A lot of advancements have been made over the past few years when it comes to the ability of portable electronic devices to allow you to take your entertainment with you wherever you go. It really started with the introduction of MP3 players back in the nineties. MP3 players offered a way for people to a large number of digital quality songs of their choosing in a small package that could be listened to on headphones, over a car's sound system, or even over a normal stereo with the use of a special docking station. More recently the ability to play video has been added to the older MP3 player. The result is a device called a portable video device that has a built in color LCD screen and a larger built in hard drive. Portable video devices still play MP3's and other digital audio formats. The can also store and display digital photos and most portable video devices can display their visual elements (video and digital photographs) on a normal TV screen.
The benefits of portable video players are numerous, but perhaps the best benefit is the ability of portable video players to let their owners take advantage of time that would otherwise be wasted by using it to watch TV that they otherwise wouldn't have the time for. That means that the owners of portable video devices can use time spent sitting on a plane or in a doctor's waiting room to watch the TV that they love so that they have more time to spend with their families later.
The trouble with most portable video devices is that it is difficult to acquire video for them. That's because of the nature of the Internet that's the main source for video and the nature of all of the different video formats on the Internet which create compatibility issues.
An answer to these problems has presented itself in the form of PocketDish technology from Dish Network. PocketDishes are a series of portable video devices marketed by Dish Network, all of which acquire their video from the digital video recorders that are part of some of Dish Network's satellite receiver units. They do this by downloading specific videos over a USB 2.0 port connection in a process that can download an hour of video in about five minutes of real time. The fact that the PocketDishes take advantage of technology and graphical user interfaces that users of Dish Network digital video players are already used to makes getting video for a PocketDish a much more user friendly experience than the process involved in getting video for another portable video device. As an added benefit, Dish Network doesn't charge anything extra for downloading video. This can add up to a substantial amount of savings over on line video downloads.
The more advanced models in the PocketDish line also provide an alternative source of video by being self contained digital video recorders in and of themselves. These PocketDishes can record video other electronic devices that play video. This feature creates a vast number of sources of video that PocketDish owners can enjoy regardless of whether or not they have digital video recorders. All around, the PocketDish represents another step ahead in portable entertainment technology.
