Portable PVRs
Hi,
Somehow in my exhaustive first post I failed to mention the revolution in Portable Video Players. In fact, this category is going to explode going forward.
Our household has media on all portable devices imaginable, from Smartphones to Gameboys to dedicated Portable Media Center.
I promise to post in the near future a lot more about these various gadgets. The biggest hurdle is the conversion of media to each individual format.
That is unless you got the all mighty Archos media player. It can play most video formats so you won’t spend weeks of CPU time converting your media. My current price/performance recommendation is the 80GB 504 model. The 604 and more advanced models are out, but this usually means that slightly older model can be snagged for a great bargain.
But if you are truly thrifty, like me, check out Toshiba’s Gigabeat MEV30K. You will need to run your Windows Media Encoder some, but it is directly accessible from both Windows Media Center and Windows Media Player. The Gigabeat is running Microsoft’s own Portable Media Center, so it has a friendly and familiar GUI, I think. You will find it to be very easy to use solution for transfer of shows recorded in Windows Media Center.
I managed to grab one for under $160, but your mileage may vary. Oh, and it’s advertised to last for up to 8 hours of video playback - somewhat unheard of in this category. Don’t expect it to actually last that long 
, but clearly it has an excellent battery life and with low brightness setting (such as on an airplane) it should provide hours and hours of entertainment.
Some people may have heard of iPod 
, which also lives in this category. I myself don’t like my media DRM’d to death and I find the screen unsatisfactory for video playback. But if you have one already, it is certainly an option to keep in mind.
gigabeat, portable media player
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