Sling.com — plus on-the-Web Slingbox streaming — goes live

Right on schedule, Sling Media's new video portal—including hundreds of network TV shows, scores of free movies, and Slingbox access over the Web—has gone into open beta. So far, so good, but some kinks still need to be worked out.

You can check out Sling.com (which I blogged about earlier this month) right here, and as promised, the portal includes free shows (all ad-supported, of course) from the likes of CBS, NBC, Fox, FX, SciFi, and Bravo (no Comedy Central for now, although as I noted before, Sling execs say negotiations with Viacom are ongoing).

Also on tap: Movies, including selections from Universal, MGM, and Fox; highlights include "28 Days Later," "Basic Instinct," "Dressed to Kill," "Hoop Dreams," "Master and Commander," and "Some Like it Hot."

All well and good, but the Sling.com feature I was most excited about trying was Live TV, which lets you tap into your Slingbox for remote viewing on IE or Firefox. So far? Mixed reactions.

In my tests over my local network and with a Sprint EV-DO USB modem, video quality was quite good—we're not talking HD quality or anything, but video (after some initial buffering) streamed relatively smoothly, with noticeable but acceptable fuzziness and background blockiness.

That’s the good news; the bad news is that Slingbox streaming over Sling.com is Windows-only for now, and you'll need to install a browser plug-in before viewing—a requirement that's not gonna fly if, say, you're planning on checking your home DVR in an overseas Internet café.

That said, the Sling.com portal is still in beta; let's hope that Sling upgrades its service so no exotic plug-ins are necessary. As far as Mac support goes, a Sling spokesman told me earlier this month that it's coming "soon."

Overall, I'm impressed with Sling.com so far, and I'll be even more impressed if my "wish list" items—like the ability to stream Sling.com's library of movies and network TV shows to SlingPlayer Mobile—come to pass. Stay tuned.