There’s not enough time in the day to keep up with all of your TV programs and still get work, chores, feeding the dog and cat, and some element of sleep thrown in for good measure. Belkin may have a solution though, with a hardware and software solution that could let you catch up with your mobile or tablet when you’re doing nothing in transit.
The product is called “@TV” and is a two-part solution to the burden of never being able to keep up with your favourite television shows, with the hardware recording the program like any other digital video recorder, and software – available for Android and iOS – then making it possible to play on a tablet or smartphone over either the wireless network at home, and even away from home using either wireless or 3G and 4G connections.
Sources can include your regular TV programming, but Belkin also says other devices can be recorded from, including cable boxes, DVD players, and satellite receivers.
“Australians have always enjoyed their TV, and now they are increasingly demanding the ability to access their TV content wherever and whenever they want,” said Belkin’s Brendan Sparks, Head of Marketing and Product Management for Australia and New Zealand.
“With @TV you aren’t limited in your channel selection, and you have full access to both recorded content and live TV, so it’s easy to watch your favourite TV show in the backyard or catch the game out and about.”
Ports on the @TV box are fairly limited, with one set of component and audio in ports, and one set of the same heading out, sitting alongside Ethernet and infrared remote control extension ports. Interestingly, there’s no HDMI on this box, so if you have a TV setup without component cables, you may be out of luck.
We’ve contacted Belkin for more information on how this product works as we’re particularly interested in the 3G/4G streaming of recorded content, as well as how the service writes to to tablets and smartphones.
Belkin is sending us one to play with this week, but if you’re keen to check it out before we get a chance to, you can find it in stores for $199.95 with a free @TV app for tablets. Smartphone users will have to fork out an extra $14 if they want to play back the content on their handsets.
