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Posts Tagged ‘Sling Media’

SlingPlayer Mobile finally works on 3G

Filed under: Multimedia, Odds and ends, iPhone

We all knew it was coming, and it’s here. Yes, Apple has finally approved, with the belated blessing of AT&T, a version of the SlingPlayer Mobile app that now works on the 3G network.

The original release of SlingPlayer Mobile [iTunes link] was WiFi only, and was one of the great disappointments of the whole iPhone experience. The folks at Sling Media worked hard to get the app approved, and AT&T finally relented, probably because the FCC has been breathing down the necks of the cellular providers who seem a bit, shall we say, arbitrary about what gets on the network. AT&T had no problem with streaming MLB games, but kept giving the Sling developers a big honking rejection.

Whatever the reason, it’s good to see the SlingPlayer app working as it was designed. I just ran out to the front yard to test it and it worked as advertised. I had 3 bars of signal strength, and the picture was acceptable with good sync between audio and video. Channel changes were a bit slow, but tolerable.

So if you’re in a downloading mood, and have the hardware to support it, go to it. The upgrade is free to all who have the crippled WiFi version, as it darn well should be.

[Thanks Jim for the tip!]

TUAWSlingPlayer Mobile finally works on 3G originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 01:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MySpace Chief Product Officer Jason Hirschhorn On His Way Out After 10 Months On The Job

MySpace Chief Product Officer Jason Hirschhorn will soon be leaving the company, we’ve heard from multiple sources. Hirschhorn joined MySpace in April 2009 as part of the major executive shakeup that replaced the old guard, including long-time CEO Chris DeWolfe. After current CEO Owen Van Natta was chosen, Hirschhorn and COO Mike Jones were quickly brought on board to fill out the newly vacated roster.

Since joining MySpace, Hirschhorn has gotten a reputation for slashing products that weren’t deemed to be part of MySpace’s core strategy (given how bloated the site was, that wasn’t always a bad thing). But the core product hasn’t really changed all that much, either, which is something that needs to change for MySpace to get back on its feet.

But the real problem may have been a lack of chemistry between Hirschhorn and his fellow executives. CEO Van Natta was supposedly hired by Murdoch directly for the job. Hirschhorn and Jones were hired by Digital chief Jon Miller. Since the whole team was brought in at once, Van Natta didn’t have any say at all in the hiring of his two right hand guys.

Before joining MySpace, Hirschhorn was president of the Sling Media Entertainment group, a founding partner at TripleH Media Advisors, and Chief Digital Officer at MTV.

MySpace refused to comment on this story. An email to Hirschhorn has so far gone unanswered.

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Sling reduces 3G bandwidth use enough to make AT&T happy

After stripping SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone of its 3G streaming capabilities last year, AT&T has changed course and “approved” a version of the app with 3G streaming for sale in the App Store. Key to the reversal were changes that Sling Media made to make bandwidth use more efficient over 3G connections.

It took almost a year and a half for Sling to bring SlingPlayer Mobile to the App Store, and many users were disappointed when the app arrived without 3G streaming capabilities. AT&T cited a clause in its terms of service that prohibited “redirecting a TV signal to a personal computer,” noting that it considered the iPhone a personal computer.

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Clicker Media launches a programming guide for Internet TV

Video web site Clicker Media is formally launching its service today which gives online users a real TV Guide-style search engine for television content online. The goal is to give users access to a massive playlist of TV to watch on the web.

The Los Angeles-based company indexes all available video online, from Netflix movies TV shows to Amazon film downloads. There are more than 400,000 episodes indexed online, all available as legal content. It lets you discover what’s available to watch and where to view it on the web. The site draws from 1,200 sources and categorizes shows into 1,200 areas.

There are 30,000 movies available fro Netflix’s Instant Streaming service and Amazon’s Video on Demand service. It also catalogs more than 50,000 songs from 20,000 artists. If you want to share film lists or other info, you can do so via the site’s integration with Facebook Connect.

Users can use it much like Tivo for the Internet. They can queue shows to watch, get season passes, and get alerts when new episodes show up online. The company is headed by Jim Lanzone, former chief executive of Ask. He says that the idea is that there is so much available on the web now, you have to have an easy way to search it.

The service has been in private beta testing since mid-September. Fans can make their own comments and upload their own content. You can search for topics within a specific program. For instance, you can look for “Bill Gates” appearances on the Charlie Rose show. The index will also suggest shows based on what you’ve watched.

The company was founded in January and it raised $8 million in a first round from Benchmark Capital and Redpoint Ventures. Blake Krikorian, founder of Sling Media, has joined the company’s board of directors. Rivals include Hulu.com and Blinkx.

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SlingPlayer Mobile 1.1 to have 16:9 support, 3G streaming in non-U.S. markets

Filed under: App Store

The iTunes App Store has been more than a little embattled in the last couple of months, but at least one app developer is soldiering on: according to Engadget, the maker of Slingbox, Sling Media, has recently submitted SlingPlayer Mobile 1.1 to Apple for approval.

The most significant changes involve true 16:9 widescreen support that utilizes all 3.5 glorious inches of the iPhone or iPod touch screen, and a new browser for Dish Network users that has touch support and is native to iPhone OS, as opposed to pushing through the standard browsing screen used on TVs. There is no mention of other cable providers, so presumably they are not in on the scheme for now.

The browser announcement primarily concerns only U.S. customers, and is dwarfed by one concerning carriers that are not AT&T: the non-U.S. version of SlingPlayer Mobile 1.1 will support streaming video over a 3G connection (the current version requires a Wi-Fi connection).

Again, this is only what Slingbox has put out for approval, and the mighty mercurial temperament of Apple’s app approvers still stands in the way. These are changes that Sling Media needs to happen: as of this writing, SlingPlayer Mobile 1.0 (priced at $29.99 and requiring the purchase of a Slingbox unit) is struggling a bit with customer satisfaction, and has an equal number of five star and one star reviews. Ideally, the native browser and 3G support will cross borders in both directions, which will make the application very desirable. Here’s hoping Apple lets SlingPlayer take these steps.

TUAWSlingPlayer Mobile 1.1 to have 16:9 support, 3G streaming in non-U.S. markets originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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