Screenshots of SlingPlayer for the Mac
We've mentioned that Sling Media, the makers of the TV streaming Slingbox, are planning on a late October/early November release for the OS X version of SlingPlayer. SlingPlayer is the client that allows you to watch TV streamed from the SlingBox on a variety of devices (soon to include Macs running OS X).At the moment Sling is running a Beta, and no one has been able to get good screenshots of the client. We linked to a video yesterday that showed off some of the features, but that just wasn't good enough. One of my contacts called me up and arranged for a meeting in a remote underground garage. Once there he handed me a titanium briefcase and whispered in my ear, 'They call it a beta, but it runs like production software' before he ran off. I opened the case to find a small USB thumbdrive. 'Rather dramatic,' I thought as I went home to discover what was waiting on that drive.
Read on to see the screencaps of the SlingPlayer that my source (who is shrouded in a fog of mystery so deep even I do not know what they look like) handed over to me.
First off we have the main viewing window, that has an iTunes 7 feel to it:
Next, some pref panes:
Notice that you can really fine tune the streaming of video, though my source tells me that the automatic optimization works well.
And some buffer settings:
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jedediah Johnson said 3:13PM on 10-18-2006
If only this baby was compatible with eyeTV.
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James Huston said 3:34PM on 10-18-2006
That doesn't feel like iTunes at all. I revoke your blogging card.
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Tom Burns said 3:36PM on 10-18-2006
Seriously, did you just copy a press release or something? Did they pay you to say it looks like iTunes? Because it doesn't. And I mean that in the "jesus christ this looks like windows media player" way.
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tofu713 said 3:46PM on 10-18-2006
OMG OMG OMG. *head explodes*
So when is available for download?
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Scott McNulty said 3:45PM on 10-18-2006
Sadly, James, my blogging card is here to stay.
Tom, since Sling hasn't actually announced this or revealed screenshots how would I be copying a press release? The coloring looks like iTunes 7 to me.
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Ed said 3:47PM on 10-18-2006
I agree it looks nothing like iTunes and more like Windows Media Player!!
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James Huston said 3:53PM on 10-18-2006
It's a heavy dark unpleasing grey gradient with lots of multi-colored controls versus light grey gradient with matching colored controls. Hell even the volume slider is positioned differently than in iTunes.
So similar!
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Scott McNulty said 4:03PM on 10-18-2006
I'm glad we can all agree that they are both grey. :)
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ifjake said 4:31PM on 10-18-2006
look in the preferences toolbar up top. there's one called skins. so maybe he was looking at a different skin that actually did look like iTunes. ;-)
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James Huston said 6:46PM on 10-18-2006
Apparently "the source" gave him screen caps. And another difference, glossy versus flat.
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JoJoMascalero said 7:22PM on 10-18-2006
I use the Windows version on my MacBook and Parallels and it works great, but I rather run natively on OS X. I think the windows software looks much better than what I see here! Come on Sling poeple, surely you can do better!
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Sean Hayford O'leary said 1:47AM on 10-19-2006
I think by "iTunes 7 feel," he might just mean "ugly." Quite an accurate description, in such a case.
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Peter Payne said 3:31AM on 10-19-2006
Yes! I am an American living in Japan. I will buy one of these for each house so I can watch TV from the other place. Muwahahahaha!
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MikeV said 9:53AM on 10-19-2006
If it's anything like the Windows version of the SlingPlayer, it'll be skinnable anyway, so you can make it look like whatever the heck you want it to look like.
That aside, the streaming control is great. The automatic setting is good, but it has one purpose: make the most of your available bandwidth. If that bandwidth changes, it will adjust, but it takes its sweet time in adjusting. For example, if you have an EV-DO wireless connection (Sprint/Verizon), and you go from an area of great (full 4 bar) coverage where you're getting 1Mbps or more of speed, down to an area that you're getting the "average" speed of 300-400Kbps, then back, it's going to be constantly adjusting.
But if you were to set it to always use 250-300Kbps, then it will stay at that setting the whole time. Admittedly, if your speed drops below what you set it to, you'll notice it, but at times I'd rather it be using a set amount anyway, so if there's more bandwidth available than that amount, it leaves something for me to use to browse the web, without significantly affecting the SlingPlayer.
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Seth said 8:29AM on 10-19-2006
Why on earth won't someone post this thing?! I am sitting here in Paris with an old IBM thinkpad just so I can watch College Football and Lost. So what if its in Beta. ITs crashes every 1/2 hour - no problem.
Seriously Sling, what gives? You make your $ on Hardware anyway - why not even open Source your software?
BTW, if you have eyeTV you can use CyTV (google it) to broadcast your video. Its a hack and barely works but whatev.
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Chris Marshall said 10:46AM on 10-19-2006
I had never heard of this device before reading the post. So I went to Circuit City last night and got one. Toataly cool! I visit China three times a year and I wish I had it before. But I mainly got it for my wife. Now she can clean up TiVo with the talk shows she records during the day. Seems she never has time to get cought up. Now she can on her lunch break at the office. She might even want to take a lunch break now.
I am a Mac user and can't wait for the beta to be released to the public. I have it installed on my BootCamp side though and works just fine.
Thanks TUAW for the post or I would have never known of Slingbox.
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Carl said 6:45AM on 10-23-2006
Sling Media has been selling new Slingboxes since September 27th with the Mac logo emblazened on the cartons, but the SlingPlayer Mac remains unavailable. More than a few Mac customers are quite miffed.
If the SlingPlayer Mac beta truly "runs like production software" why have they been selling these Slingboxes to Mac customers for almost a month now while still not providing the advertised Mac software?
Something doesn't add up here.
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SMR said 3:55PM on 10-25-2006
Will this function only with a SlingBox?
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