Want a Personal Video Recorder? Got a Palm? Read on...

Want to watch your favourite TV programs on your Palm? Sadly, not all your regular channels are currently available as web streams and those that are can be of variable quality. In addition, it's not much use trying to watch if you're on a train, plane or automobile. So what is the answer?

One solution is the simple sounding to Mac/PC-->Palm transfer. So, I decided to see how simple this 'simple' idea would be...

The set up is as follows:

Apple iBook PPC G4
Equinux TubeStick
Kinoma Producer
Palm TX

First things first - I was very sceptical that the TubeStick would work. There are precious few reviews of it around and some of the comments on the internet suggest that you have little to no chance of getting a picture unless you are sitting on top of a transmitter, the atmospherics are in your favour and have it plugged into a signal booster. I am in a medium DTT signal area (and in case someone reads this in years to come, this is before digital switchover). On the plus side, it is cheap at £30/€40 - which for a Mac compatible DTT stick is rock bottom.

So, the TubeStick is plugged in and the software (The Tube - which is extremely good and allows the TubeStick to be used as a high powered PVR/DVR with ease) is installed. For safety's sake, I plug it into a big portable arial. Nothing. Nada. Rein. Not good. My worst fears are coming true. So, it's late - what can I do? Well one option would be to plug it into the roof aerial but that defeats the object somewhat. So, instead, I look across to the box. In it is one of those tiny little bundled aerials - the ones that all reviews agree are less likely to pick up a signal than the cardboard box that it comes in. Well, that won't work - so it's hardly worth trying... but I can't help myself.... and, lo and behold, it works! It doesn't pick up the full list of channels but it does manage to draw in a creditable 36 - which is plenty to be getting started with and which will increase as we get to switchover in 2009.

Equinux's bundled software is called The Tube and it's very intuitive. For our purposes, there's a nice red button that's the record button. Once you've made your recording (I took a one minute snap of Sky News), you'll need to export it. The Tube gives various options including iMovie, iPhone and iPod. If you select iMovie, the resulting .dv file can be seen by Kinoma Producer (but beware - it's 200mb per minute!). Other options will give a smaller file but remember, once the clip gets on to the TX, you'll not be able to see the difference as if you might with your Blu-ray and plasma combo!

Kinoma Producer does all the hard work dealing with the complicated screen size and frame rate conversions for your device and it does it with ease. Pick the file to convert, pick your output device, pick the quality that you want and let it get on with it. It converts at a good speed and the resulting file is about 10% of the size of the original. For those with other devices, Kinoma Producer can cope with Apple, PSP, Palm and a range of other things too including a generic option - so everyone's a winner. Kinoma have made yet another simple-to-use little bit of excellence. A useful piece of software that works just as you would want it to if you had written it yourself.

Pop the file across to your TX and how does it look? Well, pretty good actually! It plays smoothly and the sound's clear. (I used Kinoma Player but the mp4 output from Producer means that you can use other media players if you want).

Now, some of you, by now, might be looking at me like some sort of multimedia obsessive and thinking that all of the above seems like a lot of trouble to go to for a minute of Sky News. Well, it is for a minute of Sky News (nothing against the people who work there - I like the channel) - but imagine carrying around in your Palm (or an SD card) a mini-library of your favourite tv shows and films. Then imagine getting stuck on a train or an airport. See? Sounding a bit more sensible now!

More and more people have tv tuners in their machines and this combo allows you to make more use of them. The little TX has plenty of punch to cope with some fairly substantial multimedia use. It really isn't difficult and it needn't cost the earth. Software and hardware combos are making the dream of a multimedia work and leisure unit much more of a reality.

In his review, James used:

iBook G4 - more info from http://www.apple.com
Equinux's TubeStick and The Tube software - more from http://www.equinux.com
Kinoma Producer and Player - more from http://www.kinoma.com