Saw AWESOME HD recorder. No copy protection. HD out. Set top. Real time.

[Evilmind]

On Citytv I recently saw one of the many Ideacity'06 speakers. He was a futurist named Gregory Harper and brought many gadgets to talk about. At about 15mins in, he showed off a device that sounded terrific. I want to know what he was talking about. Below is a transcript of what he says.

I hope someone knows what he is talking about. Please tell me the name of this device. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

partial transcript of Gregory Harper @ Ideacity'06:

"This is a complete media center PC.
[holds up a black box the size of a internal HD]
Yes. A complete media center PC.
It's got a 100 Gig hard drive in it.
It's got high definition video out.
It's got multi channel sound out.
It's controlled by a remote control like any other remote control you might have.
It will run as part of a PC or it will run stand alone.
And I can put DVDs in here and the software they give you rips the DVDs in their FULL QUALITY.
EXACTLY the same as if you put a DVD in."

He named the Neuros he showed off immediately before this product but never named this one. When Gregory Harper shows off the device to the audience, you can see some sort of name on the device. Maybe someone with HD can read it, but sadly I can't.

Any ideas what this could be?

[Nelson37]

Did it have a crust on it, a fruit filling, and was several hundred feet in the air?

[hudsonf]

That was probably the RONCO HD DVDMATIC 2000

[Evilmind]

Ok I think I found out the name of this product: It's the Spatz-Tech's DVIMAGIC.

It might be something else like it by Spatz-Tech but the picture I found matches the approximate size and logo stamp I saw Gregory Harper hold up the IdeaCity segment I posted about above. Given that spatz-tech is a Dutch company (no DMCA) and they have a tutorial explaining EDID striping, it seems to follow logically that this company would have made what I talk about above.

I found this by random chance as I recognized the picture at old engadget article I stumbled onto. That article is important in explaining why devices like this would likely lose functionality as Hollywood declares them "rogue devices" and revokes their device keys. However the article also describes the counter to that: pull the valid chip out of some other random piece of hardware with valid keys and replace the chip in the dongle. I also found a second article that was useful about this device. Some of the comments (like MisterAPL's) were especially interesting... "Evenmore the device looks identically constructed with the DTronics DD-D12."

I would still love to hear from someone who has seen that episode of IdeaCity'06 and can make out the text on the device to confirm this educated guess of mine.

BTW the RONCO HD DVDMATIC 2000 is in reference to an infomercial food processor. hudsonf was being a smartass rather than being useful.

[mpack]

Am I going nuts? All the devices you mention seem to be no more than distribution amps (repeaters) for extending DVI cable lengths. Even if the DMCA applied, it wouldnt... (IYSWIM). Why do you think that a "complete media center PC" is a valid description of these things?

[jagabo]

Yes, the mythical DVIMagic is a DVI splitter that's supposed to remove HDCP encryption. It has no hard drive, no recording ability, no DVD handling, etc.

I use the term mythical because I've never seen any reports from anyone who actually had one and the device disappeared from Spatz's web site soon after the reports at Engadget and other places.

A few devices I know that will record HD from component inputs (720p and 1080i) are the Hauppauge HD PVR (hardware h.264 encoder) and the BlackMagic Intensity Pro. The latter also has HDMI input but it will not record HDCP protected sources.

[hudsonf]

I hope you didn't try to find a DVDMATIC 2000. Just like the pie in the sky post it was a joke. If this device did exist I don't think they could be legally sold.

[jagabo]

There's also the HDFury, an HDMI to VGA adaptor which allows HDCP protected material to be displayed on RGB monitors and HDTVs. I hear an HDMI to component version is in the works too.