With a cellphone or an iPod, you can watch movies and television wherever you go. Portable video isn’t the next big thing; it’s here, and it’s exploding.
You might not think that people would want to use a phone to watch movies. But a friend of mine does just that. He gets about four hours of movie-watching per charge. His phone, an Audiovox, is really a hand-held computer, running Windows Mobile 2003 and Windows Media Player.
Motorola and i-mate are among manufacturers of phones with similar capabilities. Microsoft has a listing of smart phones at: www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/devices/smartphone/americas.mspx.
There are several options for downloading content to these phones.
If you own a TiVo Series 2 DVR, you can transfer shows and movies with TiVoToGo (www.tivo.com). But first, you’ll have to transfer the content onto your computer. There are no additional costs to use TiVoToGo.
Microsoft Windows XP Media Center PCs also have the capability to record television. Recorded material then can be transferred to your smart phone.
ATI (www.ati.com), Diamond (www.diamondmm.com) and Hauppauge (www.hauppauge.com) offer products that record television programs to your computer. These devices start at $100.
Many cellular services provide news clips and access to live television channels.
Cingular (www.cingular.com) offers streaming television through MobiTV for an additional $10 per month. More than two dozen channels, such as Discovery Channel, Fashion TV, C-SPAN, MSNBC, ESPN and a movie trailer channel, are accessible.
Sprint (www.sprint.com/personal/wireless) offers three different packages to its Power Vision Network. The cheapest ($15 per month) gives you access to movie trailers, ABC News Now (a live news channel), and a streaming radio channel. The most expensive ($25 per month) gives access to the basic channels, plus content from The Weather Channel, ESPN, Animal Planet and other well-known TV channels.
For $15 per month, Verizon’s V Cast (www.verizonwireless.com) offers news programming from ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC. It also provides sports programming and entertainment programming.
TiVoToGo also can transfer programming to Windows Mobile-based portable media players. These little machines, similar to Apple’s iPod, are made by Creative, Samsung and iriver.
Getting video onto your iPod or other media player is a bit trickier. TiVoToGo downloads can be converted to a format usable in the iPod, if you know what you are doing. However, TiVo has announced that it plans to support the iPod in a future edition of TiVoToGo.
That should happen this year.
In the meantime, if you own a video-capable iPod, your best bet is to purchase television shows from the iTunes Music Store.
You can watch other videos, such as home movies, but they must be in the correct format: QuickTime 7.0.3 or later.
