Comcast, Panasonic Sell Portable Digital Video Recorders

AnyPlay Portable DVR to Be Available in Early 2009

By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 1/7/2008 12:05:00 AM

LAS VEGAS -- Want your DVR for here or to go? At the Consumer Electronics Show here Monday, Comcast and Panasonic are debuting a digital video recorder that you can unplug and take with you to watch TV shows or movies virtually anywhere.

The AnyPlay Portable DVR, developed by Panasonic for Comcast, functions as a regular set-top box when it’s set up in the living room.

But the “P-DVR” can be removed from a docking station and unfolded into a portable video player. The AnyPlay P-DVR TZ-LC100 device features an 8.5-inch folding liquid-crystal display and stereo speakers, and provides 60 gigabytes of storage capacity for recording digital video.

“Consumers have told us they want easy and convenient access to all the great content Comcast provides, and the AnyPlay P-DVR does that,” Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said, in a prepared statement.

The announcement is also designed to show that Comcast -- and the cable industry at large -- is actively encouraging new kinds of consumer electronics to access its programming and other services.

Specifically, the news highlights the CableLabs-developed middleware standard formerly known as the OpenCable Platform, and now redubbed “tru2way.” Also Monday, the two companies said Panasonic will ship a high-definition plasma TV that uses tru2way later this year, two years after they started development on that product.

Comcast and other cable operators have lobbied the Federal Communications Commission to adopt tru2way (nee OpenCable) as the standard for letting consumer electronics access interactive cable services, rather than picking the Consumer Electronics Association's "digital cable ready plus" plan.

Tru2way, according to Roberts, will help Comcast "bring consumers the innovative products that world-class consumer electronics companies like Panasonic are developing, which will lead to a whole new category of consumer devices,” he said in Monday's announcement.

The co-branded Panasonic-Comcast AnyPlay P-DVR will be available in early 2009, the companies said. They did not disclose pricing information for either product.

The AnyPlay P-DVR, which features a rechargeable battery and a 12-volt car adapter, also can play DVDs and audio CDs.

Comcast obtained a trademark for “AnyPlay” from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in September 2006.

EchoStar Satellite’s Dish Network currently offers subscribers portable media players, called PocketDish. DirecTV announced plans two years ago to introduce DirecTV2Go, which was to allow the transfer of DVR programming to various portable players, but the satellite operator never officially launched the service.