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Philips' JackRabbit32 DVD/CD-RW External Drive
James Bell writes "Designtechnica.com has just posted a brief first look of Philips new JackRabbit32 external DVD/CD-RW drive. This appears to be the first information leaked on the net about this product from what I can tell. This drive has multiple video out ports for hook up to a television or other video sources. There is also Dolby Digital 5.1 support as well as USB 2.0 and Firewire support. The drive can also play audio or MP3 CD's as well. Since the decoder is onboard, it should be easy to get the Jackrabbit32 to run under Linux I would imagine."
A DVD/CD-RW? That's sooooooooooooooooo 2001!
I'm holding out for DVD-R/CD-RW's, like Apple's Superdrive, baby.
:( Always disappoints me.
Go fig.
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If this thing doesn't do component video output and preferably progressive scan video, then it's not worth the price. I already have a stand-alone DVD player that does DD5.1, DTS, and all of the lesser Dolby types, progressive scan video, etc. And it has a cool blue LED. I already have several DVD-ROMs in my PCs, and I have a CD-R (bah, who needs CD-RW?). In other words, this thing is pretty useless, because the people that would be buying it likely already have all of the functionality it can provide and more.
You're not going to see Joe Sixpack picking this thing up at the store for $300, because he can get a decent DVD player for half of that, and he doesn't have a computer with USB2.0 anyway. You're not going to see the technically savvy pick this up either, because they already have the separate components this thing replaces. No, this is going to appeal to the "toy" market (which is not a bad thing, and in fact they could get away with charging much more than $300, but it's really not going to go anywhere mainstream).
Now this is one of those few products that you see from time to time that could really come in useful.
That's emphasised when the drive is priced at $299 which is quite a steal considering you don't have to power on your PC OR be limited to your PC monitor OR lug your PC next to your television so you can hook up the TV-out from your Video card.
Yeah, I know a DVD player does the same - but this does what a DVD player doesn't do for all us poor folks out there who are still watching DVDs on their PCs. Here, we basically have a DVD player with CD burn capability. The difference is that you can use the a nice GUI from the PC (your favorite burn software) to control what you want burnt - very useful I say as compared to a standalone burner which would basically be limited to duplicating discs.
I do have one complaint though - It seems to me that the physical drive itself has very few controls ON it. I'm also not sure if the little red piece of glass between the 2 buttons is a display of some sort or an IR receiver - the latter would make more sense and be more useful (think remote control). This would mean though, that the drive does not have a display of it's own which can be a little inconvenient at times.
But it's definitely a step in the right direction. Phillips has been quiet on the CD front for some time - it's nice to see them in the limelight again. Now hopefully, they'll get the guts to go ahead and combat those copy-protection schemes head on.
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
I saw the JackRabbit at Philips hotel suite, and can provide a little more info:
They eventually want to put in a DVD+RW drive in the unit.
The unit is meant to not only hook up to your computer, but to your TV as well via SVideo or Composite Video.
Here's a pic.
Aliens? Magnetic Rings?! Bah! Who needs that when we have
Something like this would be great for presentations or for showing videos to people while traveling. Don't get me wrong, powerpoint is good and all, but this thing is SMALL in comparison to a laptop. I like how it shows images on the video out port as well.
Having a CD burner inside your DVD player adds no value whatsoever other than saving a bit of space. Now if it had VIDEO IN and could burn a (S)VCD directly without PC intervention, that would be different. But as it is it's just a box that happens to have two different devices inside that cannot take advantage of each other in any particular way. No particular synergies at all.
Why have a full 5.1 Dolby/DTS decoder etc on the CD/DVD drive? For an average user they are not going to have the 5.1 speaker set or need the decoder even if they do.
If they DO have a 5.1 spaker set, the higher up ones (like the Logitech Z-680's) have a hardware decoder built in.
You can also have a soundcard with the decoding built in.
With any 5.1 soundcard (like Turtle Beach Santa Cruz/Videologic sonicfury/xplosion, Live!5.1 and up, Herc Fort etc) you can get software decoders like in PowerDVD and WinDVD to do the decoding for you.
Thats four levels of Decoding already - will people actually pay for it on the drive, if in fact they either don't need it because not enough speakers, or don't need it because they have 3 other ways to decode the audio alrday?
Even when AltaVista reached the peak of its whoring, it at least marked the ads. And Google has demonstrated that even ads that are blaringly obvious as ads work. Therefore, I'd at least like to be notified when a /. story was paid. It can be really subtle, perhaps only if you click on the story, but I'd still like to know.
Would you be willing to receive your local newspaper for free if one of the news stories on the front page was an ad (and you didn't know which one)?