Other complaints among some users is that the device doesn't allow you to record shows onto your computer hard drive and that it only allows a connection to a single computer at a time. It can, however, be shared with anyone anywhere who has downloaded the SlingPlayer software and been given both your password and the unit's ID number.
But most of these complaints have been mitigated by the fact that SlingBox costs just US$250. What's more, there are no monthly service charges or membership fees. The SlingBox hardware is all you need.
Buchanan said that SlingBox will be made available globally during the first half of 2006. Though it's already available online, purchasing it this way isn't advisable for customers outside the US. The current version of the product supports NTSC-M/J only. The second generation will be NTSC/PAL/SECAM compatible and this is the model that will be shipped overseas.
The product is the brainchild of Blake and Jason Krikorian, fans of the San Francisco Giants who grew frustrated at the fact that they couldn't watch their home team struggle to get into the 2002 playoffs while away on business. After conceiving the SlingBox, they raised US$10 million in venture capital and signed partnerships with Texas Instruments for chip production and with Microsoft to help with video compression.
Earlier this year, Forbes magazine named them one of the 25 breakaway companies of 2005.
"Sure, the company may fizzle," Forbes' Fred Vogelstein wrote, "as newbies usually do in the cutthroat consumer electronics game. But with their US$249 device, it's hard to see how the Krikorian brothers don't at least get credit for showing us a new way."
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