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Exactly how far behin is american tech?
i found this at pmptoday...
http://www.pmptoday.com/2008/02/18/tv-p ... -in-japan/

i mean srsly! a tv on your phone? i guess its not completely unheard of especially the way that Apple is headed...but that things been out for 2 yrs already, can you imagine what they'll be doing in another two years? i'll show you...

edit:
Heres a video that NTT DoComo(a prodominent japanese mobile phone operator) has in store for our future.
there some more vids in the related section...point them out if you think they're interesting!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKchgm9Nslk

The reason us crazy Americans haven't done anything like that is because we wouldn't be satisfied with air TV reception. We couldn't attach cable to it and most wouldn't want to wear a satellite dish on our heads, so it's just not good enough. LOL

Here where I live, you're lucky to pull in 5 or 6 TV stations off the air waves, but with cable or satellite, you can have better than 140 to 200 channels at your fingertips.

Thats why we have to Tivo everything and watch it on PCs, PMPs and car monitors.

Heck, I seen a video iPod dock/toilet paper dispenser so you could watch your vids on a 7" screen while stinking up the place.... Hows that for advanced technology? LOL

These have been around for what..... better than 15 years?

I think Americans would be satisfied if a device were able to pull down HD over the air channels, though.

The problem here in the States is that everything will be switching to digital. No more analog in another year. So I'm unclear how a t.v. tuner would work here. The FM tuners already suck in the players.

Here in Cleveland the FM tuners work great and I use it a lot in the mornings.

FM tuners work fine, but I have no interest in watching live television on my PMP or cell phone. I have a DVR, I don't watch commercials. At times I will record on my DVR, and then plop it onto my Ainol V2000SE and fast forward thru commercials.

I don't watch live tv anymore (unless it is sports), so regardless if it has the ability to pull down HD I won't be watching tv from it.

I don't really see a reason for tv on a player anymore either, especially with dvr's so common. However, I would love a player to have AM radio because I listen to a lot of ESPN radio, too much actually, and I would also like to listen to live sports on the player when I'm not near a tv.

Nice to hear you say that mdarch! I'm also an am radio junkie! Can't get enough. I see no reason why these players can't accomodate an am tuner.

If you want a player that will pull in AM radio signals from even the local talk stations, then it will need to contain a ferrite bar antenna with lots of wire windings. Think of the smallest AM pocket-type radio receiver you've seen; that's pretty much the minimum size for a player you can reasonably expect to pull in AM signals. The wavelengths of AM radio signals are longer than FM radio wavelengths by a very large factor, and in radio, the longer the wavelength of a signal you want to hear, the longer the antenna you need to hear that signal. You can cheat somewhat using a ferrite bar with wire windings, but at AM radio wavelengths, you can only reduce the presence of the antenna so much without rendering it completely useless.

I wouldn't think AM radio reception is something most manufacturers of MP3/4 players would consider really important to include in their new players, due to the nature of the mediumwave radio spectrum and its attendant long wavelengths.

That's a good point, buzzy.

But what about transistor radios. Those things were pocket sized and could pull down am stations just fine. Heck, I even had a promotional transitor radio I got from a Seattle Mariners baseball game when I was a kid in the mid 80's in the shape and size of a baseball. All it did was pull down am stations and that thing was pretty small with no antenna.

Wow, Buzzygirl, good info. Good point by Bryce, too, I remember when I was a kid, I got a Yankees pillow (of all things) with a built in am radio receiver, probably in '78 or '79 (yeah, I'm getting old!). Not a baseball size, maybe 12"X12"X4" thick, but no antenna at all, and that worked really well.
What about a pull out antenna, like some of the Cowon units have. Even some of the Korean players that get TV reception have them. I wouldn't mind a hidden antenna that I only pulled out when needed. That could also double as the FM antenna to get rid of the necessity of using the head phone line as one, that would also open up bluetooth to be added, with wireless headphones! Man, I'm going nuts here, I know....

Man, mdarch, you need to be working for the R&D department of one of these companies!

My only problem would be trying to fit the 4 D batteries in a player the size of a credit card.......

I wouldn't mind having a hidden antenna in my player.
the korean Haempaekseu withview player has it and the reception looks really good from the videos.

but...

i had an am radio that was the size of a wallet (twice thicker, but nice speaker included) and doesnt had an antenna it worked really well



and i had a discman who has am-fm radio, and the am radio works just fine without the earphones pluged in but the fm radio doesnt work at all (because the wire works as an antenna, like in stereos, the am radio antenna is tiny compared to the fm one)



the am car radio works great without using the antenna, but the fm doenst work at all if the antenna isnt present



what chu toking bout willis?



being drop that theory, here is mine

when i listen to am radio (almost never) and have a pc monitor (not flat, regular, i give you that) next to the radio, it makes a constant high noise that makes you go crazy after a few minutes. that doesnt happen with fm radio

i know, the monitor has a frequency that i guess has something to do with the frequency of am radio

but you can bet me that something like that cant happen with the portable players screen, being sooooo next to the am receiver?






i think i discovered the conspiracy of portable players against am radio!!!