Taking TV Back To the Television

On the seemingly never ending quest towards digital convergence, we have one more stop along the way. While it's possible to get recorded television content from the PC to the television, it's a long way from being done easily. Apple has made some efforts with their AppleTV (which I've not been a fan of, see here), or the third party docking devices that interface with the iPod line. Other possibilities include using the Zune's video out, a media bridge device, or hooking up the 'puter to the TV directly, none of which are cut and paste simple.

The media player devices that have focused on this sneakernet shuffling of video content have been hard drive based. Now that flash based memory capacity has reached the size that can hold video, SanDisk is entering the foray with a new player, the new TakeTV Video Player, as well as a new content source they're calling Fanfare.

If we look at it simply, this new TakeTV is really a USB flash drive, initially available in 4 or 8 GB capacities. That's actually a decent capacity as in initial testing the videos are 350 megs per hour of content. The idea is to download the video on the computer, and then insert the flash drive into a dock that hooks up to the TV set. Pretty simple, and easy enough for anyone to do. It even includes a remote in the deal.


The content comes from Fanfare, a new online media service. Initially the content is free, but I'm sure this will change soon so that an hour episode goes for an iPodlike $1.99. It is only in beta so I wouldn't be so hard on that it only has content from a few networks including CBS, TV Guide, Weather Channel and Showtime. After a 7 meg download, and a flash upgrade, I had Fanfare running on the desktop. Unfortunately, a TakeTV player is needed to download and play anything so I can't preview what the service is really like. Reportedly the player TakeTV will also play back DivX files as well.

The units will initially be priced at $99 for a 4 gig model, and $149 for an 8 gig one, with larger capacities to follow. While that price of admission is downright affordable, all of this hinges on them getting the content part of this right. If they can provide more to watch, and can keep it affordable, then TakeTV just might emerge as another "sneak from behind" from the SanDisk folks. I'd also hope that if this takes off that they'd include some of the other SanDisk players to able to view content either on the TV or portably on the screen. The Sansa View could be suited to this purpose.

--Jonas