While Roku is getting the big headlines this morning with its HBO Go support and a sub-$50 streamer, DirecTV has a newsworthy launch going on as well. As Jeff Baumgartner points out, the product page is now live for the company’s Nomad ($149) product that lets subscribers transfer DVR recordings to a PC, iPhone or iPod Touch. (Macs, iPads and Android devices coming soon)
This is reminiscent of a Motorola gadget Dave and I wrote about years ago, but that product never made it to market. Instead, I believe the Motorola Mover was absorbed by Motorola’s Televation platform, which is reportedly coming to Comcast soon. That service will include live, linear streaming to mobile devices in your home. In contrast, the Nomad lets your store recorded video so you can take it with you on the go.
The guys at DBSTalk got their hands on a Nomad box late last month, and they note that transcoding and copying video from your DirecTV DVR requires about the same amount of time it would take to watch the content in the first place. However, you can set series to “autodownload” so that video is ready for transfer shortly after recording. Here are some of the other critical specs per the DirecTV product page.