Sony Announces MemoryStick Video Recorder
Sony Japan has announced a Tivo like device, that records television and video in a format for Handhelds. The VR100K records video to a memory stick in a format optimized for playback on a Clie handheld.
The new PEGA-VR100K Video recorder records broadcast television and video directly to any memory stick. The video is stored in a format optimized especially for Sony Clie handhelds, but can likely be used on other computers and devices..
The device has a TV Tuner built in that can receive VHF channels from 1-12 and UHF broadcast from 13-62. It has a external antenna connector and what looks like standard RCA input and output jacks.
The recorder comes with software that allows your handheld to download TV listings and times. From the application you can instruct the device what and when to record.
The device can record video in a number of different sizes and quality settings. It supports video in 320x240, 176x144, and 160x112 each in 15 frames per second with 24kHz mono or stereo sound. With a 1gig Memory Stick Pro media card the device can record over 16 hours of video content in the lowest setting, or 4 hours in top quality. A 128MB stick can store approximately 130 minutes in the "long haul mode." It records to all memory stick, memory stick pro and duo formats.
The video is compatible with all of the Palm OS 5 Sony Clies, including the NX series, the TG50, NZ90 and the UX series. It uses the MPEG4 Simple Profile video codec. It is scheduled to go on sale in Japan on November 1st and a price has not yet been announced. It is unknown at this point if the devices will be sold outside of Japan.
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RE: Not bad for a Japanese market only first shot
Looking at the new Sony Palm devices, and the new handheld movie player you can see a trend that Sony is going after.
I noticed this item on Sony's site over a week ago. Several other sites have had quite a few comments made on it and how one would use it day to day. Since it is able to be told in advance what TV shows to record it is simple enough to be bought into by the U.S. buyer... if they have a means to view the card's contents.
Further thoughts on other sites is that all this can be done with a desktop PC right now... but if this unit comes in at 250 bucks as the current translation works out to it will be hard to beat on hardware costs. Then there is the time issue. If you have ever done a TV/VHS/DVD to mpeg conversion to watch on handhelds - it takes time, it is hit and miss on audio/picture sync, and it is way beyond the average person.
I'm sure there will be a lot of people here saying I'm off my rocker on these thoughts. But then, soon I will be able to watch David Letterman at six am on my handheld on the way to work and set up time was ZERO!
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My wife has to sell a lot of candles (www.ccandles.com) to buy her new Palm.
RE: Not bad for a Japanese market only first shot
If this thing is less than $200, it might not actually do half bad.
-Bosco
Not bad at all,
The fact that I may not care to watch TV on a PDA has no bearing on whether or not this product "has some merit".
It is no more a toy than TVs, DV cameras, DVD players, VCRs, LD players, etc. To unilaterally dismiss it as such would be arrogant and inaccurate.
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Not bad at all.
Pretty funny. I don't ever recall a Sony innovation/evolution debuting at under $200, except their cassette decks, and then *that* was a lot of money.
If this device does *half* as well as the MD, I would be suprised. I really liked that format, but Sony *still* can't make it catch fire.
This is an interesting wrinkle on the Memory Stick, something that's having somewhat better success than the MD. I am curious as to what a program will look like.
But I can't imagine fully appreciating Pammie and her girls cavorting around in VIP reruns shown on a PDA.
I think I remember hearing in an ancient studies class that in a rare Japanese dialect, "sony" means proprietary.
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An armed society is a polite society.
RE: Not bad for a Japanese market only first shot
RE: ?
Of course not. Don't be silly.
Choice is good and competition can make better, less expensive products.
Without competition, Palm would not be as far along as it is today.
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No
RE: ?
-Richard "Raptor" Powell
"Nice guys may finish last, but you know, the company's much better back here."
RE: ?
One Palm to rule them all!
-Sniffer
RE: ?
Seriously speaking, I do keep one Memory Stick on me with some of my favorite anime so I can watch if I'm REALLY bored. With this, I can actually use it to record some of the shows I miss during the day/evening when I'm at work (like the ScreenSavers on TechTV) instead of having pre-canned stuff.
Considering the relative length of time of conversion nowadays, this should make it nice'n'easy.
Granted, I'm not REALLY going to buy one unless the price is within my budget, but I CAN see some uses for it in my current lifestyle.
-Richard "Raptor" Powell
"Nice guys may finish last, but you know, the company's much better back here."
RE: ?
One Palm to rule them all!
-Sniffer
RE: ?
Ah, but you see that you are NOT me. And our needs/desires differ greatly it would seem. Please do not make the folly of assuming that your desires are the same desires as others.
I work in a place where I need to be up and about much of the day, and I do not have the luxury of setting up my laptop in a permanently safe location.
"For portability, I would much prefer a laptop with the files copyed onto it. The laptop is bigger, but the screen dworves the size of a handheld's."
True, but let's drop back to that "laptop is bigger" statement. A laptop is great if you have a solid place to hunker down for a length of time, but not so good if you're consistently up and on the move.
Even if you continually use the "hibernate" feature (which I do, thus avoiding the long boot-ups and shut-downs), there is a still an amount of setup and space necessary to use a laptop.
Not so with a PDA.
Please understand that I DO see a purpose and a use for this device. For me and my lifestyle, a TiVo just doesn't cut it for portable entertainment, and my laptop isn't the best solution, either.
I rely on my PDA not only for information retrieval (net/email access, datebook, phones, text information), but also for personal productivity (I write while on the go as well) and entertainment (games, media, and music).
As such, this little video recorder shows some serious potential for me. I WAS considering an Archos AV320/340, and I still am (20-40GB portable HD, MP3 player, and PVR), but if this device is released stateside, I may reconsider.
-Richard "Raptor" Powell
"Nice guys may finish last, but you know, the company's much better back here."
RE: ?
Exactly.
And why do some people insist on assumimg everyone else wants what *they* want, and if *they* don't want it, nobody else should either?
This lasted Sony venture will be quite pricey, I'm sure. But the fact that somebody did it may mean that others will follow suit. That means competition, and choice.
I'm OK with that.
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An armed society is a polite society.
RE: ?
One Palm to rule them all!
-Sniffer
RE: 320x480??
Tell those Sony ingrates that you won't buy it until they impliment PDA HDTV!
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An armed society is a polite society.
RE: 320x480??
320x480 screens are 1.5 to 1, (viewed in landscape 480x320 which would be optimal). The maximum vertical resolution you could get is 320 lines, which is less than the vertical resolution of standard analog TV (480i). The PDA screen can't display full resoultion standard TV, let alone HDTV resolution of 720p or 1080i. The only advantage of HDTV on a PDA would be a widescreen (16x9) format.
Who cares about that. Did anyone notice that it records only in 15 fps? I'd never want to watch my TV in choppy 15 frames per second!
Welcome to the future...
Sure, it seems kinda iffy now, but when you consider that handhelds are the direction things are going, it's a logical development.
It just needs to evolve a little, it's new.
RE: Welcome to the future...
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Why can't my PC do this?
Scott
RE: Why can't my PC do this?
The key might be the "player" for the PDA, as well as some technic of getting the data onto the card.
And Sony being Sony, they'd want sole control of this technology.
They're still made that the MD didn't supplant the cassette.
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An armed society is a polite society.
RE: Why can't my PC do this?
I need a sugar rush.
______________________________
An armed society is a polite society.
RE: Why can't my PC do this?
There is plenty of software to do this already. But if you use it, every time you upgrade your PC, you have to worry about it breaking, you have to leave your PC on all the time, etc. The PC video libraries keep changing quite a bit, for example, because Microsoft like to add "Digital Restrictions Management".
This is a box that you just put somewhere and it keeps on working. You keep a memory stick in there and take it out just before you leave the house in the morning. It's probably poor quality video, but for watching news broadcasts on the go (think Japanese commuters) it seems like a pretty decent solution.
For US commuters, it probably doesn't make a lot of sense: only people with a death wish would watch television while driving.
RE: Why can't my PC do this?
I think there's a big benefit in not having it dependant on a computer so you could keep it on all the time but having a network interface for downloading video from the computer would be a nice tough.
I also don't get why it won't record in 320x480 format. Seems like a no brainer...why wouldn't you want to use all the real estate you can.
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Not bad for a Japanese market only first shot