do want to clarify one more thing about that codec:
Turbo Linux even licenses Windows Media.
VC-1 is currently part of the HD-DVD and Blueray spec.
I believe that SMPTE passed a vote last week on VC-1 (it now has acheived Draft Status).
Oh, and Verizon uses Windows Media for their vcast service...
again, we plan on supporting multiple codecs, so we are clearly not religious on this subject. i just dislike it when the facts are not clearly laid out and rants rule the conversation.
blake_k @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Nick,
i just got a postcard from Mr. Walking Lemon...it says "thank you Nick for your support" ;-)
for the 500 people on the planet who actually bought a Magic Cap device, you know what i am talking about.
blake_k @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Hey Errol,
how did you know i was Armenian? was it the last name ('-ian') or my hunkin' nose? ;-)
Arthur @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
This looks like a great product.
I am interested in the technical aspects of this (and somewhat interested in the legal aspects).
What are the system resources needed for this? Can I upload large files in the background while enjoying a streamed Washington Nationals game? (go nats!)
Or run a processor hungry program such as Media Cleaner in the background while watching tv?
What do small businesses, that run local commercials think of this?
Dave Schroeder @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
blake:
I want to thank you for your responses. I must apologize if my response came across crass, as it was.
I was just surprised that you seemed to have blown off H.264 as easily as it appeared you had.
A couple of points:
Microsoft provides source to partners that it deems of strategic value. While this is beneficial to you, it doesn't make it open. Clearly, Microsoft is interested in pushing Windows Media. And don't think for a moment that I'm not aware at how well Windows Media 9 and 10 (and VC-1) do their jobs. The problem is that they're both not open. Microsoft's SMPTE submission and their source licensing to strategic vendors are an effort to quash the standards concerns: the problem is, it's not yet a standard, and may never be. VC-1 has yet to cross all the licensing hurdles, and its licensing will be administered by MPEG LA, just like the MPEG family standards are:
http://www.mpegla.com/pid/vc1/
Now, whether or not it becomes a standard doesn't preclude you from continuing your successful investment in Windows Media. It just means that you, and your customers, are beholden to Microsoft, and ever more so if the VC-1 standards bid isn't successful. And even if it is successful, Microsoft will ensure that its tools and future follow-on codecs that are not standards are the most attractive to your continuing development (e.g., with HD). I'm sure that you're aware of all of these things, and I'm sure that Windows Media was an attractive choice, but it means, to a certain extent, that you've compromised a commitment to open standards and have instead chosen a proprietary one. Make no mistake: that's a perfectly reasonable business decision; I'm sure you can understand that that's just disappointing to some from a standards perspective.
As for VC-1 being a part of the Blu-ray and HD-DVD specifications, yes, that's very much true. But you realize that H.264 (as well as MPEG-2) are part of both specifications as well, putting H.264 on equal footing in that arena. Microsoft's standards play with WMV9/VC-1 was, in part, to secure this arrangement. It appears to have been successful. Competition, as always, is a good thing - even with video codecs. But until VC-1 is an open standard, it's nothing more than an empty promise, and keeps Windows Media technologies firmly tied primarily to one source vendor: Microsoft.
(cont)
Dave Schroeder @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
The licensing for video and audio components of H.264 is clear from MPEG LA and VIA, and to claim otherwise is a bit disingenuous. I realize that working with multiple entities is less desirable than working with one, but that's part of the nature of working with standards. Proprietary protocols are, by their nature, single-source. International standards are governed by a body of international treaty and patent law that ensures that members with contributing ideas are properly compensated. The VC-1 patent pool will ensure just that for VC-1; however, the results of the patent pool process may end up resulting in Windows Media remaining manifestly closed.
Apple's licensing relationships with QuickTime for both MPEG-4 Part 2 and H.264 are clear. Essentially, it involves paying encoding and decoding licensing fees, limited by caps that Apple originally fought for, to the appropriate licensing authorities. This enables Apple's encoding and client products - and in turn, its customers - to use MPEG-4 and H.264 encoding and playback capacities in an unburdened fashion. Other vendors can do the same with these standards.
My concern in this arena stems from the fact that we have rolled out an IPTV cable television network at a major public research university (University of Wisconsin - Madison):
http://tv.wisc.edu/
Information about our project, as well as presentations at various conferences, can be found here:
http://tv.wisc.edu/about/
Our project is based around open standards; namely, MPEG-4, H.264, and AAC. This allows a wide variety of encoders, delivery methods, and clients, and no ties to any single vendor. Playback is allowed on Windows 2000/XP, Mac OS, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, a variety of set top boxes...in short, anywhere an MPEG-4 or H.264-compliant playback solution exists. Encoding, delivery, and playback elements can be swapped and switched for the best solution.
I've followed your product with great interest, and was disappointed to hear that it's essentially a Windows-only Windows Media solution. Like Blu-ray and HD-DVD, it may be nice to consider a standards-based element. I'm glad to hear you're at least considering H.264 in the future, but I'm frankly very surprised that it wasn't your absolute first choice.
Again, I appreciate your comments and your willingness to respond. If you'd like to speak directly about this, I'd be more than happy. Contact information is below:
Dave Schroeder
das@doit.wisc.edu
http://das.doit.wisc.edu/
608-265-4737
Eddy @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Hey Blake, Give Dave a Job!
Sam Fuller @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
That is the coolest exchange i've ever witnessed on the interweb.
Blake and Dave, you are my heroes. There is more than porno and photshops.
Dave Schroeder @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
blake:
One more thing I neglected to mention:
You talk about this industry being all about control. And indeed, it is: about control of the content and its associated advertising, and when, how, and where consumers view it. You talk of releasing consumers from the control of the content owners and providers, but you would do it while delivering them, and yourselves, into the arms of Microsoft's control, which is especially ironic, given that Microsoft and Bill Gates have publicly stated that they're angling for control of the living room and end-to-end content delivery. They're not going to do that themselves; they're going to do it by controlling the critical pieces of tools such as yours. While the tool is enabling, it is as such at the expense of being tied to proprietary Microsoft technologies. That's the disappointing part to some: your product itself is so innovative; it's a turnkey solution to a problem many are now - and many more will be - looking to solve, but you do it with a solution that doesn't release consumers from control, but rather simply shifts that control. That's the concern.
Blake Krikorian @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Ahh Dave, if i didn't know better, i would think you are trying that old Jedi mind trick to get me to tell you when we'll be supporting other codecs...you almost got me...
remember, part of the reason we built the entire slingbox on a dsp (read: "software baby") is to
1) give us the flexibility to utilize our Lebowski stream optimization technology (SlingStream is now the much more boring name for it...i hope Rich, our VP of Marketing is reading this)
and
2) give us the flexibility to support additional / different features (including codecs in the future)
Btw, if we would have gone with something like h.264 out of the chute, we would have likely realized a shipment delay of another quarter at least (additional work on the decode side, especially in terms of testing).
And yes, we all know of Mr. Gates' plans for world domination...if that is truly Mr. Gates' plan, then I think he will start to see Sling as the snake to his mongoose, or mongoose to his snake...either way it's bad, I don't think he knows animals.
quick: the first person to post what movie i am referring to wins a free slingbox.
Eddy @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Dodgeball
Daniel Bryan @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Austin Powers 2: the spy who shagged me
Eddy @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Dr. Evil says "Austin Powers... he's the snake to my mongoose, or the mongoose to my snake. Either way it's bad. I don't know animals." Reference to Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.
consumer_q @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Blake,
Please bring slingbox to Mac platform. Also, I appreciate your candor in the Q&A, although I think calling smething "bullshit" is probably not hte best PR move.
Dave,
Wow DATN is slick.
I wish I was still in the Madison area so that I could hop on the network.
cheers!
Daniel Bryan @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
whew, got that one in
that's a classic blake, loved the interview btw
sounds like you have a bit more concern as to the actual benefits of the customers rather than the amount of $$ you can reap from them
Eddy @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
noooooooooo... do you feel kind Blake?
Eddy @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Well technically our times are the same :(
Daniel Bryan @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Eddy pulled out the character who said it, and it's printed reference as well, props
Daniel Bryan @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Eddy pulled out the character who said it, and it's printed reference as well, props
blake_k @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Daniel, nice job...you're the winner! good to know Engadget has such a cultured readership...drop me a mail with your coordinates: blake@slingmedia.com
Good try Eddy... :-)
Eddy @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Well whatever happens, great comments from Blake and Dave, great interview, and I have been eyeing the Slingblade now for a long time, great product
blake_k @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Eddy, although you likely did a google search to pull that one out, you were clearly resourceful and correct.
OK, given the "A" for effort, you get one too.
blake_k @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Eddy, though now you call me Slingblade? you're pushing your luck buddy ;-)
Eddy @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Oh wow, you are very kind indeed! I will admit after posting dodgeball really fast I realized it was wrong. I then remembered from some obscure fact (my wife works with kids, dont ask) it was from Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and googled that with mongoose. Then when I saw it was Austin Powers (which i do own all 3) it all came back. I guess I get the award for most round about way for finding it!
Eddy @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
oh, sorry about the Slingblade. Thats what we call it at work because we think it looks like a Blade and of course... Sling Media.
Mike @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Let me just say, kudos to Blake for such a great interview and for having the balls to interact directly with the community in this way. I already have a lot of respect for the product (I was tracking down the few units still available in Best Buys throughout the Bay Area today, and hope to pick one up tomorrow), and now also a lot of respect for the company. Way to go, guys, keep up the good work. :)
Marvbloke @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Got to say as a UK-based Mac-using customer, I'm really looking forward to seeing the Slingbox over here and working on my iMac G5! To me it doesn't matter what's 'under the hood', as long as it solves the place-shifting problem - and it appears to do that well.
Nick @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Hey Blake, just out of curiousity, do you still keep a Magic Cap device around for nostalgia's sake? I kept my Datarover as my primary PDA up until two years ago (I'm a slow technology adopter). Now it's just sitting around in my closet in it's carrying case waiting for the day when it will be needed again. I still have the Windows version installed on my server too (for no reason other than nostalgia though, I was 15 when I bought my first PIC1000).
BTW, what part of Magic Cap did you work on?
But, back on topic, do you know if you will ever be releasing a Windows Smartphone version of your software for the SlingBox? Right now that is the only thing standing between me and a SlingBox (I have to capture from my TV tuner card and run a script to encode to Windows Media to get my shows on my phone).
otakucode @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Just wanted to let you know, blake, this interaction is invaluable to your company. If your marketing guy or your PR people tell you it's not a good idea, they're stupid. Straight talking like this about your product is absolutely what I, and many like me, want to see.
Now, qhen I see products like yours I think of one big roadblock to their adoption - the disgusting upstream caps the vast majority of ISPs impose on their users. Do you forsee ISPs increasing upstream speeds or consumers at least asking for increased upstream speeds because they wish to stream video from their StreamBox or similar devices/applications? I've seen devices for sale before that are neat home servers... and always wondered how the company would react when Jane Doe calls tech support saying they just got a letter from their ISP telling them their terms of service had been violated because they don't allow servers. ISPs do this, I've been told, because they think if you're sending data you're probably getting paid for it, and they want their cut... not sure if thats the whole truth...
Mark @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
I have also been wondering about the ISP's reaction to the Slingbox. ISP user agreements are very anti-consumer and I can see a lot of people getting screwed. I am hoping though that any widespread bad reactions from the ISP's would get a lot of press.
Brad Knowles @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
IMO, it was only easier to work with Windows Media and get to market faster because your developers were more familiar with it. Get developers who are familiar with standards-based video formats, and it will be equally easy to develop for them and make them ship on time.
This is the real danger of the Microsoft world -- getting everything to automatically use them by default, and everything else is a "tough conversion".
Yes, I've got a Mac. Yes, I currently live in Europe. No, I'm not even going to consider getting a SlingBox until you support cross-platform standards-based formats/protocols (as opposed to proprietary Microsoft ones), and you support the Mac.
I see another problem with this product -- most broadband providers I know of will not allow users on dynamic IP addresses to keep them for a long period of time. IME, 24-36 hours is about it. Most users don't have static IP addresses.
Short of registering with DynDNS.org (or some equivalent service), and having the router constantly monitor for network status and disconnecting/reconnecting and/or rebooting as necessary to automatically pick up the network connection again after it was dropped, and then re-updating your listing with DynDNS.org, how do you give people a single URL that will let them come into your SlingBox?