OTHER TECH

Handheld TheaterIf you already own a Media Center Edition PC and absolutely have to watch your recordings of Law & Order in a train, plane, or automobile, you'll want to consider a handheld Portable Media Center. Models are expected to be available later this year from a variety of companies, all using a USB 2.0 port to transfer content from a computer. Shown here is Creative's Zen Portable Media Center ($499), which features a 3 7/8-inch color LCD and a 20-GB hard drive that can store up to 80 hours of video, 50,000 still images, or 8,000 songs. The Zen measures 5 x 3 3/8 x 3/4 inch and weighs only 12 ounces. Getting Game Apex Digital, which is best known for sending the prices of DVD players to the basement, plans to introduce the ApeXtreme Personal Gaming Console ($399) this spring. (In case you're wondering, it's pronounced "Apex Extreme," not "Ape Extreme.") Along with playing DVDs, the console has an embedded Windows operating system and a hard drive so you can use your TV to play any of the thousands of games that, until now, you could only play on a computer - which helps explain why it costs twice as much as an Xbox.

Make Room for Video Prismiq's MediaPlayer/Recorder ($299) lets you leverage the power of your home network so you can program recordings from your TV but store them on your computer's hard drive in another room. You can also buffer live TV to your PC's hard drive so you can pause and replay the broadcast. The MediaPlayer, due out this spring, features a subscription-free program guide, a full complement of A/V inputs, and MPEG-1/2/4 and DiVX video encoding. There's a 30-second skip button on the remote.

Beautiful Streamer Fosgate Audionics' FAP-S1 Digital Media Streamer ($1,200, due in June) features a 120-GB hard drive for storing video and audio plus a Wi-Fi connection for streaming content from a PC to your home theater without any of those annoying wires. Compatible with MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and DiVX video as well as the mp3PRO, WMA, and WAV audio formats, the component-size FAP-S1 comes with a D-Link 802.11g Wi-Fi antenna.

The Right Connections DigitalDeck's Entertainment Network is a family of products designed to connect your A/V and PC gear in a wired or wireless network. The $450 starter pack (expected in May) includes a play/send adapter (shown above) for encoding and decoding content, a player adapter for decoding (extra adapters are $199), two remote controls, and management software. Among other things, you can use the Entertainment Network to buffer a movie from a DVD player to a PC's hard drive so people watching it on TVs in two different rooms can pause and resume the movie at their own pace.

Good to Go Just in time to compete with the Portable Media Centers, TiVo this fall will introduce its TiVoToGo feature (pricing to be determined), which lets you use a home network to transfer recordings from a TiVo to a notebook or desktop computer. You'll also be able to use your PC to burn shows to DVD. To use the feature, you need TiVo's Home Media Option ($99) and a TiVo Content Security Key (shown), which you insert in the USB port on your computer to unlock content. Once you copy a show to DVD, though, you can play the disc anywhere without a key.

It's a TV, Too Seiko Epson, best known for its watches, LCD clocks, and computer printers, surprised showgoers by entering the HDTV market with two LCD rear-projection models. But these aren't ordinary high-def sets - each model has a built-in printer and CD burner. Expected in February, the LivingStation HDTVs use three 1,280 x 720-pixel LCD panels and feature 47- or 57-inch screens ($3,500 and $4,000, respectively). A multiformat memory-card slot accepts digital photos for viewing, printing, or copying to the CD drive. You'll also be able to print but not save broadcast TV images.

Bringing the Network Home >>