I had a chance to catch up with Brian Jaquet of Sling Media while at the Digital Life show in New York in hopes of getting some information on the upcoming SlingPlayer for Mac OSX, and included in our video interview is actual footage of SlingPlayer Mac in action! As you'll see, SlingPlayer Mac is indeed very real, and though missing a few features, it's looking like the Mac community has a real treat in store for them.

Plus, read the rest of the interview to get the scoop on a possiblity for a hardware remote control, insight into the delay of SlingPlayer Mac, compatibility information, future platform discussion, and a whole lot more!

Click the play button below to watch the video.

The interview was actually much longer, but the video needed to be whittled down to 10 minutes or less. Below are some of the other things we talked about during the interview that didn't make it into the video, and it's all for SlingCommunity visitor eyes only.

MW: Are the Windows and Macintosh versions of SlingPlayer going to be identical, or are there going to be some differences?

BJ: I think they’re going to be as close as we can possibly make it, but part of that also is customizing the Mac Software to the unique interface design of the Mac. So, we want to make sure we just don’t make a complete replication of the Windows version because we understand that Mac users use their laptop and desktop computers a little bit differently. There’s some different functionality, shortcuts, and those kinds of things. A lot of that is happening right now, and a lot of it will happen in the public beta as well as when we get feedback from customers… especially from the Mac users who I know will be vocal. We’ll make sure that the final product that is available sometime later this year balances the SlingPlayer functionality that people are used to with the unique functionality of the Macintosh operating system.

MW: Will SlingPlayer Mac be compatible with Panther as well as Tiger, or other Mac OSX versions prior to 10.4?

BJ: We are going to go back to 10.3 [Panther] with the support, and obviously both PowerPC and Intel based [Macs]. Part of the challenge is there’s a number of different flavors on the Macintosh side, and we want to make sure the software that’s out there is compatible with 10.3 products, laptops and desktops, as well as 10.4 and above on the Intel based products.