While it seems like only yesterday, it's already been a year since Sling Media's Matt Feinstein gave us an early look at SlingCatcher during the 2008 CES show. The Catcher may look a lot different these days (hardware aside, the UI is entirely different from last year's demo), but Sling Media's making up some ground by showing off new, long-anticipated SlingCatcher features: HD streaming from the Slingbox PRO-HD and network file streaming.

Take it away Matt...

HD streaming from a PRO HD may not drastically alter what your SlingCatcher currently does for you, but it should make watching those HD channels a whole lot nicer. It's tough to tell in the video, but in person, the image quality from the PRO HD to SlingCatcher was noticeably improved. Word on the street is this update will provide up to 720p video using VC-1, while a second update may bring full 1080i streaming via MPEG 2. More on this as we hear more.

What will add a whole new level of Sling goodness is the ability to stream media from network shares. Consolidating photos, videos, and music to a single shared source, like a shared folder on a PC or networked attached storage (NAS) device, is becoming an increasinly common practice. Making that content available to SlingCatcher without having to move it to a locally attached storate device will be extremely convenient, particularly for those who don't already have a Windows Media Extender or other digital media receiver. 

Look for these great improvements to hit your SlingCatcher sometime in the first quarter. 

What do you think of these SlingCatcher improvements? Post your comments below.