A few days ago I read something about ABC trying to out-hustle the DVR technology. I found it amusing because these studio guys are sooooo late to the game always. DVR as a technology is at a point where most devices will carry some form of time-shifting in the near future. What he should really be worrying about is place shifting, a technology that has been gaining in popularity, thanks to Sling Media.

Place shifting as a concept, however is about to get more interesting. We have learnt exclusively that SightSpeed, Berkeley, CA-based VoIP software and services provider is going to soon add place shifting features to its new video/voip softclient. (Screenshot after the turn.)

You should expect more such entrants in the place shifting market. Last week, Engadget reported about Novac, a Japanese hardware maker that will use Skype to place shift television.

This is how SightSpeed TV works: say you have a Media Center, and you download and install SightSpeed on it, you can basically set up an account, and have the television beamed to your Sight Speed client software on another computer. You can also place shift your television channels from a Media Center to a Mac as well.

The software will come with a virtual remote to change channels. The timing of this new software release is a little fuzzy, but we have seen a demo. Hopefully, we will be able to test it out, and report the results.

(A more indepth post on this whole trend of place shifting everywhere will follow, perhaps tomorrow in tandem with a big report on Cisco’s consumer strategy and role of Linux inside the home. Any data points, send them across!)