Linked by Eugenia Loli on Thu 4th Aug 2005 16:26 UTC
There have been many rumors lately about a potential video iPod that's around the corner... However, what about the existing mobile A/V solutions? We took the RCA Lyra RD2780 for a spin, the audio/video recorder/playback jukebox that's currently selling for only $219 at Geeks.com.
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Member since:2005-06-28
Sure, but as I write in the review, the advantages --except the large hard drive-- is the TV-out capability and the ability to record audio/video from any source.
PDAs can't record audio/video from an external source. You will have to use a TV card (that has access to the cable/satellite box), then have software that records for you (usually not found on Linux or Mac as easily as for Windows) and then use something like PocketDivX to re-encode the video to QVGA so most PDAs can run it full speed or without ugly resampling.
As you can understand, this is quite some work. An A/V jukebox, like the Archos and this Lyra allow you to record from a TV with a push of a button.
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Member since:
1997-10-01
Why would you want this instead of a PDA or PSP? You would want a jukebox for the built-in hard drive, I'd guess.
On the other hand, I have a Palm Tungsten T3 and a 1 GB SD card that I load up with rips of full-length kids' movies (the Incredibles, Porco Rosso, etc) and when my kids are feeling antsy on long trips or at a restaurant I bust it out. I compress the movies down to about 2 MB, but they look fine on the small screen. And at 2 MB, I don't miss the hard drive much. On the other hand, I don't have it loaded up with music. I've got a seperate iPod mini for that. Pluses: compact size, convenience, PDA functionality Minuses: battery life isn't great (though it's probably comparable to the life of this RCA unit).