Mustek PVR-A1 Personal Media Center
By Alexander Grundner |
July 6th, 2004
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Mustek has snuck into the Portable Media Player (PMP) with the Mustek PVR-A1 Personal Media Center. The funny thing is we learned about its availability through The Home Shopping Network. Much like the Archos AV400 which is initially being sold exclusively through QVC in the UK, the PRV-A1 is only available in the U.S. through HSN.com ($219.90 — on sale 7/4 for $179.90). In fact, the U.S. and Global versions of the Mustek company site don’t even list the product in its handheld line up (as of July). To learn more we had to dig around the English version Taiwanese site to find PVR-A1 product page.
From what was shown on TV, the Mustek PVR-A1 is actually a pretty decent PMP for the price. It offers a 2.5″ color screen, playback of MP3 & WAV music files, JPEG photo viewing (you can even print photos directly from the device on PictBridge compatible printers), and video recording (via RCA cables) and playback of MPEG-4 video on its screen [or through a television -- correction: read update]. In addition, the PVR-A1 comes with a built-in microphone for quick voice memos and a mini speaker for A/V playback. Users will also appreciate the ULEAD software app that can transcode multi-format videos into optimized 320×240 MPEG-4. According to the talk show host, users can get about 2hrs of video on a 512MB SD card. However, the PVR-A1 can accommodate any size SD card — it’s up to you how much you’re willing to spend for storage.
So why would you want something like this? This relatively small device (3-1/4″L x 3″W x 3/4″H) is well suited for someone who’s interested in taking their music, photos, and video with them on the go (plane trips, commuting, etc.) or around the house. The PVR-A1 makes it easy to share photos and videos with family and friends by connecting the devive to any television for viewing on a big screen. The only draw back is the PVR-A1 is not hard drive based, so you can’t carry around your entire collection of media files, but the SD card compatibility will come handy when wanting to quickly playback content from other SD card based devices like a PDA or digital camera.
Update: Our reader Stephen de Garavilla tells us that he was contacted by HSN and told that the PVR-A1 does NOT support AV-Out (meaning, video from the PVR-A1 to a TV is not possible) only AV-In. We’re sure there’s going to be a lot of unhappy people over this previously claimed functionality.
AntiMonopoly – 4 hours 39 minutes ago