Have you ever wanted to take your iPad to the garage and watch Dancing with the Stars live? How about sit in the bathroom with your iPhone and catch those final critical moments of the divisional playoff while your wife pounds on the door? And what if you could do all that without paying a monthly DVR fee to your cable company... or even paying for cable at all? Thanks to my new best friends at Simple.TV and their amazing DVR, you can do that starting tomorrow. My wife is going to be so mad.
Simple.TV got its start on Kickstarter so the forward thinking early adopters who took the plunge first with their wallets by offering the company its initial capital will see their little boxes begin shipping on September 27th. All other pre-orders will start shipping on that day as well.
The Simple.TV DVR combines local TV reception and DVR capabilities with place-shifting technology (similar to Slingbox) so you can watch your TV shows live or on-demand from virtually anywhere. It brings live and recorded broadcast television (or basic cable) to your living room or to your connected devices inside and outside the home. Simple.TV turns the iPhone, iPad, Roku box, or virtually any web browser into a full-featured television tuner and DVR that is accessible from just about anywhere you can find an internet connection.
The folks at Simple.TV have a great little box here, folks. This start-up raised $250,000 on Kickstarter and launched at CES 2012 where they won a "Best of Show" Award. The Simple.TV DVR ($149) consists of a high-definition TV tuner that converts broadcast television (or basic cable) into streaming MPEG-4 audio/video for display on the most popular connected devices. With the addition of a high capacity USB 2.0 hard drive, Simple.TV users can store hundreds of hours of their favorite TV shows and HDTV videos and watch them on their mobile devices or connected TVs anywhere they are, even on the run and with no market restrictions.
Unlike most DVRs, Simple.TV has no traditional analog or HDMI video outputs. It doesn't connect directly to a TV, but to a home network. Once connected to your network, Simple.TV streams content directly to a web browser or to dedicated applications that users launch on their favorite connected platforms. For users who want expanded features, Simple.TV offers a Premier Service subscription ($4.99 per month) that adds an electronic program guide, automatic TV series recording, in-depth information on content, and unlimited remote streaming for up to five users. Think TiVo, but with a lower monthly fee.
In a nutshell, you cut back to basic cable or cut cable entirely and use an antenna to pull in your local HD channels for free and the Simple.TV DVR can be programmed to record your favorite shows or deliver a live TV stream. For DVR functionality, you'll need to add on a standard USB drive - the larger the drive, the more shows you'll be able to keep in storage. The Simple.TV box does require an antenna or basic cable feed in order to tune in your channels and a hard-wired network cable to connect the box to your network.
When you are outside the house, you access your content or live programming via a standard web browser such as Chrome, Firefox, or Safari. The DVR is compatible with both Mac and PC platforms as well as Android and iOS tablets and portable devices.
One drawback is that you can't watch or record premium TV channels such as HBO or AMC because they don't come with basic cable (and are not broadcast over the air). But with the money you'll be saving on monthly cable and DVR fees, you can afford to pay to view a few premium shows on iTunes and Amazon VOD and still come out way ahead of the game.
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