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    Gear To Go

  • Whether he's reporting from the South Pacific or the streets of San Francisco, Contributing editor James A. Martin investigates the latest products for the mobile set.
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Gear to Go: Take-Out TV

James A. Martin

Video to Go

Photograph: Barry Muniz
The film The Endless Summer helped document the 1960s surfing craze. Now, nearly 40 years later, Internet video-on-demand service CinemaNow hopes that this classic documentary--and other movies--will ignite a craze for Microsoft-based Portable Media Centers (PMCs).

By early fall CinemaNow plans to offer The Endless Summer (it's all good, dude) and about 500 other downloadable videos especially formatted for viewing on a PMC's screen. CinemaNow claims a catalog of some 2000 video titles.

The PMC-formatted videos, which will include recent and classic films, are available either to rent (meaning the file you download can be accessed only for a specific length of time, usually 24 hours) or on a "download-to-own" basis, providing unlimited play. Rates vary by title. Expect to pay about $4 to rent, $15 to own.

For the time being, CinemaNow's Internet video-on-demand competitor, Movielink, doesn't offer titles especially formatted for viewing on PMCs.

James A. Martin writes PC World's Mobile Computing newsletter.

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