SanDisk Sansa TakeTV (and Fanfare) hands-on: TakeTWO
Ok, our new TakeTV arrived, and this time it works perfectly. (The first one we got was a pre-production unit with a bum remote.) Here are a few more things we noticed about the TakeTV and its accompanying Fanfare video download service:
The TakeTV interface still has a very unpolished, raw look and feel to it. It's also just the bare essentials, with only a few options for video settings (just aspect ratio, NTSC / PAL, and which video type you prefer: letterbox, pan and scan, fill, etc.).
On the upshot, being flash-based and light weight, the system boots near instantly and videos take just a couple of seconds to load.
It properly recognized our XviD and DivX files, but didn't like AVC1 encoded movies, and surprisingly enough, didn't like our standard encoded MPEG-4 Handbrake-ripped DVD. (It's supposed to play back MPEG-4 files, maybe we did something funny, who knows.)
On the other hand Fanfare looks very slick, but the interface -- done in Flash -- is way too busy, making it sometimes difficult to tell what's going on. It's definitely in need of some simplification and polish.
Downloaded DRMed videos are, surprisingly enough, in XviD. But they're wrapped SanDisk's proprietary TrustedFlash rights protection. Files are .smbt.
Downloaded videos are about 350MB per 30 minutes. That's 1.6Mbps (200KBps); given that high a bitrate you'd think these videos would look friggin' great, but the sad fact is they look more like 600-800Kbps, tops, so don't be too disappointed when your Fanfare downloads don't look all that amazing.
So our day one thoughts on TakeTV + Fanfare? Well, $99 or $150 for a device that plays all our favorite video formats is kind of a no brainer, especially considering the cost of entry for a lot of other devices in the same category is significantly higher (the $300 / $400 Apple TV comes to mind). We're not sure this whole system is ready for prime time just yet -- but neither is SanDisk, which is why Fanfare is launching in "beta". Maybe with the right hardware and software tweaks this could be a very compelling cheap-or-free download service paired with a very easy to use hardware solution, but for right now we think there are quite a few kinks to iron out.
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