I spotted an interesting piece of hardware over at IGN. It's a stand-alone cd burner that's designed expressly as a backup medium for audio and video. The idea is that you could use it like a Tivo for recording TV and also to record from an audio source.
Everybody knows about ReplayTV and TiVo, but those aren't the only ways to record audio and video. And no, I am not talking about the old VCR. Go Terapin has released their own home entertainment A/V recorder: the Terapin. The idea behind the Terapin is pretty straightforward. As you might know, CDs can hold audio, video, and normal data. They don't care. We normally associate CDs with audio and data, but in some parts of the world Video CDs are very popular. They don't have the resolution of DVD, but they are compact and look decent. |
The Terapin is simply a burner with A/V connections so that you can link it to you're a/V system. This way it becomes a recorder for TV programs, old VHS tapes, CDs, vinyl, whatever. So not only can you capture new programming, but also archive material on older, less stable formats.
Go Terapin made sure that the Terapin would be compatible with most systems. The box supports digital coaxial and optical, S-video, and composite ins and outs.
The one downside to this player is that CD-R/RW only holds about 650MB. This is fine if you are dubbing a CD or recording an album, but for video it is not much. You certainly couldn't fit a movie on one.
