Our good friends at GizmosForGeeks cruised through CES’08 this year and one of their highly recommend products was the Pinnacle Video Transfer unit from Pinnacle Systems.  The point of this device is making the record, copy and transfer of your favorite video (TV, DVD etc) to your iPod [or other hand held device] quick and easy.

As seen here, USB is the answer for plug-n-play connection and the Video Transfer box gives three settings for video quality.  Your setting choice will dictate the file size and resolution quality.  The video input options include S-video or Composite video.

The Gizmo guys had a moment to demo the unit and reported the unit was easy to use, compact and simple in operation.

The Pinnacle Video Transfer box will be available later this month for just $129. (more…)

No, I’m not a “player” but the iPlayer is a nice piece of technology for cocktail conversations. The iPlayer is a standalone video player which can run content from a number of different flash media cards or USB drives. In addition, the iPlayer may be connected to either your TV or monitor.

The iPlayer has the ability to quickly and easily share photos, music and movies on your TV or monitor.

Sure, for the home user this might not be the ideal USB gadget for viewing your favorite content, BUT if you are running a business and doing trade shows the iPlayer is clearly worth a second look. The iPlayer makes it easy to set up a video displays without needing a PC or TV. With the combination of the iPlayer and monitor (flat screen I’d assume) you could have a slick looking trade show presentation in little time. (more…)

Capture the everyday moments that happen anywhere, and share them with family and friends everywhere. That’s the idea behind the new Flip video camcorder. It’s portable, simple to use, and amazingly affordable. Shoot anything. Share everything.

Never Miss Another Moment

Flip Video’s simple, one-touch recording feature and compact size make it the ideal choice for capturing videos on the go. No bulky gear, charger, or memory card needed.

Flip camcorder functions
View, Share, and Save Videos With Built-In Software

Flip Video makes sharing videos incredibly simple. Watch your movies instantly on TV using the included cable. Or, connect Flip Video directly to your computer through the built-in USB arm. The simple on-board software makes it easy to view, edit, and share your favorite videos.

• Email videos and greeting cards with ease
• Publish directly to YouTube and Grouper
• Organize and archive your videos

Capture Still Photos and Make Custom Movies

With Flip Video’s on-board software, you can easily edit video clips, capture still photos from your videos, or create custom movies set to music.

Product Description

Simple to use, pocket-sized camcorder with one-touch recording and digital zoom. Holds up to 60 Minutes of TV-Quality video on 1 GB of built-in memory; no tapes or additional memory cards required. Flip Video is equipped with a convenient USB arm that plugs directly into your computer for easy sharing and archiving. Flip’s built-in software lets you easily email videos, share them on YouTube and Grouper, edit your footage, and capture still photos from video. System Requirements: Windows: PC with USB port and Windows 2000 / XP/ Vista. Mac: Macintosh with USB port and Mac OS X.

Looking for other USB video camera items?

Cleverly disguised in a stick of DoubleMint gum this micro camcorder is one of the smallest spy camera’s we’ve seen.

Specifically designed to sit inside a gum pack the camcorder can record up to 33 hours of low-res video. At 15fps the device records directly to a microSD card and my record for about two hours on a single charge. When the juice runs out, recharge via USB.Here is a video clip of footage used from the Spy Camera (more…)

ReplayTV is not the first to introduce a USB dongle for DVR use, however, they are the first to integrate a format easily playable on Apple hand-held devices like iPhone and iPod touch.

The Personal HD system bundles both digital ATSC and analog NTSC technology and play over-the-air HDTV signals or old school analog TV source. So now you TV junkies can overload on adictively pathetic reality TV shows (well, except Survivor).

The real joy of the USB tuner is the software. The Personal HD specifically supports transfer of video to a format playable on widescreen hand-held devices made by Apple. Not to leave anyone out in the cold, the software can preserve multiple shows at once and even support USB devices from rival companies, such as ATI (AMD) and Pinnacle.

The ReplayTV goodie bag for the Personal HD system include direct encoding in a 4:3 ratio, intelligent keyword filter system to find shows by cast member names, show IDs or genre. Although the reply system isn’t out just yet, it will be later this fall at the tune of $100.

Source: Electronista

Kensington eases the pain of laptop life with their all new re-designed notebook USB docking station. The SD200V is a tower update to it’s predecessor, the SD100, a wedge shaped design.

The SD200V allows dual view of monitors with it’s beefed up “DualView” boost feature. Max support is 1280×1024 pixels. The notebook dock station connects to your laptop via a single USB port. From there, you can sync up a VGA monitor, keyboard and mouse along with connection for stereo-out and microphone-in port.

The Kensington dock station includes front USB port for easy connection (although we’d like to see more) and ability to hot swap USB devices and other peripherals without the need to reboot your notebook.

Price set at $139 and pre-orders are being taken at Kensington.

GetUSBinfo reported on the car black box before, it was a standalone system you installed yourself. Now the same technology is available in your navigation system. Albeit only for Korea (for now), it’ll make it to the car capital of the world.

Joy unveiled their 7 inch built-in car nav system, the MD-3000J, with black box which records 12 seconds prior to accident and 18 seconds after. If you didn’t see this coming playback is via the nav console or via USB connection. If you want more details about how the technology works, read about our original Automotive Black Box post.

The Joy MD-3000J system is just over $1,000 USD and not expected until October…that’s for Korea…the rest of us get the DIY black box, or a bike.

Source: Aving News