Digital Trends

The Sansa TakeTV works like a thumb drive for video that hooks up to any television, giving consumers a drag-and-drop approach to watching digital video in their living rooms.

SanDisk has already shaken the market for portable media players with its affordable players packing Apple-like features, and now it’s moving on to the new market for playing downloaded digital video on a television. On Monday, the company announced the Sansa TakeTV, its solution to getting DV off the computer and onto the big screen.

Unlike competitors like AppleTV or a Slingbox, SanDisk skipped the networking approached completely in favor of simplicity. Instead, the TakeTV basically works like a large thumb drive – fill it up with video via a USB connection, then take it to your TV and plug it into its dock, which can be connected to a TV via AV composite inputs or S-video. Everything on the device can in turn be navigated through and played with the TakeTV’s tiny remote.

Of course, compatibility can be a major issue with DV products, but the TakeTV supports major formats used for Internet distribution including DivX, XVID and MPEG-4. SanDisk is also launching its own platform for content distribution, called Fanfare, along with the device. It will give consumers the option of downloading premium paid and ad-supported programs for use with the TakeTV.

SanDisk has made the player available immediately in both a 4GB and 8GB variants, costing $99.99 and $149.99, respectively. A beta version of Fanfare can be downloaded for free at the Fanfare Web site.