Pyramid Power Records TV for Mobile

Due on the street in Japan this June, we think this could turn out to be a very disruptive technology for digital broadcasters. Japanese firm Solid Alliance, in partnership with Mitsubishi Plastics, Media Ring, and Connect Technologies, has come up with a little pyramidal device [.jpg image] that hooks up to your TV and records video in 3GPP format onto an SD or miniSD card for playback on a cellphone. Two hours’ worth of programming will fit on a 128-megabyte card, and can be played back on any of DoCoMo’s recent FOMA phones or most of the newer Vodafone handsets.

The unit measures approx. 115 x 115 x 73 mm and weighs in at 200g. The suggested launch price is Y20,000 (under US$200) and it also features a pre-program timer function — so you can record the ballgame — with two picture-quality settings. The current handset models capable of playing back 3GPP-formatted movie files are DoCoMo’s N900i, F900i, SH900i, P900i, P2102V, F2102V, N505iS, and F505i, and Vodafone’s J-SH53 and V601SH.