Tvmama

2 Comments Written by Atila on August 18, 2008 – 11:15 pm

USBTV, the enhanced thumb drive for video transfer to TV’s that was previewed at CES in January by SanDisk Corp. will finally emerge from testing and refining in Q3, SanDisk tells TVMama.

The product was debuted along with a raft of SanDisk media players and flash drives, and so didn’t make much of a splash outside the tech press. It got lost in the shuffle, which is what SanDisk seemed to want. It wanted to test the waters, get the word out to techies and the TV manufacturers, but not promise too much, as it clearly wasn’t ready for primetime.

Most of the people who got their hands on the early versions gave it a thumbs up. Engadget was somewhat skeptical.

USBTV is a simple concept from a company that was one of the pioneers in flash memory and what are now generically known as disk-on-keys: Stick it in your computer and download rich media content onto it (movies, music, photos). Then, snap it in to your TV and play.

Now, SanDisk is hoping that a new generation of TV’s in 2008 and beyond will come with the input already installed. It has been talking to TV manufacturers for months, but if any announcements have been made about it, no one has told us.

From the cradle

The TV connection is a USBTV slot that’s backwards compatible with USB 1.1 and 2.0, but that has extra pins to transfer the additional data needed to work with a remote.

Until a new generation of TV’s with this USB jack are available, a cradle will be used that contains three RCA jacks for the RGB input on your TV. It’s not too complicated to use, but it’s not nothing.

The USBTV remote is a cool thing - or at least it looked to be a cool thing in the pre-beta version shown at CES. The remote was part of the device’s case. It looked to be about the size of the Apple remote.

Hi-def issues resolved?

Pricing has been vague, and details have been few. We expect it to be about $200, and it likely will come in 2-, 4-, and at least 8-GB versions. Aside from the official comment we received (SanDisk propaganda from flack Carmella Lyman follows): “USBTV is still in development phase but we should have some news soon enough,” we’ve heard little.

A contact in SanDisk tells us the product will be released in Q3 and it will have more bells and whistles than we may imagine. I’m guessing it was held back to be retooled for hi-def content, which it was unable to handle in early versions.

The other tidbit worth noting is that USBTV was actually developed in Israel by mSystems, which was acquired and absorbed by SanDisk in 2006. We hear there has been some reshuffling since (to be expected, of course), and that also has probably delayed the product’s released.

A lot has happened since USBTV debuted, primarily the release of AppleTV. That product and others has turned the tide toward wireless streaming of downloaded content from PC (or Mac) to TV.

USBTV is a more “mechanical” solution. That is, you can download the content, drop the thing in your pocket and bring it to a friend’s house for plug and play; TV compatibility is not an issue, unlike AppleTV. But the USBTV isn’t particularly elegant or stylish the way AppleTV, Archos TV+ and Philips’ unnamed devices are (or promise to be).

We think USBTV will find its niche. It’s certainly not aimed at hackers and geeks; it is designed to go more mainstream. It’s simplicity and the fact it doesn’t need a turned on computer and wireless home network (now in 1/3 of US homes) may be its strong point.

Say, Carm, when they are finally released, will you send us one to play with?