No Clear Choice for DVDs

I spend a lot of my limited brainpower finding things to write about in my column, but sometimes I also have to decide when I'm through covering a topic. That issue comes up when a technology has become so cheap, so commonplace that a customer can pick just on price, looks or some other quality easily judged in the store.

So, for instance, we don't have reviews of such once-pioneering technologies as USB keychains, MiniDV digital camcorders and DVD players.

It looks like DVD recorders have now joined those ranks. How do I know?

The Target circular that came with The Post two Sundays ago not only featured a DVD recorder, but featured on its cover -- at the top of the cover, even, and for only $88.

I don't think you can get much more mainstream than that. The amazing -- or perhaps just perplexing -- thing is, this category of product has scrambled to mass-market status even though manufacturers forgot to standardize on one recording format. Some models employ only DVD+RW and DVD+R media, while others require DVD-R, DVD-RW or DVD-RAM. (A small but growing minority can record on all the different disc formats, sparing consumers the anxiety of bringing home the wrong kind of blank disc.)

That weekend's inserts also had evidence of another technology transition. Two of the four DVD players shown in Best Buy's inserts advertised video "upconversion," which electronically amplifies DVD video to a high-definition resolution. In this case, a feature once reserved for the videophile fringe is becoming an easily accessible upgrade. And it's doing this just in time to compete head-on with HD DVD and Blu-Ray, the two competing, incompatible high-def disc formats.

That's going to give customers an interesting choice. Will they prefer a cheap, compatible player that makes all their existing DVDs look pretty darn close to high-definition, or will they pay much more for a player that might be abandoned by the market in a couple of years and will be wrapped up in layers of "digital rights management" usage controls, but can deliver the highest of high-definition video formats?

Bonus Review: Apple IPod Radio Remote

This tiny, $49 device for the iPod Nano and the video iPod looks like only a remote control (its layout of buttons mirrors that of the iPod Shuffle), but it also hides a tiny analog FM tuner. Once you install an iPod software update from Apple, plugging the Radio Remote into an iPod adds a "Radio" item to its menu.

Selecting that brings up a nifty radio-dial interface on the iPod's screen: You scan from station to station with the iPod's ClickWheel, then set a preset with the center button (denoted by a little caret symbol below that spot on the dial). Once you've tuned into a station, the ClickWheel acts as a volume control, but pressing the center button again returns you to to the tuning mode. (The Radio Remote's own buttons can only jump you between presets, adjust the volume and turn the radio on and off.)

The nifty part is, if a station uses Radio Data System technology to broadcast its call letters and program information such as a song's title and artist, the Radio Remote will display that info on the iPod's screen.

A lot of other digital-music players have FM tuners built in, but I don't know any that include RDS -- most car stereos and home-theater receivers don't. To have it included on a sub-$50 accessory roughly the same size as the last joint on your thumb is an unexpected, pleasant surprise. Being able to record a live radio broadcast for future listening would be nicer yet -- instant podcasts! -- but is not available.