Comments on: The SlingCatcher Fire Sale

By: Timothy

Timothy — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 02:07:01 +0000

Success or not, thanks for the coupon code for the Slingcatcher. I was on the verge of spending $174 at Amazon and, even with shipping and tax, you saved me at least $25.

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:20:02 +0000

The Sling Catcher lets me watch my Tivo HD in my workout room, but can’t even connect to my EX485 Windows Home Server to allow access to all of my other content (which would let me retire my Squeezebox).

I am not optimistic about a 2nd gen Slingcatcher. When something else comes out that can fully replace my Slingbox/Catcher combination and also has an HD player for my Macs I will make the move.

Right now, sadly, there’s no real competition in this niche area and Echostar seems to be in the process of exiting this once great marget segment.

By: rob

rob — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:47:54 +0000

I use one of my catchers almost everday at my office. We set it up to watch TV (mostly sports) while at work. The cost of running cable to the office was crazy. I really enjoy my catcher, but having 5 diff Sling products I can see the issues with it. Hopefully as Dave mentioned Dish keeps everything going and doesn’t turn it into a product just for Dish customers.

BTW, Mega I do miss your updates when you were at Sling, I think you really got “wronged” when they let you go.

By: Beerhead500

Beerhead500 — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:33:03 +0000

I helped beta-test this product and worked with many of the people who posted above.

In the end, I was sad the way the whole thing was handled. So much promise, but MZ is dead on. If Sling would have just pushed a SlingPlayer for TV and Sling.com player at 99-150 price point it would probably sold like hot cakes. But it seemed like Sling is having an internal struggle on what the product was. I felt bad for some of the Sling employee’s who were put in a unfair position while the company really bumbled their way through it. $130 is still a great price.

Without sounding too harsh, this was just another disappointment, in a growing list of disappointments from Sling.

By: tivoboy

tivoboy — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:58:42 +0000

zeotivo.

you should be able to throttle the slingcatcher at your router, if not, you could upgrade it maybe? The units themselves don’t have any throttling built in of course

By: MegaZone

MegaZone — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 10:17:51 +0000

The SlingCatcher should’ve been canceled before shipping – and a second gen box developed and launched. I thought launching the product as it was was a bad idea, especially with the insane $300 launch price. Of course I worked there at the time so I had to keep my mouth shut in public, so I tried to avoid talking about the SC.

The real problem is that the product was delayed two years – but in that time it wasn’t re-engineered, what launched was pretty much a two year old box, and in CE terms that’s ancient. In those two years media extenders had gotten FAR more advanced and the SC just didn’t measure up anymore.

I think a $99 box like the Roku that just handled Slingbox streaming and streamed content from Sling.com would be a better product. Any additional media support, like streaming from a PC, displaying photos, etc, would be a nice addition.

But the best solution would be finding ways to get SlingPlayer for TV on existing products – like the Roku box and other media extenders.

By: NA9D

NA9D — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 01:00:22 +0000

Interesting how the other day I was in a Best Buy and they still had the SlingCatcher for $300! *ACK!*

Anyhow, this was certainly the most promising product with the biggest let down factor. The streaming from a Slingbox part is great and works well. The rest of the media functions – don’t get met started. Sling really needs to come out with a new box that is truly integrated with Sling.com and truly lives up to its potential. Sadly, I think Charlie Company is only interested in producing set top boxes with Slingbox engines inside.

By: ZeoTiVo

ZeoTiVo — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:41:51 +0000

here is one I can be positive on – set my Brother-in-Law up with a sling box in my house and Slingcatcher for him in Switzerland (he paid of course ) works like a charm from my original 240 TiVo DVR with lifetime on it. So it has its uses but I think Sling did indeed come in on the wrong end of the value point with the catcher for what it does. It might have done well at 300$ if it was small, portable and had a battery optional for polaces like a VAn on trips to show video from a USB drive.

one other small hassle – there is no easy way to throttle the slingbox serving up to a catcher and it uses twice the bandwidth of the PC applet.