Panasonic and Comcast Unveil Portable DVR

Today Panasonic and Comcast unveiled a portable DVR, the AnyPlay DVR. This DVR will use tru2way (which used to be called OpenCable) so that it can be attached to any cable system, regardless of the provider.

Interestingly, tru2way was just announced today (press release), and suddenly we see a mass of announcements around it.

Anyway, according to the press release:

The AnyPlay P-DVR Model TZ-LC100 incorporates digital video recording functionality into a Panasonic portable DVD player platform. The AnyPlay P-DVR features 60GB of digital video recording capacity, an 8.5" folding LCD display screen, and integrated stereo speakers. Dual audio headphone jacks are included to support personal viewing.

The AnyPlay has a docking station; you slip it into the dock to record at home, and slip it out for on-the-go viewing. With only 60GB of hard drive space you're not going to be recording HD, though. It's not going to be available until early 2009, so maybe (hopefully) hard drive advances will allow for a larger drive.

I do see one small problem: when you take out the P-DVR, what's going to record any shows for you at home? Just a minor oversight, I guess.

Worse, I really get irritated when I see a child at a table at a restaurant with a portable DVD player. Whatever happened to talking to your parents. Now I will have to suffer through P-DVRs being played at the next table? Maybe I'm just getting old.