|
Usage Scenarios:
Commuting on public transportation - For some
people, this is the most compelling reason. Have you been commuting on a bus,
train, ferry, or airplane for years? If your commute is longer than half an
hour, then this will work best for you. Wouldn't you like to enjoy your
commute as much as watching your favorite sitcom, TV shows, or even CNN Headline
News!
Windows Media Encoder 7.1 can encode video to a relatively
small enough file size for this to work, about 120MB per half hour TV shows with
reasonable quality based on 500Kbs encoding. You can easily fit several hours of
your favorite TV shows in your laptop computer. You can also watch using your
Pocket PC.
You need a desktop computer with a TV tuner (cost less than
$50) and a laptop or notebook computer with a
headphone, both connected via 100Mbs network. Basically, schedule your favorite
TV shows to be recorded then copy or move them to your laptop computer. Using
your headphone, you can privately enjoy your favorite TV shows while you're on
your way to work and on your way back home.
Flight delays? Sometimes this could be a long painful wait,
but you can be watching your favorite sitcom instead.
Since you can fit many hours of your favorite TV shows
in
your laptop/notebook computer, you have the freedom of choice.
Archiving - If you have been archiving your
favorite TV shows like Friends, Sopranos, etc. with those bulky VHS tapes, you
can now actually save physical space. CD-R/CD-RW are physically a lot smaller,
and their content last a lot longer too, 30 years or more without quality
degradation.
Video Server - If you have networked
computers, then you already have a video server. You can watch TV
shows directly from any computers, and even wirelessly around the house and
outside the backyard from a laptop or notebook computers via WI-FI (802.11b/a/g).
VCR Replacement - Once you become comfortable
using this alternative way of recording TV shows or movies, with hard disks
becoming cheaper everyday, you may never have to search for those bulky VHS
tapes again. All your favorite TV shows and movies will be in one easily
accessible location.
Pocket PC
- The encoding profile created by Microsoft records a half hour of TV show into
about 50MBytes file. This means 128MB or 256MB compact flash can go a long way.
Tivo and ReplayTV
- Your family have one of these devices, but someone else have the higher
priority and your favorite TV show conflicts with theirs.
|
