Former FCC Chairman Michael Powell called the TiVo "God's Machine." Probably a bit overstated, as I doubt God watches all that much television, but it is one fine device -- everything the VCR was supposed to be without the cryptic controls. Unlike a VCR, though, a TiVo recording isn't very portable (although that's changing a bit). To an internet world, having to view content only in one room seems rather 20th Century and unreasonable. Surely someone can fix this -- preferably without violating copyright law, which many of us still grudgingly support.
Last weekend Dan Weintraub told the assembled Bear-Flag League about this new device he'd acquired: the Slingbox from Sling Media. He said that it allowed him to view all his real-time and recorded video content anywhere he had internet access and sufficient bandwidth (256Kbps or better). What he didn't say is that the Slingbox, which came out just this month, is severely back-ordered and nearly impossible to find -- it sells on eBay at a markup over list. It's a good thing I didn't know that, or I wouldn't have gone down to my local CompUSA and bought one off the shelf.
Dan's right -- this thing is fantastic. You need a wired Ethernet connection for the Slingbox in the vicinity of the video feed, or a wireless-to-ethernet bridge adapter, but given that, it takes about 20 minutes of painless installation and you have video on any PC you put their receiving software on (one PC active at a time). Pretty neat for only $250. Using my DirecTV/TiVo box as the video source (via its second set of A/V outputs), it's a blogger's dream. Not only can I blog from the car wash like the big bloggers, but I can blog about what they're saying on FOX or C-Span, or that movie I TiVo'd yesterday. Or maybe I'll just watch the ballgame. Do they have WiFi at the beach yet?
They've been talking for years about "Convergence." Slingbox is the first working convergence product. Weintraub was right. A needful blogging tool.
Posted by Kevin Murphy at July 24, 2005 09:30 AM