A periodic roundup of relevant news…

• Sling Media partners with UK mobile provider: Sling Community
• The story of CableLabs certification: Chris Lanier
• Digeo-Gemstar battle continues: PVRWire
• 1080p not “an important factor” in HDTV purchases: EngadgetHD
• Disney sells 5 million copies of Cars in 48 hours: AppleInsider

Pinnacle Systems has announced PCTV To Go, a placeshifting device similar in functionality to the Slingbox. Monsoon Multimedia, the maker of the HAVA placeshifting unit, is an OEM for Pinnacle. Both models retail for $250.

In related news, I’ve had prototypes of both the Pinnacle and HAVA box (as seen above) for a month or so and have been pleasantly surprised with their performance. I also have a Pinnacle Systems PCTV HD Stick waiting to be unwrapped. So stay tuned for reviews in the near future!

Pinnacle Systems writes: Avid Technology, Inc., today announced that its consumer division, Pinnacle Systems, Inc., is expanding its popular Pinnacle PCTV product family with the addition of Pinnacle PCTV To Go. This new product gives customers the ability to enjoy their home entertainment systems from any location in the home or around the world. Easy wireless setup, integrated Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) support and comprehensive digital video recorder (DVR) capabilities make Pinnacle PCTV To Go a must-have for anyone interested in watching high quality TV shows, sporting events, movies or news on a PC, anytime, anywhere.

Pinnacle PCTV To Go enables consumers to watch full resolution, DVD-like quality in MPEG-2 while viewing television in and around the home, or high quality MPEG-4 while viewing television remotely, with nothing more than a simple internet connection. Designed to quickly plug into an existing entertainment system, the product acts as a pass-through device and eliminates the need for reconfiguring the entertainment system.

A member of the Sling Community disassembled his Slingbox Pro in order to document the “major chips” — in the process, he discovered what appears to be an IR receiver. Not one to sit on the sidelines, I tore apart my SB Pro to confirm his report. I’m no electrical engineer, but it does indeed look like an IR receiver is hidden behind the Sling logo. Purpose? Like all Slingbox units, the Pro model is networked with both AV inputs and outputs. So one possibility is SlingCatcher functionality: providing the ability to watch a remote Sling feed on TV, controlled by a yet-to-be-released SlingRemote. Or maybe the box could leverage the network connection to stream YouTube video or display information like the forthcoming Wii’s Channels. I’ve got a query into Sling Media and will report back if they choose to publicly comment.

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I scheduled this post to run at 11:23PM EST… By the time it’s published, you should be able to download the public beta of the Mac SlingPlayer (and I should be sleeping). I haven’t seen a press release, in fact I don’t know if there will be one. But I can tell you I’ve seen the SlingPlayer in various forms over the last few months, including a hands-on demo of alpha software in California, participation in the beta group, and more hands-on time with a late beta at DigitalLife. It’s been amazing to watch as the Sling team constructed a Mac Windows Media Video (WMV) decoder and put this thing together. The software is free and supports all versions of the Slingbox, both the original model and the new higher resolution trio.

Being a beta, there are still some kinks to be worked out but overall the software is in great shape: Specifically, core audio and video streaming is beautiful. Sadly there appear to be some technical challenges and/or perhaps prioritization that limits support to Tiger for now… Hence the install screengrab above on Panther — that’s the best I can do with my eMac. Maybe it’s about time I pick up that MacBook!

UPDATE:

• Sling Media Mac OS X FAQ
• Message from Sling CEO Blake K
• Sling Community review with pics
• Sling Community Mac beta forum area

Various media groups continue to choose sides in the brewing placeshifting battle. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has vocalized their support of the Slingbox as a means of remotely viewing content a consumer has paid for for, while Major League Baseball and HBO suggest placeshifting may break service agreements and violate copyright law. Now the BBC’s television licensing board and Sky are chiming in. Sky doesn’t support international place shifting while TV Licensing says placeshifting is only permissible via battery power when in a home without a television license.

What Video and High-Definition TV writes: According to TV Licensing it’s legal to use place shifting devices if your own home has a TV licence. If you’re using the device in another place that also has a TV licence (say your friend’s home) that’s not a problem, but what if the place doesn’t have one? TV Licensing says you can still use your placeshifting device, but only in battery mode.

(Thanks for the scan, Ken Westmoreland!)

One of the pranks I used to play in college was to dial the phone number of one of my friends, who typically was having relationship problems, and as soon as their phone would start ringing, I would immediately put them on conference call and dial their recent ex and then sit back and watch as both people thought that the other person was calling them. In retrospect it probably wasn’t a very nice thing to do, but the results were always unpredictable and hilarious.

Sometimes they’d just start fighting, other times they would actually make up, but most times there would be a certain awkwardness as both parties thought the other had called, but couldn’t figure out why. While it may not have been the nicest practical joke, today Forbes magazine played a similar version of this gag when they invited some of the top technology firms to interact with Hollywood fat cats at their MEET (Media Electronic Entertainment Technology) 2006 conference.

The list of technology experts was a literal who’s who of the geek world. TiVo, Sling, Netflix, Apple, Google, YouTube, you name it, the list went on and on. While many of these technology companies came to court Hollywood into embracing them as business partners, they faced a tough crowd and a hard sell for an industry that hasn’t been forced to make significant changes in the last 30 years. In a nice overview of the conference, Paul Bonds with The Hollywood Reporter, gives a great run down on some of the more memorable recaps.

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Never enough time…

• Summary of 3Q Netflix subscribers and finances. (Hacking Netflix)
• TiVo, the thrill is gone. (Denver Post)
• Q&A with Sling Media’s European VP. (e-consultancy)
• AT&T U-Verse getting HD model and web console in November. (EngadgetHD)