[Bobb]

Greetings everyone.

I am a long-time, dedicated BlackBerry smartphone user.

I own an Archos 5 media tablet, onto which I often copy television programs (usually Formula 1 motor races) that have been recorded onto my DVR for viewing at a later time when I am traveling out of town. I'd like to pick up a BB Playbook, as it will have many more functions, sync with my BB 9700, and also have a larger screen on which I can view videos.

Question: can video be dubbed onto the Playbook from an external source such as a DVR? Sure, I'm aware that the Playbook can play digital video files, including video files that can be transferred or downloaded to it, but is there any way to dub (copy/record) video from a source such as a VCR, DVR, camcorder, etc? By dubbing, I mean inputting an audio/video signal into the Playbook via HDMI or other connections. As far as I can tell, there are no inputs on the Playbook that will allow this function to be performed (which I can do via the dock connected to my Archos media tablet).

Any dongles, docks, or other device that will allow me to accomplish video dubbing with a Playbook? Any "workarounds" that would make this happen? Speed is not important to me in this instance. I often just connect my docked Archos device to my DVR via composite video/analog stereo audio cables, and then play the recorded DVR content while recording to my Archos. It's done it real-time as I go off to do other things, but at the end of the day, I end up with a number of dubbed programs on my device which I can then take with me for viewing on airplanes, visits to out-of-town family, etc. Sure would love to do this with a Playbook...but I believe I'm just dreaming.

Your thoughts and suggestions, if any????

[steakman]

could you not just record it..and save to a thumb drive and then transfer to your PB..??

[nobody7290]

AFAIK there is no such accessory for the Playbook as the DVR Station for the Archos Tablet.
You could build a recording and real-time transcoding chain to the playbook using a digital Sat receiver or Cable receiver plus VLC player, which will result in what you desire, but this is maybe beyond what you want to do:

Buy a Enigma2 based STB either for Sat or Cable. Connect it to your network.
Have an I7 based PC(windows or even Mac) with enough idle cores.
For every channel you need to program, setup a VLC transcoding chain which will live transcode to the USB connected playbook
Schedule a task for a specific transcoding chain, depending on the program you want to record.

If you already have a multi-core PC which runs anyway all day long, the STB will be around 200 Euros.
Everything else is Free.

Otherwise you may use the STB to record to your PCs harddrive. This is simple. But afterwards you have to convert the Video manually. Conversion might take about 1/10th of the recorded material. But, this is not as convenient as leaving the playbook connected to the PC, disconnect it, and then having your recorded movies on it.