Categories: News, Rumors and Gossip SlingCatcher
If you happen to be a fan of new upgrades and enhancements, then we'd say it's a pretty good day to be a SlingCatcher owner. Sling Media's quietly released a solid duo of upgrades, a firmware update for the SlingCatcher and a new version of SlingProjector.
According to the release notes, here's what the May Update brings:
SlingCatcher firmware:It's certainly not as significant as the upgrade they put out in March in terms of new features, which added near-HD streaming and the ability to stream media from network shares, but appears to be focused on improving the overall stability and performance of the Catcher. Of course, fixing some nagging issues with My Media, like MJPEG and MP4 playback are certainly welcome.
A lot of what's changed isn't clearly specified, so while we get everything updated and installed for some testing of our own, tell us how the May Update is working for you in the comments area below.
Instructions on how to get these updates are located here.
We've managed to get some additional info on some of the changes, improvements, and fixes in this update thanks to a contact at Sling. Here's what we've learned:
Support for MP4 files that previously would not play - Previously, the SlingCatcher would not play a specific type of MP4 file called "CO64," which contained a 64-bit header. These files will now play.
Enhanced QVGA resolution video quality - A codec upgrade brings deblocking and deranging postprocessing when streaming at QVGA resolutions from a Slingbox (or in QVGA WMV/VC1 files in my media, although most users would not notice it there). This video quality improvement is focused on low bitrates (300 Kbps or less), so you should see somewhat less noticeable video artifacts when streaming from a WAN Slingbox at these lower bitrates.
A variety of enhancements that improve the stability and performance - There have actually been quite a few fixes, tweaks, enhancements:Read More In: News, Rumors and Gossip SlingCatcher
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Pretty disappointing, still no improvements made to SAMBA implementation (adding network drives).
The SlingCatcher "could" be such a great device, just let down by poor media/non-sling streaming support.
Come on SlingMedia!
http://imapcblog.com - my thoughts and experiences in enterprise technology...with the occasional rant here and there!
Member
United StatesIt's working great for what I want to do with it.
I'm not sure what they did if anything. But the projected video streams seem to be more stable. No more large swings in CPU usage.
We projected 3 videos using three 2.8GHz Dual Core PC's to each of our 3 Sling catchers over our 5 GHz WIFI network at the same time. There were no hops skips or jumps. The audio and video were in sink too.
We also were able to project Justin.TV videos without any problems.
But it's still missing a proxy.
I was told way back in January that Sling was looking into this. They seemed very excited about this.
So someone something must have stopped them from adding this feature. Because I would have thunk that in 2 upgrades since then. They must have had some time to add the code for this. I bet there must have at been more then 100 requests for this just here. I bet the Sling software guys tried to add this. But something preventing them from adding it. maybe legal reasons.
So in conclusion:
Sling is about a year late and a proxy short from what would have been real great hardware.
Guess that's the way things go when buy outs happen. All projects get put on hold while talks are going on.
Editor
United StatesI've gotten some additional details regarding the May Update, and have posted them in the news post above.
Matt Whitlock's Mind Over Matt'er - Technology musings, opinion, and more.
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Matt Whitlock said: I've gotten some additional details regarding the May Update, and have posted them in the news post above.Thanks for the extra info Matt
http://imapcblog.com - my thoughts and experiences in enterprise technology...with the occasional rant here and there!
Member
United KingdomWarning: a few people in the forums are seeing problems with this update, see:
http://www.slingcommunity.com/forum/thread/36021/SlingCatcher-SlingProjector-...
Is this widespread, or just an isolated issue?
Member
United StatesSennen said: Warning: a few people in the forums are seeing problems with this update, see: http://www.slingcommunity.com/forum/thread/36021/SlingCatcher-SlingProjector-... Is this widespread, or just an isolated issue?
The fast forward button problem is very easy to reproduce. I was able to get this to happen on all three of my catchers. So it looks like this will have to be added to the bugs to be fixed in the next release.
But I can't get the stuttering problem to happen.
I was just wondering. If the people that are having the stuttering probles are using the PRO-HD or just the slingbox pro. I'm using the pro and don't see it at all.
After downloading/ installing of the May firmware update for Slingcatcher, I am still unable to play any of the mp4 files which were downloaded off the net. Anyone else having this problem. I thought the update rectified this? Any suggestions?
Member
Washington DC, United StatesJPOPUSA said:I've got the stuttering problem on my US SLing Catcher streaming from the Slingbox Classic in the UK. While before this FW upgrade a change in speed would just result in a voice/picture to out sync a little, now with just a small dip in speed (e.g. from 734kbs to 716kbs) it creates stutter - VERY ANOYING! I hope sling see this forum and fix the problem.Sennen said: Warning: a few people in the forums are seeing problems with this update, see: http://www.slingcommunity.com/forum/thread/36021/SlingCatcher-SlingProjector-... Is this widespread, or just an isolated issue?The fast forward button problem is very easy to reproduce. I was able to get this to happen on all three of my catchers. So it looks like this will have to be added to the bugs to be fixed in the next release. But I can't get the stuttering problem to happen. I was just wondering. If the people that are having the stuttering probles are using the PRO-HD or just the slingbox pro. I'm using the pro and don't see it at all.
SlingBox Classic (in UK - connected to Virgin V+ DVR) => SlingCatcher (US)
The stuttering is really bad. We've been using the slingcatcher to watch TV upstairs since it came out and all of the sudden with this update it is no longer wife approved. The stuttering happens every few minutes making it too unreliable to understand any dialogue.
Is there any way to roll back to the last version? Please help if anyone has found a solution.
the stuttering for the "my media" connections over samba are terrible. i would also like to go back to the last version - rewind and FF were better with the march update, playback was faster, and i never had lock ups or reboots like i'm having almost daily now. about 8 of 10 files, when i FF (for example, past a commercial), it restarts to the beginning of the file. totally unusable.
is there a way to rollback? i really want to! maybe a way to download the past version to a thumbdrive and use that somehow?
anyone want to jump in this thread: http://www.slingcommunity.com/article/40309/Sling-Media-2009-A-Year-in-Review
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