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January 8, 2007

rivals

CES ‘07: The iTV gets a little more competition

Posted Jan. 8, ’07, 4:40 PM PT by Aaron Freedman
Category | Apple » Rivals

Slingcatcher-1For an unreleased product, the iTV sure seems to be getting a lot of competition. Today, the possibly to-be-released-tomorrow iTV has already seen a new rival in the form of IPTV capabilities on the Xbox 360, but now a new contender against the iTV has been announced — the SlingCatcher.

Made by the same people as the TV-streaming Slingbox, the SlingCatcher will do the exact opposite, that is take whatever appears on your PC’s screen and put it on your TV. In addition, the SlingCatcher will offer S-Video, Component, HDMI and some USB ports, along with built-in WiFi (not sure of the particular flavor, though) and an optional hard drive that will be used for storing purchased content from Sling Media in the future. Oh, and this will all run you less than $200 and be available mid-2007.

Hmm, this sounds a lot like the iTV, except more. The screen-streaming aspect of the SlingCatcher opposed to traditional media streaming (which I’m not even sure it can do) makes it a very appealing and interesting product, as I don’t need to worry about DRM, proprietary software, etc. Plus, as a Slingbox user myself, I’m very confident in Sling Media’s video streaming technology, and I think that this product could work out great…except that I think the iTV may even be better. Well, all will be revealed, or not, tomorrow.

[via Engadget and GigaOM]


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