It seems that Sling Media is about to be acquired for the princely sum of approximately $380 Million.

Dave Zatz is reporting that Echostar Communications Company, the people known for its Dish Network Satellite TV will be shelling out that amount for the company.

Sling Media is the maker of the Slingbox and Slingplayer which allow you to placeshift your TV programming from your home across the internet to allow you to view that content anywhere there is an internet connection.

Any time an innovative company like Sling Media is purchased by a larger media/distribution company there are concerns about the future path of that innovative company and this will be no exception.  

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NFL Football is right around the corner. DirecTV’s Sunday Ticket has always been a popular item with football fans in the U.S. Now subscribers to Sunday Ticket will be able to watch football games over the Internet.

So what do you need to watch streaming football games at your computer? First of all, you need to buy Sunday Ticket satellite package for $269. Then, you need to pay an additional $99 for the right to stream that video. Total price is $368. Ouch!

I can honestly say that I am not going to purchase non-HD streaming video for almost $400. I think a Slingbox is a much better solution if you have to watch football games over the web.

The NFL should take a page from MLB.TV, the great baseball streaming service from Major League Baseball. MLB.TV costs $99 for the entire season. That is 162 games for every team. On the other hand, sixteen football games for almost $400 seems like a bargain, right?

Sling Media has announced that the SlingPlayer Mobile software client will now be compatible with Microsoft’s new Windows Mobile 6 operating system to connect your Slingbox with your fancy new cell phone.

The SlingBox is a device that can rebroadcast anything on your TV, DVR etc., across your own private internet channel.

This basically means you can take your living room TV on the move whenever you have access to a PC, Mac, or Windows Mobile-based device where you can get a standard internet connection (3G Cellular, WiFi, USB, ethernet).

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Sling Media, Inc., our favorite placeshifting company, has announced today the addition of the SlingLink™ TURBO 1 Port and SlingLink TURBO 4 Port, two new HomePlug® powerline solutions designed to simplify connecting your Slingbox and other home entertainment devices to your network.

We are always excited about new products from Sling Media, especially ones which help us avoid having to rip holes in our walls. SlingLink also keeps you from having to buy a wireless network adapter for each of your devices. Just plug them all into the SlingLink.

Each new SlingLink is packaged as a pair. Plug in one SlingLink TURBO into the wall near your router, and plug in the other SlingLink TURBO wherever you have your Slingbox installed.

The difference between the two products is the SlingLink TURBO 1 Port connects to one device, like a Slingbox, while the SlingLink TURBO 4 Port connects up to four devices such as a DVR, gaming console or any Ethernet-based consumer electronic product.

These new products are available today from Sling Media’s web site, www.slingmedia.com, for an MSRP of $99.99 and $149.99 respectively.

Looking at the Joost interface it will be obvious to many that this is something that you could imagine on your TV screen. In fact, the first moment I saw Joost I thought that’s exactly where the company wants to take it.

Mike Volpi, the new CEO of Joost arriving from Cisco. told The New York Times that:

Joost is a piece of software and it can reside on a variety of platforms… It could be on a television set-top box. Or potentially it could be imbedded in a TV set with an Ethernet connection, or on a mobile phone, or in some alternative device that might come out in the future. The flexibility is really high.”

Possible Set Top Box Partners

But who will this STB partner be? Joost could theoretically just go out there and strike a deal with any STB manufacturer to create a Joost IPTV box that will bring Joost to the TV set.

However, I’ll put my money on the fact that they are also waiting for a deal with a popular brand with a large consumer base.

Let’s look at the options:

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Last week Major League Baseball was in the news complaining about the Slingbox from SlingMedia.

This week the National Hockey League (NHL) has decided to take the opposite approach and embraced the Slingbox by developing a new service that allows hockey fans to share video clips of hockey game online.

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Executives from YouTube and HDNet, appearing before a Congressional subcommittee on the future of video entertainment Thursday, agreed that online video is not a threat to TV, though for very different reasons, PC Magazine reports (videos follow below the fold).

I personally beleive that online video is a threat to TV, but not in the form of video sharing sites like YouTube. It will be in the style of TV platforms and aggregators like Joost. These type of platforms are easily transferable to a living room TV set.

I’ve touched on this topic a few times before:

• Why Google is lying to TV Companies
• Are HD Plasma TVs slowing down the evolution of Internet TV?

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