Comments on: Blackberry Slingbox Client Coming Soon

By: Todd

Todd — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 02:35:57 +0000

“…And I have a grimmer look than you…the death of the category looms in the face of widespread web streaming and similar..”

*GASP!!*

Did Dave Zatz just say dedicated, proprietary hardware is doomed? Is he saying that everything should be a cloud service accessible by any hardware!?!?

*faints*

By: Rodalpho

Rodalpho — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 21:41:12 +0000

I dunno, I don’t really think the category is going anywhere. Placeshifting is here to stay as long as consumers pay for subscription TV. I do expect to see it integrated at incremental cost into STBs, though.

Good point about sling selling out early. That totally breaks the tivo/sling analogy.

By: Dave Zatz

Dave Zatz — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 21:27:00 +0000

Rodalpho, Sling and TiVo are much different in that regard. Sling sold for $380 million and now it’s EchoStar’s problem. (Whereas TiVo refused to even partner for many years…) And I have a grimmer look than you… Duplicating placeshifting isn’t the threat (both Sony and Hava haven’t made much of a dent is my guess), but the death of the category looms in the face of widespread web streaming and similar. In fact, Sling’s probably hedging their bets with Sling.com and getting some of that content either into the Slingcatcher or a DISH DVR/STB at some point.

By: jon

jon — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 21:04:56 +0000

i wish vzw had a blackberry with wifi.

By: Rodalpho

Rodalpho — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:47:05 +0000

Sling and TiVo are much alike. At release, they both had polished proprietary hardware offering truly new capabilities in home electronics. Both companies have incredibly long development cycles and tend to add and attempt to monetize silly ancillary features rather than focusing on improving core functionality. Now a couple of years later, non-TiVo DVR functionality is built-in to every cable/sat box and TiVo clings to life solely by winning an IP lawsuit. I love my TiVo S3, much like I love my slingbox, but TiVo always seemed to be headed in the wrong direction. Glacially slow development, silly new features, lack of innovation, closed platforms, static UI, horrid performance, intrusive advertising– just a litany of errors from TiVo. I believe that Sling today is TiVo seven years ago.

Placeshifting is cool, but I can’t imagine it’s a difficult technology to copy, certainly no more than DVR. It’s just encoding/streaming video at limited bitrates, a problem that’s quite well understood. Sling needs to innovate, speed up development, get their client working on EVERYTHING like netflix, not charge for their client, widely license their technology (since the hardware isn’t moving fast enough), and generally move at a faster pace. Just my opinion.

By: Dave Zatz

Dave Zatz — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:18:00 +0000

I agree early adopters are more technically savvy and perhaps more tolerant of beta quality (I usually am). However to get to that mass market, a product needs to be polished – if non-geeks see a rough application, with say audio/video sync issues, they’d be dissuaded to purchase themselves a Slingbox without knowing what we do about early software. But you’re right that Sling is more old school and conservative in the development process than say Google with their infinite beta sites or even Nokia with their Labs.

By: Rodalpho

Rodalpho — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:12:55 +0000

Thanks for the insight. I guess my point is that sling’s mass-market aspirations aside, slingbox owners today are still early adopters and tend to be technically proficient. We’re impatient buggers who understand that betas aren’t supposed to be stable and just want to play with and show off new functionality.

By: Dave Zatz

Dave Zatz — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:04:13 +0000

I agree the development cycles are too long. However, I wouldn’t call it “usable” – it’s most certainly been an alpha product for much of that time. Also, for much of that time most people did not have the proper Blackberry firmware to even run it.