Getting TV shows on PPC easily

[Derrick Lee]

Hi. I've got a Dell Axim X5 and would like to know the cheapest and fastest way to record TV programs to play back on my PPC without having to go through some complicated conversion process. Thanks for your help.

-Derrick

[wirelesscop]

Not sure if this will help you or not...

But have you ever looked at ORB? http://www.orb.com

It let's you stream (FOR FREE) Live TV, Movies, etc...and access pictures, movies, etc... that are on your PC in LIVE TIME. Check it out...

[Sven Johannsen]

Cheap is relative. If you don't already have one, you will of course need some sort of tuner/video capture card for your PC. Then you can likely record the shows. Then you will need some sort of compression program to turn the recorded TV show into something appropriate for the litle screen and processor. Those can be free, such as MSs Windows Media Encoder.

The easiest way (IMHO) is to invest in Snapstream Beyond TV. Get a package with the tuner card if you don't already have one. Get a CF card reader as well for your PC. You can have Beyond TV record the show, automatically transcode it, and copy it to the CF card in the reader (if I understand all the capabilities correctly). You grab the CF card in the morning and slap it into your X5.


http://www.snapstream.com/products/beyondtv/default.asp

[wirelessdude]

Dunno if it's relevant, but this company's trying out videos pre-formatted for QVGA PocketPCs at only $1.29. Definitely saves the time and trouble of encoding yourself :)

http://dvd2go.salesasia.net/index.htm

[PG]

A buddy of mine who works for J&R pointed me to the Neuros mp4 Recorder. Looks like it works like a little VCR that records to CF or SD by hooking it up to your TV, cable box, or DVD player. Pretty awesome if it doesn't have Macrovision.

[PG]

Oops here are some links:

http://www.neurosaudio.com/store/prod_recorder.asp

http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=4030087

[PDANEWBIE]

If you look around there are a ton of video capture cards that capture automatically at the PPC display resolution. ATI does it natively within its software and the nice hting is you can create 2 profiles one for PPC use and one for PC viewing and just pick which profile you want to pick when recording. No worries about streaming/paying for episodes/or third party apps.

Though you will find complaints that its captures in an uncompressed format so is larger than Divx and whatnot. I don't find that to be a problem with a 4 gig microdrive and a 1 gig SD card.