SageTV, a Oakbrook Terrace , IL-based personal entertainment software company will announce SageTV Media Center for Linux V5 with place shifting features and Media Extender support later this week, sources say.

The four-year-old SageTV recently introduced place shifting features to the Windows version of its software back in April 2006. Sage is in the process of writing a Mac version as well, though it is not expected to be released till later this summer or early fall. The Mac place-shifting features will follow.

Place shifting allows users to take their current television feed and view it over an Internet connection in remote locations, such as hotel rooms. Place shifting was first introduced to the market by Sling Media of San Mateo, California. Sling has done a great job of evangelizing its technical breakthroughs, and has even earned the ire of the cable and television crowd. Still, place shifting is not likely to enter the mainstream for another 24 months. It would still be a faster adoption that personal video recording technologies popularized by TiVo.

In recent conversations with cable and set-top box industries, we have learnt that most if not all have plans to bring place shifting into their future offerings, sooner, if they can work out all the legal issues. SageTV, which has primarily sold its software and media extender products to consumers is also working on OEM version of its products, targeting the set-top box makers.