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Motorola showcases USB-powered Media Mover
We didn't think much of Motorola's MCU3E (MCUBE) wireless transcoder when it was launched as a prototype late last year, but obviously Moto's got dreams of seeing this in homes around the world. Showcased at this year's Cable Show, the rechristened Media Mover is a USB-powered device that not only transcodes media on your DVR, but also broadcasts said media (transfer or streaming) locally or remotely via WiFi or Bluetooth. Dave Zatz reported that the quality was actually pretty stellar, and while the company wasn't exactly forthcoming when it came to hardware specifics and availability, we don't suspect it'll be too long before the company comes right out with those very details. Check the read link for a few more hands-on shots.
Motorola showing off prototype MCU3E wireless transcoder
Anyone who has tried to repurpose their HD media for a variety of devices knows all too well the pain of dealing with the alphabet soup of codecs and formats, but Motorola is showing off a MCU3E (MCUBE) prototype that can take MPEG-4 AVC or MPEG-2 content, transcode and wirelessly beam it to a receiving device in MPEG-4 AVC or MPEG-2 (VGA, half-VGA or QVGA resolutions) while aso dialing down the bitrate to fit on your portable device. The prototype looks good to us, and we imagine this kind of simplicity would resonate with consumers, but pesky business and licensing/DRM hurdles stand between this demo and the marketplace. For now, mark us down as "cautiously optimistic" about devices like this that set our media free.
