Plextor's ConvertX PX-TV402U isn't exactly a personal video recorder
They're billing this as a "Personal Video Recorder", but don't get the idea that Plextor's new ConvertX PX-TV402UC is exactly like a TiVo or anything like that. It's really just a box with a built-in TV tuner that you connect to your PC over USB 2.0 that captures broadcast, cable, or satellite TV signals and convert them on the fly into DivX, MPEG-4, MPEG-2, or MPEG-1 files that are automatically saved on your PC's hard drive. Big deal, right? Well, the main advantage this has over simply adding a TV tuner card to your PC is that this thing does all the heavy lifting so your PC's processor won't be overtaxed trying to capture and compress all that video. That and the general niceness of being able to automatically save everything in the DivX format without having to deal with the headache of converting everything from a bulkier format later on. Oh, and they toss in some software that pulls down program listings off the web so you can program your PC to record shows just like you would with a regular digital video recorder. So it is sorta like a personal video recorder. Except for the part about having to add a PC to the mix.
