The FlipShare TV is a new set-top box from the Flip video folks, and it looks like nothing as much as a smoke alarm. The little box hooks up to your TV (HDMI or composite) and receives video wirelessly from a nearby computer via a proprietary USB dongle (using a tweaked version of 802.11n). A small remote control lets you, well, control things from the comfort of your sofa. It costs $150.
$150 for plug-and-play wireless video connection sounds pretty good to me (or it would, if my TV screen wasn’t smaller than my laptop screen), but there’s a catch (you saw that coming, right?). First, you’ll need to be running Flip’s own FlipShare software, an you will be limited to the formats that you can play, just like the Apple TV. You can stream standard-def video in AVI and MPEG-4 format, and HS (1280×720) in MPEG-4. Any other formats (including some actually created by the software), will need to be converted.
There are some other features, like the ability to share your clips on a kind of private YouTube for Flip owners, allowing grandparents to watch videos of the grandkids, for example, but it seems like an afterthought.
These various “solutions” (Apple TV, FlipShare TV and the Slingbox) are all temporary fixes. Soon enough, our TVs will be computers, and this stupid differentiation between types of screen will be dead. Until then, I’ll stick to watching my RSS triggered BitTorrent TV shows on my MacBook. In bed.
FlipShareTV [Flip. Thanks! Jamie!]
Pure Digital FlipShare TV Review [Wired.com]
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