El Gato = "Slingbox" ... not
El Gato is a great outfit, no doubt. But the feature you referenced here is not even remotely in the same league as the Slingbox. Where Slingbox enables live direct channel and box control and streaming of both broadcast content and DVR stored/recorded content, the EyeTV 2.5 software does neither. It can only transfer pre-ripped content, and can't remote control either programming or DVR. Who wants to first record a 1 hr show, then spend 2 hours ripping it for later slinging, then go have it slung from a remote location? For a measly $100 the Slingbox AV is the real deal.
Speaking of the Slingbox, I haven't been as tickled geek by anything since I hooked up my very first Rev A AirPort flying saucer and sat out on the back deck next to the hot tub watching movie trailers streamed from inside the house to my Powerbook. Sitting in a hotel lobby in San Francisco remote controlling the DVR and TV in the living room back at home in So. Fla., having the DVR to pick up programming I'd set up for record from the same SF hotel the day before and sling it to the screen of the MacBook in my lap was almost mind-bogglingly cool.
Pity that no sooner than I'd gotten mine and began hoping one day Apple might acquire SlingMedia, that EchoStar swooped in an acquired them. And unfortunately, while Palm, Nokia and MSFT have opened up their phone OSes and permitted SlingMedia enough access to write up the Sling software to sling programming to most all the serious iPhone competitors, Apple has refused to follow suit -- despite SlingMedia's eager requests to partner up, literally from the day of iPhone announcement. Depressing how Steve Jobs seems to have come full circle and seems to be treating the iPhone the same as he did the Macintosh platform back when it ruled the personal computing landscape. Arrogantly closing off the platform to others, falling prey to short-term greed and myopic control-freak attitudes will as surely erode the future potential of the iPhone as it did the Macintosh. Maybe not in the short term. But we know how that story ends. I guess all we can do is sit and hope the current course is just a temporary tack to be followed by broad reach back into the center of the course and downwind.
