Sling Media unveils Slingbox PRO-HD: watch HD content wherever you want it

LONDON, UK: Sling Media, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar Corp., announced the UK launch of Slingbox PRO-HD, a new addition to the award winning Slingbox family.

With the Slingbox PRO-HD, viewers can enjoy HD content originating from their home television, including over the air DVBT digital signals, HDTV cable or satellite receivers, or HD PVR’s, on a laptop or desktop computer. In addition, when paired with the SlingPlayer for mobile application, customers can stream content straight to their compatible mobile device for viewing on the go.

"Millions of people are enjoying the benefits of HD quality pictures at home, creating a huge market for new products like Slingbox PRO-HD. With Slingbox PRO-HD, our customers can placeshift their HD programming without sacrificing the quality of the picture," said Stuart Collingwood, VP EMEA, Sling Media.

"Slingbox PRO-HD marks a giant leap forward in hardware and software development from Sling Media, such as powerful encoding enhancements. All of this means the Slingbox PRO-HD delivers a delightful user experience and amazing picture quality."

As part of the launch Sling Media is also announcing Slingbox.com. Visitors to the new online portal can watch their content using any major Internet browser, without need to download the SlingPlayer application.

The Slingbox PRO-HD is the first and only Slingbox product capable of streaming HD content. While the Slingbox PRO and Slingbox SOLO scale HDTV sources to SD resolutions, the Slingbox PRO-HD preserves the original resolution and delivers it to a HD-compatible laptop or desktop computer or secondary TV when paired with a SlingCatcher.

Slingbox PRO-HD is designed to meet the varied requirements of today’s multi-faceted TV-viewing households. The product includes standard (4:3) and widescreen (16:9) video support and features multiple integrated sets of audio-video inputs and outputs (Digital Terrestrial TV Tuner, S-video, composite video, component video and either analogue or multi-channel, 5.1 surround digital audio) and features integrated looping outputs for each input.

Slingbox PRO-HD transforms PCs, laptops, Macs and a variety of smartphones (including the Android platform) into personal, portable TVs and builds upon the goals of the original Slingbox – to give consumers the freedom to view their home TV programming anywhere.

Slingbox PRO-HD will be available for purchase in the UK, for a suggested retail price of ₤249.99, from Amazon, John Lewis, Best Buy and PC World and will be rolling out to other European countries in the coming weeks.