All PVR

LG Electronics released an all-in-one home theater in South Korea.

With no word on a US release, you’ll just have to admire it from afar. This “Chocolate” inspired Theater-in-a-Box, has a touch screen along with 1000 watts of amplification for 5 of it’s 5.1 speaker system. The “.1″, or subwoofer, rates at 155 watts. The speakers may be somewhat bland for the home theater crowd, but the machine is refreshing.

Along with a touchscreen, here are some features:
1. Upscales videos to 1080p
2. Contains both HDMI and USB ports
3. Plays MP3s, WMAs, JPEGs, and DivX videos, as well as playing and burning capabilities of DVDs and CDs.

If LG can hit a certain price point in the US, it might do well. Unfortunately, all-in-one theaters don’t sell well in the arena of serious home theater lovers. What will the future hold for this boxed Chocolate Home Theater?

Found on Coolest-Gadgets

Also check out Athusa and Limited Edition Foods

The “mythical” Traveling Terabyte Gear

In reference to an entry published on Sept. 23 (“Hacker Sends War-Tough Marines a Befitting PVR�?), I have received a generous update about the Traveling Terabyte Project. Go to www.travelingterabyte.org for all the official information.

This is an important project that connects us to our beloved Devil Dogs (Marines). It provides them a care-package that we can all share in to show support. Hopefully it gives the soldiers a bit of home when they’re abroad, and keeps them grounded when they’re in hell (Ooo-Rah!).

They are not yet taking donations (as this is a grassroots movement stemming from the generosity of one person, Deviant Ollam), though there should be something set up soon.

And, as a big fan of this project, I will also be posting updates and hopefully finding more supporters, at Athusa.net. Let make it work.

Very, very special thanks, and American gratitude to: AST Cell. As well as to all the people involved with this project.

“Deviant Ollam” is a New Jersey hacker/network engineer who saw fit to create the Traveling Terabyte Project (TTB). A program in which he sends hard drives, filled with popular movies, television shows and music, in Pelican cases, to Marines in the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan.

Deviant said this about his revelation, “I’ve got this extra storage and thought ‘what could I do with it?’. It didn’t really make sense to put the disks into my already hugely ridiculous raid array.�? So, why not send them to a few Leathernecks? Everyone needs a little inspiration (even tough-guys). But, shipping the drives to a war-torn country could’ve been an obstacle, “You can’t really put the drives in bubble wrap and throw them in the mail,�? So he instead packed the equipment into the olive-drab cases with international power adapters and USB cables.

Once Marines receive the cases they often add their own files customizing and personalizing their gifts (becoming a snapshot of our modern heroes lives). And, like any grassroots movement, these drives have become a small overseas urban-legend. Eventually being delivered to the American embassy in Dushanbe Tajikistan, just to prove they exist.

Hopefully the Traveling Terabyte Project will get legs. I’m still searching for a donation website. If anyone knows of one, please comment. Anything we can do to remedy some of the stress of being in a war zone, is something we should do. They’re heroes.

From one American cyber-geek to another, thank you, ‘Deviant Ollam’.

More thanks to TG Daily for getting the word out on this project.

It’s alive…ALIVE! A report from Gizmodo has uncovered a creature so fierce, that Dr. Frankenstein himself would weep with jealousy. From the bowels of Harmon Kardon’s laboratory comes “the DVC600″ (insert scary voice here). All we know about this Unix-based media center is:

-It records up to eight high-definition TV shows simultaneously.
-It’ll record and playback Blu-Ray.
-It may, or may not be unleashed upon America (by the year’s end) Yet, it will most certainly flog Europe.
-It’s going to cost as much as Dr. Frankenstein’s electric bill, $3000 to $4000 Euros ($4092 to $5456 US Dollars).

XShot is a extension pole on which you attach your camera or video camera in order to take pictures of yourself. No longer do you have to worry about getting your arm in the shot. You don’t have to bother strangers, or worry about them running off with your camcorder. Attach and shoot.

If you’re wondering “How do I carry it around”? Wonder no more. It telescopes from 9 inches to 37 inches. It’s made of stainless steel and fits all digital cameras and many video cameras. Now you don’t have an excuse for getting out and documenting life.

The good folks at Pocket Lint have posted a review of the Sharp TU-R160H Freeview Personal Video Recorder (PVR).

It goes for £230 (about US $450) has 160GB (or 90 hours of content). But the review says that there’s “nothing here that most rivals don’t at least equal for around the same price or less” and has “below average picture quality”.

Unfortunately, it also can’t record two channels at once.

As a reminder, Freeview is a free digital TV service in the U.K.

Still looking for a solution to copy shows from your DVR to a portable media player? Well, PC owners can just use the Archos 604 portable and the DVR attachment. Mac users have Elegato’s EyeTV 250. Now Streaming Networks has the iRecord video recorder, a stand-alone box that sits between your video device and transfers video directly to an iPod.

iLounge published a review of iRecord saying that it’s really easy to transfer videos with a minimum of cables. The iRecord can even recharge an iPod while it records.

On the downside, iLounge says that iRecord is pricey and lacks some output ports. Also, firmware updates are required to use it, since Apple does not support devices that record directly to an iPod.

You just hit a single record button to quickly transfer videos to your iPod. From the review:

For on-iPod viewing, iRecord’s video files are just fine. They’re encoded at 320×240 resolution and 768Kbps, which is appropriate to the 5G iPod’s 320×240 screen, but only 1/4 the resolution of today’s iTunes Store downloads, and less than optimal for viewing on a larger computer or iPod accessory display with superior resolution.

The big story is that Apple is creating these roadblocks for users that want to transfer videos directly to their iPods. Why? Probably it’s a deal with Hollywood studios, or the MPAA. But Apple is doing a great disservice to its loyal users. Apple may be working on its own solution and may not want the competition, too.

iLounge says that the iRecord appeals to the “early adopter crowd, namely people who are willing to spend a bit more cash and suffer through repeated firmware updates and incompatibility concerns for a while.�?

iRecord costs $200 (available for PC and Macs) and is compatible with the 5th-generation iPods.

Tip: Here’s CNet’s review of iRecord.

Tip #2: Here are some in-depth looks at the ports and diagrams of the iRecord.

The Associated Press’ Ron Harris reviewed the Archos 604-WiFi, a portable media player calling it “whip-smart�?. He writes about the add-on digital video recorder (DVR) docking station ($100), which lets the device connect to your TV and record shows directly onto the device.

He says the Archos 604 handles lots of audio (such as MP3, WMA, WAV and AAC) and video formats (MPEG-4, WMV, and H.264).

When he used it as a DVR (connecting it between his DirecTV box and TV), he could record the shows but that he couldn’t schedule recordings.

I was a bit flustered to learn that the only TV programming guide that synchs automatically with the unit comes from DISH Network. There’s no native support for the DirecTV guide, or TV Guide’s Web site, for example.

As a whole, Harris says the Archos really excels “[b]eing able to take television recordings on the road.” This is great for the growing number of people that are trying to watch their Tivo shows on the go. I know that I would definitely want to carry along the episode of “Lost” that I missed the night before, and watch on my commute in the morning.

So this is the second review I’ve found about the Archos 604 that seems to call it a pretty decent device. I’m definitely in the market for a portable video player, so I’ll keep looking for more reviews.

The Hartford Courant has a review of the RoverTV portable media player from writer Kevin Hunt. The RoverTV is yet another portable media player (PMP) with a 4.1 inch screen for watching movies on the go.

The good news is that it can connect directly to your TV thereby avoiding using a PC to copy shows to the device, like a video iPod. And unlike the Archos media player, it doesn’t require the purchase of an additional external adapter. The widescreen version retails for about $350.

In the review, Hunt says that the RoverTV needs an easier way to record video from your TV, since you need to have it tuned on the desired channel and program a recording via the RoverTV. This is fairly awkward and not very user friendly at all.

Hunt also says that the RoverTV is missing a search feature for finding shows and doesn’t have a “hold�? button so you don’t accidentally turn it on while it’s in your pocket.

Overall, Hunt says that he’s not convinced enough to buy a RoverTV, but “it did convince me that do-it-yourself portable video with perhaps a pay-per-download option makes a lot more sense than the iPod’s pay-only setup.�?

Perhaps worst of all is the storage on the RoverTV. It has no built-in memory; instead it uses a 2 GB SD card. That’s just about three hours of high-quality video mode which is not enough storage for such an expensive device. Hopefully future versions of the RoverTV come with more storage and fix some of the problems listen in this review.

Getting video from your TV onto your portable media player, such as an iPod can be a hassle. Usually, it means downloading content from your Tivo using Tivo2Go, then converting it into iPod format, then copying it to the iPod. All pretty time consuming and not very simple for someone that’s not a tech geek.

Enter the Archos 604 personal media player, with a 4.3in LCD screen and built-in WiFi. It has 30GB (which can fit about 120 hours of video), so it can store and play music, movies and photos. Since it’s portable and wireless, you can also check your e-mail on the go, as well as connect it to your home network.

The coolest thing, however, is that it can connect and record shows directly from a TV, DVD, satellite or cable box, MPEG-4 camcorder, even a VCR. However, you need to buy a separate adapter, called the DVR Station, in order to do all this.

There should be more functionality coming to the 604. Archos said recently that it was working on releasing firmware updates so that it can support podcasts, downloads and Internet radio stations.

CNet reviewed the Archos 604 and said that it works great, but that you have to buy lots of extras (like the DVR station, power adapter) to get the full experience.

It retails for $350, but do a Google search for better deals.

Macworld published a review of the EyeTV 250, which is a hardware MPEG encoder that allows you to watch TV on your Mac much like a PVR. Elegato sells it for $200.

You can archive shows onto DVDs or onto your video iPod. The good news is that because the EyeTV 250 is an external hardware MPEG encoder, it can run on older Macs.

Overall, Macworld says that the EyeTV 250 is a “great personal video recorder for Mac users.”

Pros: Analog tuner; strong scheduling software; remote scheduling; one-click iPod video export; option to turn off hardware encoder for zero latency video gaming.

Cons: Requires external power adapter.