Other Issues:

There are a few other things that must be noted as well:

You are now required to activate your copy of SlingPlayer. While this seems intrusive, it is necessary because SlingMedia pays licensing fees for some of the code in SlingPlayer Mac. It is important that they know how many users there are of the program. Hopefully, this will be a one time only event and won’t be needed with every future update of the software. I also am making the assumption and speculating that the Mac version will eventually support the upcoming “Clip+Sling” functionality. Using “Clip+Sling” will require a user account at Sling Media and this activation could be what sets all that up.

It is also no longer possible to run multiple instances of the player. Previously, if you had more than one Slingbox, you could run more than one copy of the player and watch multiple boxes at a time. It was quite nice to have this functionality that is unavailable in the Windows version. Hopefully, the development team can make this a reality once more.

I have also seen a couple of other potential problems but it is still unclear if others see these or if they are somehow unique to my system and situation:

• When running SlingPlayer Mac on my MacPro and I enter full screen mode, the player controls are never hidden. They should hide after a few seconds but they never do. Yet on my MacBookPro, full screen functions just like you would expect.
  
• I have also had the problem that if I have SlingPlayer set up to use a direct connection from the WAN instead of using the FinderID, I have problems when trying to watch on my LAN. The video will not stream smoothly, speeds are slow and audio choppy. It never improves. Yet, if I choose to use the Finder ID, things work fine on the LAN.

Possible Future Improvements:

Personally, there are a few things I believe can be improved in future releases:

• Transparent background on the remote
  
• Better definition of what the “left/right” buttons are in the main window
  
• Ability to run multiple instances of SlingPlayer Mac.
  
• Fix audio on optimization and improve optimization speed
  
• Volume control linearity/sensitivity
  
• Fix direct connection issues

And there are a few things on my wish list for future additions:

• Ability to adjust transparency of video windows (like the program “Video Viewer” www.schubert-it.com)
  
• Ability to allow “click through” the video window (again like Video Viewer) so you can have the video window on top but still access items beneath it.
  
• Ability to play the video on the desktop (again like Video Viewer)
  
• Control mode button and a key stroke shortcut
  
• Clip+Sling (like the Windows player will have)
  
• Skins
  
• Ability to import favorites from Windows
  
• Use of “drawers” to hide favorites or to allow other settings (like QuickTime Player has)

One could probably think of more additions if one thought about it long enough. Given that Sling Media has hired dedicated Mac developers, I am sure we will be seeing additional improvements and enhancements down the road.

Conclusion

It’s good to have the Mac platform finally officially supported. It’s been a long wait for Mac users since the first demo of a Mac player at Macworld back in 2006. Most Mac users will be pleased with the performance of the program. While it is still a little rough around the edges and has a few aesthetic issues, it performs well and does its job. If one were to compare the 1.0 Windows player release to the 1.0 Mac player release, I think it could be said that at 1.0 the Mac player was better and had more features. I look forward to what might be next.

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