Compro: USB TV on a Stick - Now for Real

Compro just informed us of their latest work of miniaturization - the VideoMate U880 USB TV stick. Measuring at just 9 x 2.6 x 1.1 cm, the U880 is really just the size of a large USB flash drive, like the Kingston Data Traveler Elite. The company has to strip the U880 down to just one F jack for coaxial input in order to get the TV tuner down to this size.

The VideoMate U880 USB TV Stick offers USB bus-powered at the expense of hardware encoding. Xceive supplies the analog TV tuner chip, which is universally compatible with TV standards worldwide. Besides pumping TV signals to your laptop, Compro Video Mate U880 can handle time-shifting, straight-to-disc without HD buffering and MPEG-1/2/4 recording. Though, you'll need to shell out for 3rd party MPEG-4 codec. And you'll also have to live with mono audio in PAL and NTSC mode. There's always a price to pay for portability.

U880's sibling - the U900 TV Tiny - is similar in features, but a tad larger; it offers NiCAM stereo, 32-key remote and S-video/composite inputs.