The Scourge of CES: The Content Crisis

LAS VEGAS - The second-biggest problem at the Consumer Electronics Show, the World's Most Exhausting Tradeshow, is apparently the Content Crisis. (The biggest problem, as always, is the wait to get a cab.) I hadn't been aware of the Content Crisis or its effect on consumers, but in every aisle of the exhibit halls vendors are anxious to tell me that they have the solution to the Content Crisis - a way to give me more media, more audio and video to play on my iPod, my HD TV, my home theater. And some of them are surprisingly interesting.MusicGiants, for example, is an Internet music store with a difference. It targets the audiophile market and sells really big music downloads. Where other music downloaders sell files that are compressed to bitrates typically around 128Mbps, MusicGiants advertises files with bitrates from 470 to 1100Mbps. "CD quality," says the Web site. Of course, if you're an audiophile, you may believe that "CD quality" is an oxymoron, but it is an interesting story: that not all music downloads are the same, and if you spend a little more you can get better quality.

If your preferred price point is somewhat lower - like down around "free" -- BroadClip may get your attention. The company sells a hardware/software package called MediaCatcher that includes a TV tuner and software to capture video and transfer it to a video iPod.

But beginning next Monday (January 15) it will begin giving away an audio-only version of the MediaCatcher software as free download. Install it, log onto the BroadClip Web site and set up searches for the kind of music you want to hear. The service will locate the music on radio stations streamed across the Web and the software will capture it to your iPod. It's Web-streamed audio, not exactly audiophile quality, but the price is right.

If you've already got a lot of music on antique media like CDs and LPs and cassettes you can rip it yourself, and there are a couple of devices to help.

There are several gadgets and software packages on the market to digitize audio and video and record it using a PC. The iRecord from Streaming Networks Inc. (www.irecord.com) is a a little different -- it doesn't need the PC. This $199 gizmo has S-video or RCA connectors, and records audio and video directly to devices like iPods, Sony PSPs, or USB-connected devices like flash drives and external hard drives. No PC needed. It's all hardware. And, said the enthusiastic young man in the iRecord booth, it automatically recognizes the type of the incoming signal, and splits audio output files into individual tracks.

If you've got a lot of LPs and cassettes you'd like to digitize, Crosley Radio has a hardware solution in the Songwriter CD Recorder. It's not only high-tech, it's a piece of living room furniture -- maybe for your grandmother's living room: a retro wood radio case that opens to reveal a turntable. The unit burns CDs from LPs and cassettes. Simplicity is the key here, so you don't get to choose the file format or fool around with the codec settings. But it also plays LPs, cassettes and CDs. And just looks so different sitting there next to your game console. (And if you want something a little more geeky, Crosley says it will offer a hardware/software product that will work with your PC and optical drive sometime later this year.)