Engadget spotted a new HD Media Streamer called EZFetch which sounds pretty cool from the specs. Available for $249 online, it supports a lot of formats and is capable of producing a 1080p output should you have 1080p content. It includes a DVI output with a HDMI adaptor included in the box. It also includes integration with Nokia NSeries phones, if that excites you in some metaphysical way.

Sounds like a cool product at a low price point; the world needs more media streamers with open standards to compete with the AppleTV.

On October 22nd, SanDisk introduced a unique product TakeTV, a usb thumb drive and media player mashup to simplify playing downloaded video on your television.    NewTeeVee.com has an excellent article describing the product and it’s accompanying download service, Fanfare, which has shows from CBS and Showtime, among others.

The product includes a specialized thumbdrive that attaches to a remote, and a simple dock to connect to your television.  The idea is that users can just plug in their thumbdrive and download a show, and use the old fashion sneakerNet to hook it up to the television.  There is no need to hook up a networked device and have another computer running acting like a media server.  At $99 for the 4GB model (there is a $149 8GB model as well) , it’s a low cost solution for getting your tv connected.

On the content side, SanDisk has introduced FanFare, which is a online web service providing encrypted content that can only be played on the TakeTV.  FanFare comes as a windows application that seamlessly downloads shows from their server and puts them on the TakeTV thumb drive.

The sub-$100 price point seems like a magical place to be, but I wonder if it wouldn’t be worth $50 more to buy a Zune ($79 if you can find it on woot.com) or other full portable video player that has the ability to play video on the TV.  The trick really is making the download fast and easy, but with the small 1Mbit DSL connection, it still can take hours to download a movie depending on the format.

The lack of screen and portable playing I think could be compensated if it support HDTV, something that the current version lacks.  With HDTV sales taking off, this kind of product could find a better niche over an iPod or Zune by supporting HDTV resolutions.  Watching standard resolution video on an HDTV is just turning into a drag and finding a way to get downloaded content easily will be the next battleground for connected devices.

It’s an interesting take on a common problem, and with it’s simple implementation and price point, it might make some fans.

Sony’s Playstation 3 (PS3) has had some serious problems getting traction in the market. With only a few good games and a high price, it’s been beaten into submission from lower cost products like the XBox 360 and the Nintendo Wii.

Two strengths of the PS3 is it’s inclusion of a blue-ray player (albeit adding to the cost of the PS3) and its integration with the Playstation Portable (PSP). The PS3 comes with a feature called Remote Play that lets users use their PSP as a remote viewing device for content on the PS3 as long as both are powered up and connected to the same network (or via the internet). While the feature as it stands isn’t too useful, I really think there is some interesting ways this can be expanded.

What I suggest is the ability to use the PS3 to transcode blue-ray and DVD movies and transfer them on the PSP so users can watch content on the go. Right now, using software such as our TVHarmony Autopilot, PSP users can watch their favorite shows, but the ability to take a DVD or Blue Ray movie and transcode them are a bit more difficult to do. Sony has an excellent opportunity to build the ability to transcode that content (or if it’s a Sony Blue Ray, just add the transcoded version directly on the Disk), encrypt it in a format that ties it to the PSP, and put it on the device. With encryption, it eliminates some of the piracy concerns, and it adds a lot of value to both PS3 and PSP.

The downside is it ruins Sony’s UMD movie business, but given the failing sales of UMD movies, it’s not a great loss for Sony. It also might hurt sales of VOD movies should Sony ever create a business similiar to iTunes, but let’s face it, if you already have a DVD in your hands, I doubt many users will want to pay extra to download it again via the internet.

Sony needs something to turn the tide of it’s ailing gaming business, and while this won’t do it on it’s own, it would be a great feature that would spread the love.

There have been times in the past that I’ve been critical of TiVo, but with the recent service update 9.2, I have been a very happy user of the product. The service update, as mentioned on TivoBlog.com, included features that I’ve always wanted in the box including:

• Support for external storage albeit only available from a proprietary product
• Multi-room viewing between TiVos
• Most importantly for me, TivoToGo support including HD content

Like many families, we’ve started replacing our old televisions with HDTV’s, and it’s hard to go back to watching standard television. With the TivoToGo functionality, it’s now possible to download a show and play it on another TV as long as you have some sort of media player attached. It’s also possible to watch higher quality videos on your computer.

The only downside is that the HDTivo can only use eSata drives that are “TiVo Approved Devices”, as opposed to the Series 3, which allows any eSata drive to be used. I’m sure there is a nice licensing fee that TiVo gets for each external drive sold, and TiVo needs to make money somehow, so I can’t complain too much.

If you are in the market for new TiVo that supports HD, I can’t recommend the HDTivo too much!

Related Info:

NewTeeVee.com Article

A few weeks ago, I listed the features that would be in my ideal portable media device for my usage with two small kids. Well, according to eHomeUpgrade, that device is getting closer to reality with the RoverTV PMP.

According to DogHouse Electronics, maker of RoverTV, here are the specs for their premium model:

RoverTv Wide Screen $349.00 retail

• Length 4.125 inches
• Height 2.75 inches
• Depth .6 inches ( six tenths of an inch thick)
• Screen size- 4 inch Samsung TFT screen
• Video Resolution: 480 x 272

What’s in the Box

• Premium TXB Earbuds
• One 2 Gig SD card/ One 1 Gig SD card =3 Gigs Total
• USB 2.0 cable
• AV cable
• Carrying Case
• Home Battery Charger
• Installation CD PC/Mac
• Easy start Manual

Personally, I’d think they’d be more successful dropping the SD cards and lowering the price, but it still sounds intriguing.

The web has been buzzing about this article from Reuters that says Apple is in negotiations with studios to put movies up on iTunes. According to the article:

Apple’s Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs is said to want one flat price of $9.99 per movie, whereas studio executives want a range of prices that mirrors videos and DVDs at retail stores which, generally speaking, run from discount titles at a few dollars apiece up to $19.99 or more for new releases.

$10 seems pretty steep but $20 seems like highway robbery for something that is likely to be far less quality than a DVD, take a few hours to download, and likely will be stuck with all the DRM hassles of being to view it on the device of my choice.

Personally, I think Apple should be negotiating the opposite deal. I’d try to get studios to put iPod compatible video formatted files directly on the DVD, making it quick and simple to transfer it to an iPod, by just inserting the DVD on your computer and clicking transfer in iTunes. As a portion of the disc, the video files would be relatively small.

It would be a win for Apple by making it more entrenched as a standard, it would be a win for iPod users who don’t have to worry about the nuances of fair use and copyright and who won’t have to wait hours for it to transfer, and it would be a win for the studios in that they are offering more features to their users and providing an alternative that keeps some sort of DRM in place.

Krunker.com has a great in-depth look at the changes that are coming in MCE when it gets wrapped up in the Vista release.

It took almost 24 hours to download the beta release, but after reading the article, I’m more looking forward to trying it out.

(Hat Tip: eHomeUpgrade.com)

Engadget highlights a new product coming from Philips that is yet another Personal Media Player that is hitting the market in September. I think the addition of a small stand is actually a handy thing for those airline flights.

David at eHomeUpgrade mentions this when talking about the Philips product:

Rather than opt for the “smaller is better” philosophy, the PMC from Philips opts for a more video-friendly approach to their design.

Having stocked up on various PMPs for testing our product TVHarmony AutoPilot, there are a lot of great products out there that support video but not many that are a great form factor for my 3 and 5 year old to use in the car.

As a consumer, I’d love to find an inexpensive 7″ screen PMP that I wouldn’t feel uptight with my 5 year old holding it while she’s making a mess eating goldfish in the car. Right now, I’ve tried only two solutions neither of them are ideal. The first is a cheap portable DVD player, which has all the issues with scratched DVD disks and the hassle of carrying around all the accessories. The second is to have a portable screen like a Lilliput that gets connected to the video output of another PMP, but that turns out to be a cable nightmare as well.

Here’s my ideal cheap product that I wish existed:

* 7″ screen
* No hard drive/ No DVD player
* dual headphone jacks
* a video out jack
* An SD or compact flash card slot
* A usb connection so you could transfer files directly to an SD card
* Capable of playing Divx/Xvid files
* Plays mp3 and views photos
* Decent battery life
* Sub $200 retail

Is that too much to ask?

Dave Zatz is reporting that Tivo is downloading system software 7.3 which includes the new Kidzone feature. This sounds like something pretty useful for parents like me that have little ones and don’t want them to be exposed to many of the shadier programs on daytime tv.

You can push yourself to the head of the line for the update by going here.

(Hat Tip: TivoBlog.com)

Via eHomeUpgrade, iRiver has introduced a cool new personal media player called the iRiver Clix. It’s got 2GB of storage and it’s flash based, so it’s small compared to other personal media players that support video.

The only thing missing from the unit, in my opinion, is the lack of a compact flash or sd card slot. At 2GB limit is a bit small for video, and a expansion slot would have given users another option for carrying content.