Slingbox PRO-HD: Yes, You Can Finally Stream HD

I'm no stranger to Sling Media's Slingbox offerings and when I reviewed their HD-device-friendly Slingbox Solo in October I was a bit disappointed with the video quality. The main reason for that being I was expecting the Slingbox Solo to actually stream content in high-definition. Unfortunately, I misunderstood the point of the Solo - an affordable gateway to the Slingbox world, all while supporting devices that output in HD although the stream maxed out at 640x480.

The Slingbox PRO-HD is the first Slingbox to stream actual HD content.

The Slingbox PRO-HD will solve the shortcomings I saw in the Solo with the ability to stream 1080i content and 5.1 surround sound audio to another computer on the same home network and, get this, another HDTV with their yet-to-be-released SlingCatcher. It comes equipped with a slew of connections including a digital (ATSC/QAM) tuner for all your equipment. If you have a fast enough connection you will also be able to stream such content to a computer across the country. This privilege comes at you for 399 in Q3 2008.

Sling Media also announced SlingPlayer Mobile for BlackBerry (29, later this year). That's something I would be ecstatic about if I still had my BlackBerry.. which begs the question, when is SlingPlayer Mobile coming to an iPhone near me? I read something about that months ago and the answer had to do with no third party app support and no Flash support on the iPhone so a custom streaming video website couldn't be made. If my calculations are correct, when the iPhone SDK hits eighty-eight miles per hour comes out in February... you're gonna see some serious shit.

Will the HD aspect of this latest Slingbox get you to finally pick one up for your ever-growing HD device trove?