http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/ Engadget Comments for New Slingbox A/V unveiled by FCC! http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/Sep 14th 2006 1:20PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/Sep 14th 2006 1:25PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/Sep 14th 2006 2:17PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/
This box is noticeably lacking a coax cable input. I use that feature on my box. Perhaps this unit doesn't have a cable ready tv tuner?]]>Sep 14th 2006 1:50PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/Sep 14th 2006 1:55PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/
There have been times where having more than 2Mbps video would be nice. Using modern codecs you could make a nice HD video stream in the 5-10Mbps range, but it'd take A LOT of processing power to accomplish that, and I mean A LOT. Remember it's encoding analog to digital in real-time!

However, if you look at it from the manufacturer's standpoint, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for a handful of reasons:

1) Not many people would use it in the use case I've described, meaning they'd either have to have two products (less ideal) or just sell the HD version at a higher price (effectively reducing the size of the target audience).

2) They'd have to tactfully market it the product as HD because many people would expect to see HD when they're on the road and would be extensively disappointed (to no fault of Sling, but to the fault of the internet connections).

There are other similar issues.

I wouldn't mind seeing Wi-Fi in there, but that can be easily and possibly more reliably taken care of with an Ethernet Bridge or SlingLink. Existing Sling users already have wired, wireless, or powerline networking hooked up so adding the extra cost to add Wi-Fi might not be entirely worth it, however, as a huge advocate for wireless, I'd like to see it in there.

Chances are it's just an improved model with higher performance and lower cost structure.

-BrianV]]>Sep 14th 2006 3:53PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/Sep 14th 2006 2:28PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/
2) It is a shame if they have removed the co-ax input, that let you use the sling native on a cable-tv connection without a TV or Tivo in the room, that was very convenient. But this points to a loss of function, not an add, so again why the size increase ?

3) It also looks like they have put standard RCA jacks on it for video and audio out, the original Sling just uses a special purpose cable that plugs into a single connector on the sling, to save panel space I assume. This may save them a coupla' bucks and let users substitute their own length cable but no big deal. ]]>Sep 14th 2006 4:05PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/Sep 14th 2006 2:35PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/Sep 14th 2006 3:12PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/Sep 14th 2006 3:25PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/Sep 14th 2006 3:39PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/Sep 20th 2006 8:01PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/Sep 14th 2006 4:52PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/
As for wireless ... it would be nice. I dealt with this issue by transplanting the slingbox and a WRT54G, running dd-wrt, into an old Panasonic tuner case. It's black, looked like "it belongs" in my brother's A/V rack and it provided LAN access to some other devices in his rack.
Once I get my hands on another cheap tuner I will probably do the same with my sling. If I feel like it I might even document and blog about the transplant. ]]>Sep 14th 2006 5:41PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/
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Obviously, this is NOT a new slingbox, but a Slingbox receiver to hook up to your TV.

Notice only video & audio OUTPUTS, no inputs...DUH!

This is so you can bypass the PC/Mac for viewing your Slingbox on your TV via your home network or the internet. Also, pictures can be decieving - again, clearly it is about half the width of the actual slingbox - just seems to be deeper (one would hope due to picture processing internals) but still within acceptable AV equipment sizes (set top boxes, etc)

TT]]>Sep 14th 2006 11:07PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/Sep 14th 2006 11:25PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/Sep 18th 2006 11:02AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/new-slinbox-unveiled-by-fcc/
Don't think it is an OUTPUT device - it has an IR blaster connector (to control said set top boxes) and the phono connectors seem to be labelled INPUT not output.

I suspect the use of Phonos rather than the custom 3.5mm jack connectors is to allow ease of connection.]]>Sep 15th 2006 6:20PM