As Seen On TV

Technology seems to be determined to insure that consumers have their entertainment their way. The competition among tech companies are at a feverish pitch to create the next useful and must have device. Nowhere is this more evident than in the realm of home entertainment. With on demand TV shows, Movies, and the convenience of TiVo’s home entertainment is nearly as flexible as it has ever been. I remember the time before cable television and all of these TV programming options, and it literally feels like it was the Stone Age. New devices are putting pressure on the new home entertainment standards.
At the forefront are DVD recorders that have a hard disk drive in them. These devices give users the ability to record their favorite programs with ease that they would with a VCR, but they offer more versatility. Not only can you watch your programs at your convenience, you can burn them to DVD or save them to a digital format on the hard drive. The deluxe models of these DVD recorders include not only a hard drive in excess of 80GB, but they also include a VCR tape drive. This allows you to copy your VHS tapes to DVD or a digital format. This new breed of TV recording devices can be found at most department superstores, and will range from slightly over $100 to over $300.
The new device that has me excited is the Media Enclosures or Portable Media Players. These devices address a very 2007 dilemma. How do you watch all of the legally downloaded TV shows and Movies that you have on your computer on your TV without loosing picture quality? Sure you could try to jerry-rig your iPod to the TV or burn the shows to a DVD, but that is a lot of work and DVDs. There exist many devices like Slingbox that allow you watch your home TV channels on your computer, but there aren’t that many devices that work inversely.
Media enclosures are essentially external hard drives that have a program that allows you to view the media contents of the hard drive. These devices enable you to play your mp3, divx, xvid, avi, mp4, and vob formats in addition to picture formats. The Media Enclosures connect via the AV connections on your television. So you simply move the files that you want to watch from your computer to the portable media player and connect it to your TV. This is a good way to create specific channels full of shows that you know that you will like or another set of shows for your children.
There is another flavor of portable media players that transmit your files wirelessly from your computer to your TV. Locally, these appliances start at $150. I suggest buying online. There media enclosures start at about $39 without a hard drive, and you can purchase the necessary hard drive for anywhere between $40-$65.