New TiVo-like PVR gives iPods unlimited TV/Movies - legally I just got contacted by the makers of MediaCatcher a new, patented service for video enabled iPods and other devices. It looks like a very cool, and easy way to fill up your video enabled iPod with the shows and movies from your cable provider, not limited to the shows and movies iTunes sells. I'm very interested in this new product/service. I was also told that they are planning support for media-enabled phones soon, along with other portables like Zune, PSP, and Nintendo DS.

"With MediaCatcher, we've built an extremely easy-to-use broadcatching system with a web-based program guide. It represents the first PVR product that is specifically designed to deliver content to the iPod Video (and other portable media players including media-enabled cell phones)

With video-capable mobile devices becoming more common than television sets, we believe portable devices like the iPod are the new "TV". Unfortunately, there's a disconnect - with shows costing between $2 and $20 per download from iTunes there is no good way to fill up one’s portable media player with video. So there are many millions of video players out there without much video to watch.

By now you are probably thinking "This sounds too good to be true" and that BroadClip must be some kind of file sharing Napster clone. It’s neither.

The US Supreme Court has repeatedly reaffirmed your right as a consumer to "fair use" of the copyrighted content that you license, including "time shifting". That’s why VCRs and Personal Video Recorders like TiVo® are perfectly legal. And that’s why BroadClip is perfectly legal.

BroadClip makes it incredibly easy to watch your favorite TV shows anywhere you go, using your iPod. After you set up your account, just select the programs that you want on this website, and when those shows are aired they are automatically recorded on your PC, reformatted to play on your iPod, meta tagged for easy navigation on your iPod, and finally they are imported into iTunes and sent to your hungry and waiting iPod, ready to be viewed. It's painless!

All you need to use BroadClip is a PC (probably have one of those since you are reading this website) (Mac and Linux support by Q1 of 2007), a cable TV subscription (probably have that too), and a small hardware device called a “tuner”, which can be purchased on Amazon or Broadclip's website. And of course you need an iPod or other portable media player to watch your videos.

Think about it – just tell BroadClip what shows you want and they automatically appear in your iPod after they air. Pretty cool? We think so. We even patented it.

If you are starting to wonder "How much does this cost?", click here here for the best news yet."

  ¶ posted by Jimmie Geddes, Editor @ 10/31/2006 09:13:00 PM