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Handhelds Hardware

Sony's Memory Stick TV Tuner at CeBit 106

Posted by CmdrTaco from the hardware-to-lust-after dept.
ChowderGiggler writes "It seems like simply a picture, but there is a page at PocketPCMinds.com which shows a prototype Sony Memory Stick TV Tuner. This really has some cool applications especially if it gets ported to the Memory Stick Duo which is used in Smartphones like the Sony-Ericsson P800."
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Sony's Memory Stick TV Tuner at CeBit More

Sony's Memory Stick TV Tuner at CeBit

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  • It is a Duo (Score:4, Informative)

    by Richardsonke1 ( 612224 ) * on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @10:38AM (#5890871)
    From the picture here [pocketpcminds.com] it looks like it is a Duo. Not really sure what the difference is, though.

  • Errmm... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Alan Partridge ( 516639 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @10:40AM (#5890882) Journal
    ..Mr Taco? Did you even look at the linked picture? It IS an MS Duo!

  • Great, just what I needed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by amembrane ( 571154 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @10:41AM (#5890897)
    How about getting some decent programs on TV before any more money is spent on the technology? Is there anything (besides maybe The Simpsons) on broadcast TV worth watching? Except for Adult Swim, and some of the channels like TLC, TechTV, Animal Planet, I can't find anything to hold my interest. Wireless web provides me much more entertainment.
    • Heh heh ... so, hey ... what is "Adult Swim" all about?

      Frankly, if I can get my fix of Simpsons (even though its dubbed in German ... *shudder* ...) from the local TV station using just my Clie NX70v and this little doo-hickey, then I guess my life will be complete.

      Utterly.
      • Not what it sounds like, or what I hoped it would be. Rather than underwater porn, 'Adult Swim' is a Cartoon Network show.
      • Adult Swim is a collection of cartoons with mature themes. ie Futurama and Family Guy from Fox, Cowboy Bebop and Trigun as part of their more action oriented anime lineup, and cartoons best described as odd such as Sealab 2021, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force. If one were to look for such cartoons on a P2P network, there is an excellent chance of finding them.

    • Re:Great, just what I needed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Blaine Hilton ( 626259 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @10:46AM (#5890944) Homepage
      This is what always makes me laugh when we get offers for TV service. We started with analog cable and we receive about 75 channels with basic service. Now they are offering digital cable and you have 300 some channels, and satellite companies keep calling and saying how they have 500+ channels. I know people with both digital and satellite, and they still can't find decent programming on.
      • I'd cancel cable in a heartbeat if it wasn't for certain other people in the household who live off of RealityTV shows.

        The SciFi channel has gone all low-budget-psychic-crap, so there's not much left for me to watch except sometimes the Science Channel, Sundance, IFC, TechTV (for comedy), and UPN on Wednesdays (for Enterprise).

        --

    • More to the point. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by FreeLinux ( 555387 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @10:50AM (#5890995)
      How about making a cell phone that works reliably MAKING PHONE CALLS before trying to get TV on a 1 inch screen? I just want to make a call dammit, I don't need games, pictures, PDA, voice recognition or TV. I just want to make a call.
      • Just out of curigousity? what phone do you have?,
        I happen to have a P800 and as far as i know it works damn fine, thank you verry much

        or should i wait till your next post where you will explain why the micro$oft $pv phone is way better than the p800?
      • ... MAKING PHONE CALLS before trying ...
        What? Where have you been the last 10 years? My mobile phone is 2 years old, makes calls reliably, battery lasts for 3 days and fits in my pocket.
        If I'm going to change it, better for the substitute to have games, pictures, PDAS and all the stuff because for making calls I have my phone or the saturated second hand market.

      • Re:More to the point. (Score:2, Insightful)

        by brakk ( 93385 )
        I agree completely. My new job gave me a phone (sanyo 4900) with every bell and whistle on it (internet, pics, sounds, voice recorder, voice recognition, calendar, games, no camera though) and all that was cool for about two weeks. Now all I use it for is making calls and it's shitty at that. Half the time when I try to make a call it just drops it with out giving any kind of error even when I have a full signal. And when I can make a call, I can barely understand what they say and they can barely understan
      • So it took, what, 6 posts for one of the "I want a phone that makes a phone call" -people to emerge.

        At least Nokia has made a "basic" phone, the 2100. [nokia.com]

        Sorry, it also has stuff like a stopwatch, a full-screen clock, and changeable covers, but it is a new phone and about as basic as you can get nowdays. You are in the minority, though. Most people want the bells and whistles. They want their phone to be "cool", even if they never really use all those features.
    • I second this comment. Television programs would add very little to my cell phone "enjoyment". The biggest improvement a cell phone could have is reception. I am very tired of having to wear a tin foil hat in order to be heard.

      Further, IMHO we spend enough time watching and not enough time doing. A handheld device to enslave us for a few more minutes as spectators in life rather than participants is personally abhorrent.

    • 24.
      Angel.

      Umm, that's about it.

    • HBO (Score:2)

      by swb ( 14022 )
      Unforunately you've got to suck it up and get HBO. All of their original programming is stellar -- Sopranos, Sex In The City, Oz, The Wire, Six Feet Under, Curb Your Enthusiasm are all outstanding programming.

      Free TV doesn't have a damn thing that compares, IMHO.

  • Memory stick (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @10:41AM (#5890898)
    When will Mozilla be able to fit on a memory stick? Doing this would allow me to browse the web on my digital camera. (yes, if mozilla could fit on a memory stick, then with another 50kb so could Internet Explorer [mozdev.org])

    • Re:Memory stick (Score:1, Informative)

      by WARM3CH ( 662028 )
      When will Mozilla be able to fit on a memory stick?
      Mozilla, IE, even the whole linux kernel already fits very well on a memory stick! After all it's a memory card and now it's available in sizes up to 512MB so what do you mean by fitting a software (i.e. a series of byte codes) in a memory device?! Maybe what you like to do is to run Mozilla on small device? Well, then you can as well go and fetch a PocketPC or a SmartPhone.
    • Since you have 1GB memory stick, Mozilla 2 will even be able to fit on it :-)

  • Funny comment (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @10:44AM (#5890931)
    at the bottom of the page warns everyone of the coming "Slashdot effect"!
    I can see the day when everyone fears for their servers' life when Slashdot comes near!

  • Sorry to have to say it... (Score:5, Informative)

    by blueidoru ( 655798 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @10:45AM (#5890939)
    But: Bad news [pdastreet.com]

  • Memory stick interface (Score:3, Interesting)

    by binaryDigit ( 557647 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @10:46AM (#5890952)
    Hmm, it looks like Sony is slowly, very slowly, starting to release some of the toys that they promised when they first released the memory stick interface. IIRC they were touting the ability to add functionality like tuners and radios way back then. But we've only really seen memory. Also don't forget about the Clie's, this would be a really cool addition to them as well.

    Speaking of Clie, how about this, you add one of these tuners to the Clie and voila, you have a portable PVR. Of course you couldn't record too much, but if they increased the memory enough, you might be able to record that 30min show that you are missing because of that meeting or class or whatever.

  • This was just a mock up prototype (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @10:47AM (#5890956)
    This was just a mock up prototype shown at CeBit and not an actual working device. It is also shown in the MS Duo format, but sony has been showing off these kind of memory stick mock ups for years. While it was a non working model, sony has developed the chips in a size that would make this feasible, only problem is battery draw. There arw more specs on the device here [palminfocenter.com].
    • Its a pity they don't get the point that there's a market, then, for devices with loadable batteries... Their diy approach (they do do batteries too, right?) cripples them all the way to the end.

      Still, I dig the NX70V highly. Be good to at least have CF and W-lan one day... At that point, who cares about TV?

  • Just a picture, not a real article (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ayeco ( 301053 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @10:49AM (#5890976)
    Here is the "article", all the text on the linked pagee, it's just an image's description:

    Take a look at a this little fellow here :D

    They say that this would turn the Sony Ericsson P800 into a TV! I'd love to see that on my cell phone :D

    I got this picture from a friend with no further details... is there anyone that knows more???

    Doesn't look like any real info, let alone any factual evidence that this is more than just a concept.

  • bah.... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by m00by ( 605070 )
    call me when the little bugger can do cable... broadcast tv...this would only be useful for the simpsons!!! =D or perhaps a base station that does CATV, and it could receive those signals on a low power unlicensed frequency....ah, the merging of tv and x10, at last, a match made in my the dark and twisted recesses of my mind.... bwah hah hah hah!!!! =D
    • Is there any other reason to watch TV than to catch one of 3 different daily showings of the simpsons? This thing would be useful if you're stuck somewhere far away from your fix. :)
  • this is an old pic, I saw this a long time ago. It is not a functional device, just a mock-up of what a potential product using their new tuner-on-a-chip might look like. I don't remember where I read the article though.

  • JUST A MOCK-UP (Score:5, Informative)

    by exhilaration ( 587191 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @10:52AM (#5891005)
    This was posted on Howard Forums (a mobile phone board) a few months back. See here [howardforums.com].

    Sorry to disappoint.

  • Hold on... which Sony is this from ? (Score:5, Funny)

    by bigmouth_strikes ( 224629 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @10:52AM (#5891006) Journal
    Is this from the bad-and-ugly-drm-mpaa-riaa-member Sony that we all hate or is it from cool-and-high-tech-gadgets Sony ?

    I'm boycotting one of them while my home is filled with stuff from the other. It's a shame they have the same name and logo, it would be so much easier to distinguish them!

  • slashdotted (Score:5, Informative)

    by AbdullahHaydar ( 147260 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @10:52AM (#5891008) Homepage
    Here's a copy of the picture [208.176.108.155], since the site is slashdotted
    • Since most of the sites linked in articles end up slashdotted, forcing people to go to mirrors, why not skip the original sites altogether and link right to the mirrors?

      "Surrealism in th' Service of Sanity Is No Sin"
  • Wish instead of investing so much time and money to promote MemoryStick, Sony would switch to something that is more widely used like CF or SD. I like Sony products and even have a sony digital camera (that uses MS as memory) but yet I think a broader standard like CF or SD is much better for the end user. I really don't see the point when Sony insists so much to promote it's own standard when in reality it is "just another" flash memory standard... That way me, who owns a PocketPC would also buy that TVtun
    • Sony will never make a CF or SD tuner, they love using their own 'standards', and will never give up on MemoryStick. They are still making mini-disc products for God's sake! I've never known even 1 person who owned any sort of mini-disc hardware, and I know a lot of gadget freaks. A 3rd party may, however, buy the tuner chip from Sony and make a CF or SD card.
      • You're probably in the US then.

        I used to think the same thing. I spent nearly $600 for a portable minidisc recorder in 1996. At that time, I remember you could hardly find blank disks for the thing.

        Then, my job took me to Malaysia and other SE Asian countries.

        I wouldn't say that minidisc is huge over there...not nearly. But it is quite a bit bigger than it is here. The hardware is decidedly cheaper, and most record stores sell blank disks. Also, I was able to find several popular (at the time) album
      • MiniDisc is a big deal in Japan. And I have one myself (live in NE US).
    • True. Lately I've been looking for a GSM/MP3/PDA combo. The P800 nearly fit the bill, but the Memory Stick Duo (a smaller version, with even less capacity) turned me off. I'm wondering how much sales Sony is missing by sticking to its memory.
      • I've got a P800. And yeah the MSD is aids but then I don't know of anything as good as the P800 unfortunately. Besides, 128MB memsticks have come out -- even though I primarily bought this thing as a phone/mp3 combo, I'm not a very heavy user of MP3s so I suppose I can make do with 128. (Well, that or I could hack some sort of reverse MSD adapter and get one of those fancy pants 1Gb Memory Sticks ... they're pin for pin compatible, trouble is I'm 99% sure the P800 OS will choke on it)
    • It's not just MS- it's the whole collection- Minidisc (which I use myself, and love, but find it to be a pest when they start releasing CD players which play unprotected AAC files whilst I have to put up with a "booking in/out system") plus the blatantly brilliant betamax, Mavica Mini CD's. Heck, these are the people who thought a 3 1/2 inch floppy would be a great idea for a digital camera. Memory stick duo, Memory Stick Pro and Memory Stick is three too many Sony. Quit the game, don't do the same with DVD

  • Nice... For a falt without a TV Tuner (Score:3, Informative)

    by nordicfrost ( 118437 ) * on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @10:53AM (#5891023)
    I've been looking for a flat-screen (Plasma or other) TV without a tuner for one specific purpose. Here in Norway, we pay an annual fee to the state owned broadcasting system for the priviledge of owning a TV. While I'm not opposed to this, I find that the channels (Both commercial and state) have so much crap on the that I would like to own a tuner-less TV. If the memorystick Duo can give me a TV fix (Mostly BBC World) over the PDA, and not paying any fees, I'm happy.

    (Note: You have to pay the fee per TV-capable tuner, so this is just a way of cheating.)

  • nice toy (Score:3, Interesting)

    by John_Renne ( 176151 ) <zooi@@@gniffelnieuws...net> on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @10:54AM (#5891033) Homepage
    Of course I see the geekism of watching TV on a device this small and portable but I don't think the world is waiting for it. For years I've been very sceptical about video on small devices. Why do people keep on buying bigger and bigger TV's? They want to experience the movie. On a small device this is harder.
    • The market for little TVs is huge. Just think of all the 'fans' at televised sporting events that are posing for the cameras instead of watching the game. They need to make sure the folks watching at home get their 'good side'.

      And have you ever tried to eat, have sex, and watch TV at the same time? Well, it ain't easy. The size and portability of a PDA opens up a range of new possibilities in this area.

  • Previously Denied (Score:3, Informative)

    by Dugsmyname ( 451987 ) <thegenericgeek@gm a i l.com> on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @10:56AM (#5891059) Homepage
    See This article [pdastreet.com] from PDA Street from March... they denied it then... same exact picture it seems... I wonder how valid this article actually is.

  • Vaporware is not news. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @11:04AM (#5891135) Homepage
    This is vaporware. They have been talking about it for years, and doing nothing.

    If this was a pracitcal piece of tech, Handspring would have done it earlier - they were the first ones out with the enhancement slot for a commercial PDA and their slot is larger, so it would be easier to fit the tuner into the size available.

    • The Handspring Port is just PCMCIA, same as CF.

      The only difference is that they changed the little plastic nubs on the slot that let you insert or not insert what you want.
      • No. Look at the picture. The picture is of a tiny little thing that slides into a tiny little slot.

        I am looking at my Handspring Visor, and the port is HUGE compared to the the tiny thing they have a picture of.

        I am not talking about the effeciency/speed of the port, just the size.

        Because the Handspring port is so BIG, it allows you to make a larger plug in module. My argument is that before they make one small enough to fit in that tiny little port, handpsing can make one to fit in their HUGE port.

  • That's really great news! (Score:4, Funny)

    by jjn1056 ( 85209 ) <jjn1056&yahoo,com> on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @11:05AM (#5891144) Homepage Journal
    The world really needed another proprietary, patented, owned by one company 'standard'. I hope they integrate this into every TV in the future.

  • USB TV tuner (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Musashi Miyamoto ( 662091 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @11:05AM (#5891147)
    What would be awesome is to have a USB TV tuner that I can plug into my TIVO!! One tuner is just not enough!

    I wish sony would just quit this business with the memory stick. Proprietary interfaces just stink. They are almost guaranteed to become obsolete in 5 years.
    • Maybe you should read all the help for developers over at memorystick.org before posting. Sony aren't exactly hiding what they want to do with memorystick and the $4,000 a year license cost is hardly prohibitive to any hardware manufacturer.
    • Who cares if it's obsolete in 5 years? The interface only allows up to 128 Mb. In five years, that'll be too small to care about. (Equivalent of 12 Mb today, if Moore's law holds.)

      Of the competing formats, only Compact Flash supports larger sizes. Sony's already building a successor to the memory stick to get capacities above 128 Mb, and it'll almost certainly not be compatible, so memory sticks will be obsolete in 5 years anyway, regardless of whether or not the format is open. But the same is true

    • Write a driver for this
      http://www.techextreme.com/perl/story/10894.html
      ATI tv tuner, USB
      works great on my PC -simple little box.
  • According to this article [pdastreet.com] it is a concept, not a real product...

  • Wowee wow wow (Score:4, Interesting)

    by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @11:32AM (#5891409) Journal
    Sega Game Gear had a TV Tuner years ago, and so did the nomad.

    As did GameXPress (portable TG16).

    There's a tuner for the GBA, and one for GBC, IIRC.

    Why is it so difficult or fantastic to add one to a PDA?

    It hardly seems worth it to me, unless they can shrink down a DirecTV dish or it comes with a huge spool of coax cable. Free to air TV is slowly being driven out of existence.

    HDTV (digital signals) will put the final nail in it's coffin, when the slightly-fuzzy-but-watchable analog channel turns into a skipping jerky unwatchable slideshow. I think we all recognize the difference between a weak analog signal and a weak digital one.

    • It hardly seems worth it to me, unless they can shrink down a DirecTV dish or it comes with a huge spool of coax cable. Free to air TV is slowly being driven out of existence.

      HDTV (digital signals) will put the final nail in it's coffin, when the slightly-fuzzy-but-watchable analog channel turns into a skipping jerky unwatchable slideshow.

      Have you even seen HDTV??? It's significantly better then the crappy (very low-bitrate) MPEG-2 stream that DirectTV provides.

  • Why would I want this in a cell phone?

    (On a date... With your new GF's parents.)
    *Ring Ring*
    Uhmm... Hello? I can't talk, right now, kind of busy.
    *click click click*
    Phone Flips on a Porno
    *click click click*
    Very funny Justin!
    *hangs up*

  • It's a dream ! (Score:5, Informative)

    by denisbergeron ( 197036 ) <`moc.oohay' `ta' `noregreBsineD'> on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @11:45AM (#5891575)
    If you read the article and the comment to the end, you can see this link.
    http://www.pdastreet.com/articles/2003/3/20 03-3-19 -Memory-Stick-TV.html
    Where you can read this :
    "Memory Stick TV Tuner Still a Dream

    At CEBIT last week, Sony showed off what appeared to be a Memory Stick TV tuner for the CLIE

    It turns out that what appeared to be a TV Tuner was really a concept design and not a real Memory Stick Tuner. Sony has no immediate plans to create such as device. "

    Nice desing, with a little bit of plaster I can do a lot of thing !

  • Other memory formats like compact flash, SD have had hard drives, 802.11b, Bluetooth, GPS, cameras etc. for a long while now. Not to mention PCMCIA cards which offer everything imaginable. I'm not sure I see what the big deal is here.


    Admittedly a TV tuner would be cute, but if the price came anywhere near the cost of buying a proper pocket TV (e.g. $80), it would seem to me prohibitve and rather pointless.

  • This is only a concept piece (ie. nonexistant), but it doesn't suprise me that slip by you:

    ..especially if it gets ported to the Memory Stick Duo..

    Pic of (not real) tuner from linked article [pocketpcminds.com]. You'll notice that right on the (fake) device it says "Memory Stick Duo TV Tuner Module".

    Amazed.
  • Guys just get a Archos Jukebox Multimedia
    (20 gig USB2 divx player with expansion and mp3 playback) http://www.archos.com

    the new digital recorder plugin means you can make your own tv rips (other plugins like the memory card reader so you can have unlimited storage for those digital pics when on vacation, or the camera modulal)

    a copy of emule (http://www.emule-project.com)
    and grab some TV eposodes from http://www.sharereactor.com

    or even get em off of bitorrent (someone reply with links there)

    and you hav

  • 500 channels? (Score:3, Funny)

    by shibbydude ( 622591 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @05:06PM (#5895096) Homepage Journal
    So does this mean my satelite phone would get tons of channels? "Ted, my phone doesn't work. Can you fix it? They're all speaking Japanese!"

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