I bought a Slingbox recently and have been using it just about everywhere I could to test it out. I’ll be posting a review on it soon (stay tuned) but something stuck out at me this weekend. I read that Sling Media has announced that they will now encrypt their transmission of the data from the Slingbox. You can read the article here on Engadget … but it sounds like they are doing it to help appease the broadcasters, who have never been thrilled with the idea of placeshifting.
If this is correct, one side effect of this is that Applian’s At-Large Recorder (formerly known as Replay SlingCorder), which records media from a SlingBox to a Windows media file (.asf or .wmv) file may no longer function properly due to this encryption. This product is on my list of products to review, but it appears that At-Large Recorder may have hit a major hurdle with Sling Media’s encryption. Applian even put a posting on their web site stating the following …
Important News (7/13/06): SlingBox™ firmware v1.0.86, currently in beta, will not work with At-Large Recorder due to Sling's decision to add encryption to the stream. Make sure to use firmware v1.0.80 instead.
All of this is according to what I read in news articles and from the Applian web site, so I do not claim to know the definitive facts on this issue. However, if you are looking at getting the Replay SlingCorder, i highly recommend doing your own research first with Applian.
