PVR UK: PVR (Personal Video Recorder) and DVR (Digital Video Recorder) news, reviews and how-tos for the UK (including Sky plus, TiVo, MythTV and Freeview)

Wing it with mobile TV

Hauppauge have released Wing, a software application for Windows that will record TV shows into the correct format for the Sony PSP, Apple video ipod and div/x player.

There are three ways to use Wing. If you use TitanTV to schedule your TV recordings, Wing will allow you to record in a mobile format with one click. If you schedule regular recordings (for example: Desperate Housewives every Sunday night), you can use the latest version of WinTV-Schedule which now includes the mobile video recorder. If you have TV shows which you recorded previously, Wing comes with converter program which will turn the MPEG videos into a mobile video format.

Wing is compatible with all models of the WinTV-PVR, including the WinTV-PVR-150, WinTV-PVR-250, WinTV-PVR-350 and WinTV-PVR-USB2.

Full information available on the Hauppauge Wing page.

Mobile TV launch goes off like a damp squib

The Guardian reports on a survey of 1,500 entertainment consumers in Britain by Entertainment Media Research (EMR), and the results pour cold water on the enthusiasm Vodaphone have shown for their service.

"Most people have no desire to watch television on mobile phones, preferring to use home computers to watch TV while on the internet, according to new research.

The findings of a survey of 1,500 entertainment consumers in Britain by Entertainment Media Research (EMR) deflates some of the hype about mobile-television alliances, such as Vodafone's deal with Sky last week.

Although 65% of British consumers surveyed cite the mobile phone as their most desired gadget, 70% of mobile owners said they did not want to watch television on their phone at all. To entice mobile users to upgrade to its 3G digital network, Vodafone is offering customers content from 19 Sky channels, including Sky One, Sky Movies, Sky Sport and Sky News. John Esner, media partner at the law firm Olswang, which commissioned the research, said he was not convinced the Sky deal was a "smart" move by Vodafone, based on the survey findings, though he added that it was a cheap marketing device.

The survey found there was a much greater consumer demand for television content on PCs than mobiles. The home computer is becoming an extra TV set in the home, according to EMR's chief executive, Russell Hart.

Nearly 45% of consumers said they would watch TV on their home computer, because it enabled them to choose what they wanted to watch and when; let them watch TV while doing other things, and gave them a break when working on the computer. Half of the respondents surf the internet or send emails while watching TV, and a third use instant messaging at the same time as they watch TV."

Source: The Guardian Online.

Creative Zen Portable Media Center review

There's an in-depth review of the Creative Portable Media Center over at Corey Gouker's Machine Inside the Mind. What's a Portable Media Center? It's Microsoft's answer to iPod-like devices, but designed to handle all types of media. It's heavily biased towards being used with a Windows Media Center Edition PC, letting you watch TV programmes you've recorded on it away from the home.

So how does it compare to the iPod and other PMP’s in terms of the coolness factor. Well, the Creative certainly doesn’t look as sleek and sexy as the iPod that’s for sure. It doesn’t have that Click Wheel which people seem to have a love/hate thing going with it. But it does have this massive screen with color and album art and all that. But like I said before, you can’t compare them directly. The PMC does so much more than an iPod. I honestly can’t say at this point whether I’d buy one or not. While the entire idea behind PMC’s has grown on me since using it over the past few days it still hasn’t won me.

DiVX to move 20 million CE devices by Christmas

El Reg has an article about the take-up of DiVX amongst CE-based manufacturers. It looks like the DivX format is gathering critical mass and will be a major player in future digital video consumer electronics.

iRiver Launch "video iPod"

El Reg reports that iRiver will be shipping the second of its three 'video iPod' player families in July - the Linux-based Personal Multimedia Player (PMP).

The company will ship two models: the PMP-120 and PMP-140. Both offer the same 3.5in, 16-bit LCD display, but the first will contain a 20GB hard drive while the latter has a 40GB unit installed.

The unit supports a wide range of formats, including MP3, WMA, ASF, Ogg Vorbis and WAV for audio; JPEG and BMP for still photography; and MPEG 1, MPEG 2, MPEG 4, AVI, Divx 3, 4 and 5, Xvid and WMV for video.

There's an integrated FM tuner and microphone, along with line-in and TV-out ports. The PMPs will use the USB On the Go system to allow the device to download digital photography and other files directly from cameras and USB disks without the need for a PC host.

The players will ship with a removeable rechargeable battery capable of sustaining up to 16 hours of audio or five hours of video playback.

No prices have been announced.

Sony to ship portable video, MP3 player next month

El Reg reports that Sony are to launch the HMP-A1, a portable 20 Gigabyte video/MP3/photo playback device. It has a 3.5in, 320 x 240 colour LCD and weighs in at 250g. Although playback is limited to MPEG 2 and MPEG 4 files, it's software allows it to accept MPEG 1, AVI, WMV and DVR-MS files too, which are converted to it's native formats when you download them from your PC. Similarly, it converts any BMP, GIF, PNG and TIFF files to the JPEG format it uses.

In a change for Sony, the HMP-A1 plays back MP3 files instead of Sony's own ATRAC audio format, and will ship with MusicMatch's Jukebox software.

The built-in rechargable battery should give up to four hours' MPEG 2, six hours' MPEG 4 or eight hours' MP3 playback.

e.Digital and Fusion announce new portable PVR

e.Digital Corp. and Fusion Digital Technology Ltd have announced a portable Personal Video Recorder for downloading audio and video content from Fusion's range of digital TV receivers including the Digifusion FVRT200 (twin tuner 80 Gb digital video recorder (DVR)), the Digifusion FRT200 (twin tuner DTT set-top box) and the Digifusion FRS200 (twin tuner DTH set top box). The pPVR is scheduled to be unveiled at Mediacast 2004 in London May 25 - 27 at Fusion's booth #D12.

It will feature an integrated back-lit LCD screen, MPEG2 and MPEG4 playback, will accept MPEG2 streams from appropriate Digifusion set-top boxes to store on it's HDD, a 20Gb Hard Disk Drive (up to 40 hours of video programming) and can download music and video from an analog source or from the Internet via a PC.