Sling Media Inc. is an American technology company that develops placeshifting and Smart TV solutions for consumers, multiple-system operators and set top box manufacturers.

The company was founded in 2004 by brothers Blake and Jason Krikorian from San Francisco, along with Bhupen Shah,[1] who had the relationships to help establish Sling's presence in Bangalore.

With the digital television transition in the United States, the desirability of a standard definition focused product no longer existed in Sling's main market.

The Slingbox 350 is the base product, with one SD/HD audio-video input (composite or component) and an Ethernet port to connect to the Internet.

In 2008, Sling introduced the SlingCatcher, a hardware device to view content from a remote Slingbox, as well as personal media.

The product garnered mixed reviews from its limited capabilities, including no support for HDTV, complex nature and its price.

[18] Because early Slingboxes did not support Wi-Fi, connecting them to a network was difficult if a customer did not have an Ethernet jack near their set top box.

That application was phased out with the introduction of the Slingbox Watch website, which utilized an NPAPI plug-in for video streaming.

Because of the discontinuation of the NPAPI support on Chrome and demand from customers, Sling reintroduced the Slingplayer for Desktop application for Windows and Apple Mac OS X with the launch of the Slingbox M1.

[22] In addition to developing products and services for consumers, Sling also provides multiple-system operators and set top box manufacturers a solution for mobile viewing of licensed content and the integration of Smart TV technologies.

Sling's technology is currently embedded in the following products: Early in its history, the Slingbox caused widespread speculation of its possible legal implications.

[30] High on the list of issues cited by critics, was the ability to provide a loophole around proximity control, potentially allowing people outside the approved viewing area for events, especially sports, in which distribution traditionally has been restricted by time and region.

Broadcast engineers at several TV stations have installed them at remote "towercam" locations to observe traffic and weather conditions.

This costs only a few hundred dollars for each site, versus well over ten thousand for a setup with a remote pickup unit and auxiliary broadcast licenses.

[38] This signaled Sling Media's intent at the time to migrate users from using desktop software to Sling.com to access to their Slingbox.

[38] In January 2013, EchoStar and Sling Media sued Belkin and Monsoon Multimedia for infringing on five patents related to placeshifting.