iRiver PMP-120
Find the iRiver PMP-120 on Amazon
I'm patiently waiting for the Portable Media Center version of this player to come out, because I want the convenience of being able to sync recorded TV with a portable video player, without needing any software other than the PVR and Windows Media Player. The form factor and button layout seem to be better than either the Samsung or Creative PMC models. On the other hand, the PMP-120 is wide open in terms of its ability to work with movie content, thanks to onboard support for DivX. Video Bit Rates top out at 1.5Mbps for DivX putting the video quality above the standard available on PMC devices. DivX currently offers a more user-friendly solution for porting DVD content to portable devices, which should be considered fair use, but probably isn't. An FM tuner brings in radio broadcasts. Just like the PMC spec, video is 320x240, which is fine on the device screen, but looks worse than over-the-air television signal when using the composite out connection. According to iRiver, the device is not compatible with most music download services, which makes little sense, considering wide support for other iRiver device. Onboard support for music recording makes this a decent storage platform for recording music in the wild. If you can't wait for the PMC version of this player to find its way into stores, this is a reasonable alternative, with the advantage of content playable by Linux and Mac users.
http://jakeludington.com/iriverpmp120
I'm patiently waiting for the Portable Media Center version of this player to come out, because I want the convenience of being able to sync recorded TV with a portable video player, without needing any software other than the PVR and Windows Media Player. The form factor and button layout seem to be better than either the Samsung or Creative PMC models. On the other hand, the PMP-120 is wide open in terms of its ability to work with movie content, thanks to onboard support for DivX. Video Bit Rates top out at 1.5Mbps for DivX putting the video quality above the standard available on PMC devices. DivX currently offers a more user-friendly solution for porting DVD content to portable devices, which should be considered fair use, but probably isn't. An FM tuner brings in radio broadcasts. Just like the PMC spec, video is 320x240, which is fine on the device screen, but looks worse than over-the-air television signal when using the composite out connection. According to iRiver, the device is not compatible with most music download services, which makes little sense, considering wide support for other iRiver device. Onboard support for music recording makes this a decent storage platform for recording music in the wild. If you can't wait for the PMC version of this player to find its way into stores, this is a reasonable alternative, with the advantage of content playable by Linux and Mac users.