NBC, via MobiTV, intends to offer cell phone television show rentals. Deployment is scheduled for Q2, though Forbes reports no wireless carriers have signed on. I’m obviously not the only one who thinks the model is flawed and the pricing is extreme:

For one thing, the shows seem expensive, going for a minimum of $1.99 per episode, which will buy users only a 24-hour viewing period. That’s the same as most shows go for on Apple, but iTunes downloaders own those programs — meaning they’re not limited to a 24-hour viewing window. With Apple’s iPhone due to hit the market soon, NBC’s plans to offer 24-hour rentals of its shows isn’t likely to lure many early adopters.

Even if I didn’t own a Slingbox (and didn’t work for Sling Media), I’d tell you this is ridiculous. How many times must one pay for the same content, and at such unfavorable rates? Thank goodness there are (granted, less mainstream) alternatives to move recorded shows to portables such as TiVoToGo, Windows MCE, etc. Hey Mari, what’s up with Moto’s Follow Me TV service? Anyone implemented the cell phone content portion yet?

My copy of Vista finally arrived. Not as late as mid-April, but still later than I would have liked. The HP “Express Upgrade” kit came with two discs: an HP prep/config CD and the Vista DVD.

Prior to upgrading last night, HP had me disconnect a variety of peripherals (I declined), update my BIOS (was already current), and then their CD removed incompatible software that had been preloaded with my machine (most of which I had already blown away). The actual Vista upgrade took several hours, followed by running that HP CD again… to reinstall Vista-compatible software I don’t need (blown away a second time). I did have some trouble finding a NVIDIA driver that supported my LCD’s native resolution (1400×900) — Neither the default Vista driver nor HP’s driver update would go that high, but a direct NVIDIA download took care of it.

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AT&T Homezone customers will able to…

use their mobile handsets to remotely view listings and schedule or delete recordings from their DVR set-top boxes. All that is needed is a WAP 2.0-enabled handset that lets subscribers access the AT&T-Yahoo portal.

As soon as I read that, my immediate thought was: Where’s the TiVo Verizon Java scheduling widget? Well, PVRWire reports something may be announced shortly:

Next week Verizon and Vodafone will launch a service allowing customers to program TiVo units by phone. Sprint plans to enter the remote recording market later this year.

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Apple and Sony aren’t the only ones with media extenders launching in the $200 - $300 range later this year. My employer (Sling Media) will release the SlingCatcher in the second half of 2007. Our initial features will be the ability receive a Slingbox video feed on a television (without any sort of computer in the mix) and the ability to push any sort of multimedia from PC to TV.

While there’s nothing new to (publicly) report at this time, I’ve had numerous interesting discussions with folks at work, with press, with analysts, and with my peers in the blogosphere. For Dave-the-consumer, being able to control and watch my primary DVR from another set (within or outside of my apartment) is quite compelling, whereas watching YouTube or home video (I don’t have kids) on the TV doesn’t really interest me. However amongst those I’ve chatted with, people are pretty much evenly split on which feature is more appealing/important. Guess it’s a good thing we’ll be offering both.

Let’s just say it’s been a crazy few weeks… As the title says, I’ve joined Sling Media! Obviously, I’ve been a fan for a while and Sling’s CES announcements convinced me these guys are really out there pushing the envelope in the digital media space. So, I’m extremely excited and flattered to be able to work with this group.

I’ll have a variety of roles here at Sling — the two most visible ones will be my presence on the Sling Community Forum and as the point man for writers/editors in the blogosphere. The communication will be two-way: not only will I be conveying company information, I’ll also be taking everything in to keep the executive team and various internal groups informed. As a blogger, I’m also hopeful you’ll see me heading up something, somewhere, at some point.
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Another day, another question! Actually, we probably won’t do this daily and this question came in yesterday. A fellow tech blogger asks:

Would you clear something up for me? Is there a Blackberry version of the Slingplayer and is EDGE fast enough to support it?

Sling doesn’t currently provide placeshifting software for the Blackberry platform… which is too bad as Windows Mobile drives me crazy. While getting briefed on Sling’s CES announcements a few weeks ago, I did inquire about Blackberry support. They are aware of consumer interest in such a product, though I wasn’t able to determine if something is or is not being developed at this time. Either way, I wouldn’t expect support in the near future. To recap, Sling does offer Slingplayer Mobile for Windows Mobile PocketPC and Smartphone editions ($30), while Symbian and Palm clients are currently in beta testing.

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The Snappy/Monsoon team has just released HAVA Gold, their latest placeshifting device. It has the same basic functionality and software of their higher priced line of placeshifters. The input/output lineup is slightly different, such as an additional audio input… So you can support composite and SVideo sources simultaneously, for example. The Gold box lacks WiFi and an internal tuner. It comes in black (compared the the original’s silver plastic) and is about 50% smaller.

With a list price of $129 (available now, online only), and $70 cheaper than their mainstream Ethernet box it looks like a good value. Which makes me wonder why they’d risk cannibalizing their own sales. They’ve told me they want to get this model into wholesale clubs, so I can only assume they haven’t been able to work a deal at this point.

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When I say insane, I really mean it in the most positive of ways.

Over the summer Blake Krikorian (CEO) gave me a personal demo of a feature in the works… On his computer we fired up his Slingplayer to remotely view his satellite television feed and then he pointed out the record button. I thought that was somewhat cool — it’s not something I’d use, but I’m aware a certain percent of users have requested the ability to save clips or shows to the PC.

But then things got somewhat strange… You see, we weren’t scheduling a recording we were recording after the fact, via the buffer. And the video was being automagically sent somewhere. And then we watched the clip through a web page. That we could share with others.

I told him he was insane. I told him not enough people would be interested to offset the risk. Because, I also told him he would be sued into oblivion. Good thing for Sling Media he didn’t take my advice to bury it.

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