Does anyone have any opinions on slingcatcher? I did a search of this forum and turned up almost nothing. Is it because the device isn't for sale yet?

are we still waiting?

The silence in here is deafening. :)

Maybe part of the problem is that even slingmedia.com has very little info.

Wow. Another month and a half and still NOTHING from Sling Media. Can everyone hear the crickets chirping?

Another month has gone by and still no further information! And it's less than two weeks away from introduction. We know that because Sling Media said back in January

SlingCatcher will be available for purchase by the middle of this year

Sorry. I can't resist bumping this thread. Another month and a half and still nothing. Is this really rocket science?

I'm awaiting its release also. I think this will allow me to view streaming video from the internet without watching it on my LCD computer monitor. So far the slingcatcher is the best solution I've seen to do this, short of building a HTPC that is.

I have never been interested in the Slingbox cuz it's only played with PCs to this point, but Slingcatcher looks like something I'd want. This is an old link, but includes a pic of the back of the thing, at least the way it looked in January:

http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9674879-1.html

They must be having trouble with it, else we'd have heard more by now?

I don't quite get the interest in this product ...
From the spec I read, it's the reverse from a slingbox, (TV to PC) ... The device only streams the audio and video from your PC to your TV, nothing much to brag about. Just get a player with a VNC client and you get the same thing.
Could anyone clarify what more it is going to do ?

BTW, seen reports it was delayed again until winter or something.
Patrick S.

...it's the reverse from a slingbox, (TV to PC)No, it's PC to TV.Just get a player with a VNC client and you get the same thing.Huh? What "player" that connects to a TV has a VNC client; moreover, VNC only gives you the PC's desktop, not the sound. AFAICT the Slingcatcher allows you to play (on your TV) anything that you have or can display on your PC, both images/video and audio.

In many respects the Slingcatcher appears like any other media player, but unlike most the serving software isn't limited to a database/library of already-grabbed stuff on your PC. You could, I would imagine & expect, stream for example the TV card you have in your PC, or maybe perhaps the HD-DVD you having playing in your external Xbox drive, or even a webcam or youtube video you've conjured-up on it. Imagine too one show playing on the PC and streamed to multiple TVs (w/Slingcatchers) simultaneously. I'd be interested in that...

I'm sure they're having trouble getting the PC software tuned-up for this...

Huh, when I said TV to PC, I was talking about the slingbox, not the slingcatcher ...
And BTW, the Roku HD1000 can run a VNC client.
Anyway, the thing ain't for me, I don't want a PC on 24/7 to stream it's content when a less power hungry device (streamer) can play all my content from a NAS.
And foremost, at the price laptops are going these days, it's gonna have to be properly priced to have a good business case.

Patrick S.

Quotes from Patrick truncatedI don't quite get the interest in this product...[t]he device only streams the audio and video from your PC to your TV, nothing much to brag about.I think the killer app for SlingCatcher is SlingPlayer. (Slingbox pitches, SlingCatcher catches.)

Put a Slingbox Pro on your Comcast 6412 DVR and put SlingCatchers on other TVs throughout the house. At the bitrates you can get streaming over a local network (even 802.11g), it's not HD but it's pretty darned good. And there's no recurring charge.

If I were running Slingmedia, I would want to get this out before TiVo goes live with MRV for the Series 3 & TiVo HD. There has to be a huge overlap in userbase and the applications are substitutes for each other.

BTW, seen reports it was delayed again until winter or something.Yep. Claiming that the summer introduction schedule had been "aggressive," Sling pushed back to a fall introduction. (If they get it out by Christmas at $120 or so, I'm in for three.)

And foremost, at the price laptops are going these days, it's gonna have to be properly priced to have a good business case.I believe their target MSRP was something significantly less than $200. I'm with SMWinnie on this one, if it's close to $100 it'll be a no-brainer, particularly with the form-factor as pictured. Looks about the size of an alarm clock...

Well, from the need you describe, the sling catcher is only used as a client from your 'broadcasting' slingplayer. I like the sling stuff a lot, the only thing that bothers me about them is that there openness a la Apple. You are locked in with there products with no other device (up to now) compatible. They do have a great product that works very well thought.

I want to do something similar (got the gear, but not the time ...) which is have my HD1000 running VLC to read the stream off my HAVA (sling competitor) which multicasts. HAVA got multicasting and VLC working, the only pieces missing is getting the HD1000 VLC to talk to the HAVA and HAVA developping channel changing.

People have been doing similar things with the HD1000 and HDHomerun with great success. The broadcasting device only needs to output to mpeg2 since its the HD1000 native video.

Im curious to see the price and specs of what it will do once it out. Won't probably get one, but still interested in what people are going to use them for :D
Patrick S.

Heh, heh. Another two months and still NOTHING!

Of course, now the Sling Media people spend their days visiting Porsche dealers. Counting the days until their acquisition by EchoStar closes.

Releasing the slingcatcher is probably even lower in priority than before (if that's possible).

Preview sites say Slingcatcher will allow going from tv to tv without a pc. I need this...thinking of using a TiVo to sling around content from to remote tvs. Any other ideas while we wait?

any news on slingcatcher

Look for more next month at CES.

hxxp://www.i4u.com/article7580.html
hxxp://us.slingmedia.com/go/slingcatcher-tech-specs

(sorry, I can't post a decent URL because I haven't posted enough messages yet...)

Supports HD, including h.264. Even without the fact that you can connect it to another slingbox, you could use it as a stand alone player, and I haven't been following the stand alone player news lately, but a less than $200 player with HD that supports h.264 (along with all of the other standard codecs like xvid, wmv, and mp4), seems pretty cool to me.

Matt

bah. no .divx no .xvid no .mkv no .iso no .ifo no info on HD support at all. Who are they kidding?

Also from what I heard they have a late Q2 ship date, but I couldn't find a price. Better be $99 :p

Huh? I see xvid, mpeg-2, mpeg4 codecs listed, and .ts, .ps, and .vob file support listed.
Wouldn't H.264 generally imply .mkv as well (since .mkv is either h.264 or mpg4)? And doesn't xvid generally imply Divx support (just not licensed from DivX (I know they are not exectly the same, but both are mpeg-4 part 2).

Matt

I'm talking container not codec.

see: http://us.slingmedia.com/go/slingcatcher-tech-specs

they say File formats: .avi, .ts., .ps, .asf, .mpg, .mov, .vob, .wma, .mp4, .mp3, .mp4a, .pcm

Earlier versions of DivX codecs were not fully MP-4 compatible and the fact that the box can decode Xvid does not mean it can do DivX. In any case .divx is also a different container type. I assume that if a container (file type) is not listed they don't support it.

vob support is not the same as .iso/.ifo support. A VOB is just an MPEG-2 PS file. If you want to play a full DVD rip you need to have ifo support.

I would also guess that if they had mkv container support they would say so. h.264 is a codec which can be in several different containers including .ts and .mov.

They also don't specify any resolutions or bitrates, so I assume those are either undecided or unflattering :)

I'm not looking to push content from my one Windows PC, and I doubt there's a PC out there that can decode and re-encode HD simultaneously to send to my SlingCatcher.

Besides, my kids all have Macs and I'm looking to pull content from my NASs so I'm pretty sure this box won't do, though I might buy one just to annoy the wife :D

any news on slingcatcher



http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9843528-7.html

Is H.264 the same as X.264 ??? There are videos that i have that are extension X.264 that are HD movies... i see alot of H.264 talked about but is it the same...ive heard that its different that the X.264 is really a .MKV ..... Will this slingcatcher play X.264 movies???

H.264 aka AVC are names for MPEG-4 Part 10. X.264 is an open source ENCODER which converts raw video into MPEG-4 Part 10.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.264
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC

So its not the same then? So the Slingcatcher would not be able to play X.264 Movies?

It says x264 is a free software library for encoding H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video streams........
That would lead me to believe that the Slingcatcher would play the X.264 format!?!?!?

It IS the same. X.264 is the name of a piece of software to MAKE H.264 encodings. So if you see X.264 = H.264

Just a side note...


The software required for all the Slingbox units is called SlingPlayer.
The latest update (2.0) is full of bugs.

Many folks are deleting it and rolling back to an earlier version.

This is as of Oct 2008

Just a side note...


The software required for all the Slingbox units is called SlingPlayer.
The latest update (2.0) is full of bugs.

Many folks are deleting it and rolling back to an earlier version.

This is as of Oct 2008

How do you Roll Back to the earlier version???

I downloaded the new 2.0 Version and now I don't get my Local Channels in the Guide. Also, there is NO SELECTION CHOICE for an HR21!!!

The SlingCatcher is available now - and it only costs $299!

How do you Roll Back to the earlier version???

I downloaded the new 2.0 Version and now I don't get my Local Channels in the Guide. Also, there is NO SELECTION CHOICE for an HR21!!!

\++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


To rollback to a earlier version of the SlingPlayer software
do a Google search.
I found mine (ver. 1.4) at Cnet.com (its also on Slings site, but lord
knows where)


Yeah, the new version (2.0) is all screwed up...

no coax input displayed (can't use your antenna)
no option for HR-21 (DirecTV DVR)
crashes Windows XP

Its a mess! Maybe the tech guys are all busy taking orders for
the new SlingCatcher.

Its a mess! Maybe the tech guys are all busy taking orders for the new SlingCatcher.

The company was bought out about a year ago. Maybe the "good" tech guys took the money and quit?

Slingplayer 2.0 works perfect for me (Using Vista)

Any more updates on this product. I have used slingbox for several years and I love it for travelling but I just bought two 1.5 TB drives and I want to connect the drives to the new slingcatcher Im buying for my cottage (over usb) and play the movies I have on them (VOB files, 500 in total)

Is this possible?

For my primary house ( I live alone) I have HDMI set up to my home theater then ran component cables up to my living room tv. Since I already had an MX-350 and the MRF-250 for my home theater it was easy to set up the 350 to work on the upstairs tv. Now I have HD in both rooms w/one cable box.(motorola DCT6412) I purchased the Slingbox HD-pro and the slingcatcher for my shore house. Since I'm only down on weekends it seemed like a waste to be paying for cable year round. All of my cabling is in the same closet as my router, so plugging the living room into the HDMI input and bedroom tv into the component input was easy.How does it work? The picture is adequate. If these were my primary tv's I wouldn't be happy with the picture quality. But since it's at the shore and don't watch much tv down there, it is fine considering the savings on my cable bill. Also since its typically just me, having four tv's hooked up to one cable box saves me quite a bit of money.It's only tough when the nieces and nephews stop bye.:mad: