Sound quality through a good pair of headphones isn't quite up to the standard of the best MP3 players but with the aid of the graphic equalizer and sound tweaking pre-sets we always found it possible to come up something we could live with.
Next to the 'phones jack is a TV output port and for this Hauppauge does supply composite-video cables. You also get a robust nylon carry case.
The manufacturer-quoted battery run-times are four hours of TV, six of video and eight of music playback. These proved not far of the mark - we got 3h 50m of TV before the lights went out, and 5h 40m of video. Good rather than impressive, we'd say.
Antenna, video cable and carry case supplied - but not earphones
But it's price not battery life or functionality that's Hauppauge's trump card. Hunt around and you can find the myTV Player for just £130 mark, down from an RRP of around £150. That is pretty good value in our book.
Verdict
Assuming you live in an area with decent Freeview reception watching TV on the Hauppauge is a pleasant experience. Either off air or from a memory card video and audio playback are more than acceptable while the external speakers are particularly fine for a device of this size. A higher resolution screen and more comprehensive file support would been nice but as it is first and foremost and mini telly rather than a fully blown media player we can't beat it over the head too ferociously on that front.
Hauppauge myTV Pocket Freeview PMP
COMMENTS
The world may have moved on since 1977
but those fugly buttons seem to have dropped through a timewarp with its other end firmly planted somewhere before the '80s
A tease
It won't work in Ireland, New Zealand, Estonia and all other countries just launching Digital TV as you need MPEG4 decoder, not MPEG2 on the DVB-t signal.
Sony fell on this one with the PlayTV (which can in theory do MPEG4 as the PS3 actually does the decoding, but as the PS3 Firmware only does MPEG2 currently for playTV). They announced it for Ireland, New Zealand, Estonia & etc.
320x240 is a bit feeble :(
It would have to record streams as is, so with MPEG2 DTT time would be poor. About twice recording time in MPEG4 DTT countries :-) With a 4Gbyte SD card you would get maybe 2hrs max BBC1 (MPEG2) or 4hrs MPEG4 (not UK), of course it doesn't do MPEG4. Several DTT tuners have MP4/DivX SD card players and none do MPEG4 from tuner.
Record onto SD would be useful
What a tease: a Freeview receiver with an SD card. The tease being the missing link between the two - being able to *record* TV programmes onto SD card so that the device becomes one of the first, if not the first, solid state Personal Video Recorder. And portable too.
Sandisk have the VMate SD/SDHC recorder but it is not portable and is only for analogue video.
