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Echostar 'PocketDish' to Playback Video from DVR
Trip Ericson writes "Echostar has released its PocketDish, a portable multimedia player that will store audio, video, and images. Coming in up to 40GB flavors, with varying screen sizes up to 7 inches, the real news is that it allows for the transfer of content directly from a Dish DVR onto the player. From the article: "The PocketDish can download content from Dish Network digital video recorders (DVRs), enabling users to watch TV shows on the go. An hour of content can be transferred to the PocketDish's hard drive in about five minutes." Looks like Echostar is trying to beat the long-rumored iPod Video before it even hits the market."
Perhaps mass transit isn't used much in Montana or the Nevada desert, but in the NY/NJ/CT metropolitan area hundreds of thousands of people use mass transit on a daily basis. Actually, I'd be interested to find out the ridership figures for the metropolitan region compared to ridership in other major cities.
I commute into NY from NJ via commuter rail and then take the PATH subway to my destination. I see a good number of people watching movies on portable devices. The potential customer base is huge.
Self awareness - try it!
As the summary states the real news is the integration with the PVR, and: "An hour of content can be transferred to the PocketDish's hard drive in about five minutes." This makes it a lot easier for the average consumer to use...
...or if you do, you don't take them on long road trips. There's nothing like having a stash of Dora the Explorer or a disc full of Charlie and Lola to keep them entertained for boring parts of the trip. (For those who do not have children, and/or have forgotten what its was like to ride for a couple of hours in the car as a child, the "boring parts" would include the time from when the key goes into the ignition until you actually get out of the car at the destination. License plate games, I spy, and all the rest are boring...just not as boring as sitting quietly.)
I've captured a bunch of stuff off my DirecTivo (via analog capture) and reauthored it onto disc. It not only helps on long car rides, but also expands the number of shows available when we're at home without filling up the TiVo needlessly.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
1.8" maxes out at 60GB/4200RPM, and is known as the iPod form factor, because, well, the thing that made them popular was the iPod.
2.5" maxes out at 100GB/7200RPM or 120GB/5400RPM, and is the standard laptop form factor.
3.5" maxes out at 0.5TB/7200RPM, and lower capacities up to 15KRPM.
They showed it in one of those chats that Dish Network's CEO gives every once in a while. You can get more info here. The interesting thing is that the satellite receiver is the one that sends the video, you don't download it. As soon as you connect the cable it will recognize that there is a PocketDish at the other side (at least that's how it looked to me). I'm sure someone will make a PocketDish emulator for PCs soon. :)
This was announced several months ago on Dish Network's Charlie Chat. A representative from Archos was there giving the presentation. This is just a customized and possibly crippled version of Archos's standard product line. I don't think Dish Network will allow transferring the program material to other devices such as a DVD burner.
I live in the chicagoland area, the CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) is the mass transit for chicago and 40 surrounding suburbs. Buses provide about 1 million passenger trips a day and the elevated trains 'L' serve 500,000 passengers a day. this is just within the Chicago system. We also have a Metra rail system that runs out of 2 different stations in Chicago that bring commuting riders in from as far away af 50 miles everyday on 9 different tracks. They are forcasting about 78,437,000 passenger rides in 2005 with passengers riding over 1.7 billion miles total. On my own experience, when I took the metra before moving to chicago, i spent 47 minutes each way if i was lucky enough to be traveling on an express train. If i did not get an express the 27 stops it made took over an hour and a half. Would I use one? Hell yes. and i imagine there are hundreds of thousands in just chicago who would. Imagine New York Atlanta, ect and all of their public transit riders. Just my thoughts though.
I have the misfortune to work at RadioShack, and our Dish Rep was talking up the Pocket Dish about a two months ago. I also own a couple of old Archos jukeboxes, so I was familiar with their AV products, so I asked. Yes Virginia, it is an Archos, but modified with some magical Dish mojo. He was very unsure about any kind of DRM, so no help there. Archos' audio only products are loads of fun because of the open source replacement OS available (rockbox) but I don't know if anything similar is in the works for the video dealies.
Tokageyama
I've been doing that with my ReplayTV for a couple years now. DVArchive is an opensource (I think) java app that interfaces directly with the Replay, you can download or stream any shows on its drive (as well as control its interface).