The perfect digital home device
A random musing for tonight (mostly because I don’t post on my personal blog enough!)
I was thinking about what my dream digital home gadget would be.. and you know what? It would have to be an inexpensive digital video recorder that accepts HDMI as input, ignores DRM-copyright protection schemes, allows me to record HD content in all its fidelity and glory (or as much of it as possible), and allows me to easily retrieve the recordings on a local network or some sort of cable connection. TiVo’s DVR products certainly got us there when it came to standard definition content but you can throw all of that out of the window when it comes to high definition content – and you can thank the content providers for that.
But wait.. you’re probably thinking there are other solutions out there right? There must be! To a certain extent, the answer is yes.
On the computing front, you can always install a digital tuner card which will allow you to capture Over-The-Air HD and/or Clear QAM HD and store it on a super large hard drive on your PC or on the network. In this environment, you’ll typically be working with some sort of DVR software system like Windows Media Center, BeyondTV, etc.
However, this will only get you part of the way there. The problem? Access to the premium content of course! (think of shows like HBO, Showtime, even Universal HD and HDNet). You could of course get around this by getting a DVR system that accepts CableCARDs (which you would get from your cable provider) but forget about distributing the recorded content.
There is one other interesting solution which gets you part of the way there. It’s the Hauppauge HD PVR device which captures high definition content using component inputs. This is perfectly fine for today’s broadcast content since no one is transmitting 1080p content right now. However, you still need a computer to connect the PVR device to as well as store the oodles of content that is being captured. And of course – nothing beats the simplicity of connecting a single HDMI cable.
Thus quite honestly, there’s still a need (maybe it’s a small one.. maybe it’s only by me) for a cost effective, digital video recording device that supports quality HD audio and video via HDMI. The best device would encapsulate all of this, deliver a rock solid user interface, and come with a super large hard drive .. oh yeah and include USB ports and an Ethernet port.
Sigh.. I can dream right?
