PVR Wire

OQO, a company that specializes in ultra-mobile personal computing, announced the Model 02 at this year's Consumer Electronics Show.

The Model 02 is an extremely powerful portable mini PC that has the ability to run Windows Vista Ultimate. Kevin Groppe of FloppyHead pointed out that if it can run Windows Vista Ultimate (which comes with MCE) it must therefore be a mini Media Center PC.

Further more the Model 02 comes with USB support so could get hooked up with a USB Digital Tuner turning the Model 02 into a portable mini PVR. Also the Model 02 has a HDMI output so could be hooked up to any HD TV.

Whether this little PC could stand up to the heavy requirements of PVR recording and playing HD content is yet to be seen. But it would damn cool if it could!

[Via Digg]

Quite awhile back we brought you information on a product called the iRecord. It was a device that brought functional, albeit a bit limited, recording functions to your iPod, in effect making your iPod a somewhat portable PVR.

Well now a company from Korea called iCube is showing off their newest toy: the iRec. The idea behind the iRec pretty much the same as the iRecord (as one can guess with the similarities in names).

The iCube can record video straight onto your iPod at up to 640 x 480 through either a composite or S-Video connection. From there you can synch it up with your iTunes collection the next time you plug it into your PC.

The device also has a timer button on it, but apparently that is only used to schedule the end of a recording. Although it is far from a replacement for a full fledged PVR, if you are looking for something like this you now have at least two options.

The iRec retails for approximately $180 while the iRecord goes for about $200.

A Mac version of TiVoToGo was finally announced a few days ago but unfortunately it did not come cheap. Mac users would have to fork out for the full Roxio's Toast Titanium 8 package which costs $100.

The Roxio Toast Titanium package offers full DVD/CD burning capabilities plus a little bit more but many MAC users will probably have software that does this already making $100 extremely expensive for just TiVoToGo considering regular Pc users can get it for $25.

Fortunately Roxio has said at this weeks CES that there is a possibility of a standalone Roxio TiVoToGo for Mac which would of course be sold for a lot cheaper.

Gefen's showing a PVR that can record 1080p signals in MP4 format for storage on a USB storage device. There's two models, one that's capable of hitting that 1080p sweet spot, and another lower resolution version.

You can capture and convert TV signals, or plug in a camcorder or other video device. You can plug in multiple sources, such as a set top box and a camcorder, and switch back and forth between recording sources. You can save your video to a USB device remove it and pop it in another computer. This should work with a portable hard drive, flash drive, or flash card in a reader.

Granted, you could do all of these things with any old media center PC, but the Gefen system will do the MP4 USB trick out of the box. It's not entirely clear from the press release if these boxes include hard drives, or if they do all of their recording to flash memory. And if there's a hard drive, I would hope you can record higher quality video to the drive before converting video to portable MP4 files.

[via Engadget]

If you haven't already heard about the iPhone, then you're not the gadget-obsessed geek I thought you were. But here's my take.

First off, this lays to rest all the rumors that Apple was working on a table PC (it was, kind of), a PDA (ditto), a touch-screen iPod (again with the ditto), and a phone (see above). From a video standpoint, this thing is miles ahead of the iPod with video. We're talking a 3.5-inch 480 x 320 screen in a case that's just 11.6 millimeters thick. The touch screen could (but we won't say "will" until we try it) be easier to navigate than the iPod's traditional click wheel.

The only real downside here is that it comes in much smaller capacities than the iPod, with 4GB or 8GB of storage, and unlike many other phones and portable media players out there, there's no expandable storage. But this is Apple, they don't do thinks the way everyone else does. On the one hand, that's great because it means their products work exactly the way they're supposed to. There's no way to cram incompatible parts in there and cause a mess. But it also means there's no real expandability.

And so while I won't say this is the iPhone's downfall, I think the biggest disappointment is that while this thing will actually run Mac OS X, allowing you to run Widgets, Google Maps, Safari, and iTunes, you can't just throw your own programs on it willy nilly. It doesn't support your favorite video codec? Tough.

What else doesn't it do? No G3, no downloading iTunes purchases over the air or WiFi and syncing to your computer, no removable battery, and no support for Exchange or Office. Again, not deal breakers for most people, but all reasons why I'll be sticking with my Dell Axim X50v and Nokia cell phone combo for now.

The 4GB iPhone will st you back $499 with a two year contract from Cingular. The 8GB variety will cost $599, and both will be available in June.

SanDisk has been making some of the most popular portable audio players around for years. The SanDisk Sansa's combination of low price and sleek user interface have made them a popular alternative to Apple's iPod series, although it's never sold anywhere near the number of units as the iPod.

Well, now it looks like SanDisk is getting ready to launch their first true media player, with video support. The Sansa View will be a flash based player with 8GB of internal memory and an SDHC slot for expansion.

It's got an 8-inch screen, an integrated speaker, and supports PlaysForSure. It's also got AV-output with resolutions up to 1080i. The Li-Polymer battery should be good for 10 hours of music or 4 hours of video playback. The whole thing measures in at 3 x 4.8 x 0.66-inches, and should be available early this year for about $300.

DirectTV is showing off its new Sat-Go portable satellite receiver/TV at CES. We first heard about this funny looking device in November, but there are a lot of new details today.

The Sat-Go is only kind of "portable," weighing in at 25 pounds. The device folds up into a suitcase-like package for lugging around, and then unfolds for receiving and watching TV.

It was invented by Rick Rosner, a television producer who created CHiPs and The New Hollywood Squares. The chocolate brown color? You can probably blame that in part on Rosner's roots in 70s TV. But he says he also wanted to give the unit the look and feel of high-end luggage.

DirecTV will be marketing the product in outdoor camping, hunting, and fishing magazines. Although to be honest I'm not sure why someone heading out into nature to get away from it all would want to take a TV with them. It might be nice to get weather reports, but I'm not sure I'd be willing to pay $1000 to $1300 for that.

The Sat-Go is expected to launch in a limited production of about 10,000 units this Spring. It'll carry a $4.99 monthly subscription, which is the same amount you'd pay for an extra set top box.

Sling Media has announced they'll have a public beta of SlingPlayer Mobile for PalmOS up within a month. The press release mentions the Treo 700 and 750 pretty liberally, but I'd imagine the latest release will run on a variety of Palm devices.

There's no price tag yet, but if history tells us anything, Sling will want to keep the software in the beta phase for a little while to work out the kinks before launching version 1.0. That said, the plan is to officially launch SlingPlayer for Palm in the first quarter of 2007.

SlingPlayer for Windows Mobile goes for $30, but if there's anything we're learning from TiVo, it's that prices aren't always equal across all operating systems. Windows users got TiVoToGo for free, while Mac users have to pay $100.
Other news from Sling: They'll be bundling some of their software with new HP notebooks, and they're demonstrating that SlingPlayer works with Vista, although to be honest, I'd be surprised if that weren't the case.

Zoran is working on a new OEM portable media player designed to work with CinemaNow and other movie download services. I believe this is the first PMP designed to work with CinemaNow. While the company's been around longer than Apple's been selling videos through iTunes, it'll be tough for anyone to compete with Apple when it comes to selling videos that you can download and sync to a portable player.

MSI Media Live is showcasing a new Media Center PC featuring AMD64 dual-core processors, a 12-in-1 card reader, and support for AMD LIVE!, HDMI, and NVIDIA PureVideo, among other buzzwords.

Zunemytube is probably the simplest solution I've seen so far for saving and converting YouTube, Google, and MSN Soapbox videos.

Here's how it works:

1. Download and install ZuneIEPlugin.
2. A new icon shows up on your Internet Explorer window with a Zune symbol.
3. Browse to a video you want to save on Google, YouTube, or Soapbox.
4. Click the "Zune It" button.
5. The program will download an .flv file and convert it to a Zune-compatible .wmv file.
6. The videos will be saved in your "My Videos" folder, under subfolders for Google Video, YouTube, and Soapbox.

I know I made that look like six steps, but seriously, once you've selected the online video you want to watch, it's only one click.

To be honest, I've gotten pretty lousy video quality downloading and converting YouTube videos this way. That's probably because I'm downloading a highly compressed video file and converting it into another highly compressed video file. But I've managed to convert a few videos from Google that came out pretty nicely.

[via jkOnTheRun]

SlingPlayer ShlingPlayer. There's a new player in the place-shifting game. Okay, technically Sony's been in the place-shifting game with its LocationFree TV technology since before the Slingbox was born.

But now U.S. users can hook up a LocationFree box to their TV, cable box, or DVD player and stream video to their PDA using Access Netfront LocationFree Player 2.0. Up until now, only Netfront LocationFree was only available in Japan.

Windows Mobile 2003 and Windows Mobile 5.0 devices are supported. The player streams MP4 video, and lets you watch and control your TV or other device directly from your PDA. It's available now for $19.80.

We've seen a few ideas for PVR and TV entertainment products in your car such as the UVIA M100 to stream wireless media to your car, the Pioneer Raku-Navi In-car home cinema, and the $5000 F20WIRD portable in-car TV.

Now the latest in-car TV device is the MBR0201 from MBCO (Mobile Broadcast Corporation Japan). This is a TiVo like product that records audio and video for later playback from satellite radio or video signals.

The satellite video only work in countries with an advanced satellite infrastructure like Japan. Looking at the picture you can see the device in place on the cars dashboard beneath a small TV screen.

As with all these in-car entertainment devices I smell a high speed collision.

Say you're looking at a portable media player, and you can't decide between an iPod and a Zune. On the one hand, the Zune has a larger screen for playing video, even if it's the same QVGA resolution as an iPod. On the other hand, despite coming in three different colors, the Zune really only comes in one flavor - 30GB, while the iPod maxes out at 80GB.

But wait, there is a non-Microsoft approved method for cramming 80GB (enough to store 70 full-length films or more than 19,000 songs) into a Zune.

The folks over at Zune Scene have a step by step review of the process they used to upgrade a Zune to 80GB. Basically, what you've got to do is pick up a hard drive, make room for it in the Zune, and void your warranty.

Here's a handy guide showing you how to get your TiVo recordings onto your Zune. All this can be done for free using the free version of TiVo Desktop. TiVo desktop should be able to convert your recordings into WMV files but if it can't then you can always use a free encoder.

This guide from ZuneInfo does offer a brief tutorial but takes you through using the paid encoder TMPGEnc 4.0.

[Via TiVo Blog]

MyWaves is a startup company that has been quietly testing its new platform that will allow cell phone users to watch internet video clips from popular video sites such as CNN and YouTube.

The service works with wireless carriers with high-speed data networks is already attracting 20,000 new users per week according to the company. Unlike Verizon users who can access just YouTube videos, MyWaves allows you to access multiple video sites.

In addition to using MyWaves RSS feeds to access internet video you can also upload video with the service for private or shared viewing. The MyWaves software is Java based and works with most video capable phones.

---Start Rant---
Unfortunately MyWaves is doing something that really pisses me off; it's calling a few short video clips a channel. I don't know about you but I'm pretty sure that a channel is more than just a few short video clips adding up to 15minutes viewing time. So when MyWaves states it has 1000s of channels that's just misleading, why not just say 1000s of videos and be honest.
---End Rant---

Other than that little annoyance the product looks great and it's free.