TVSquad

I can't decide. The new AnyPlay portable PVR from Comcast and Panasonic is either brilliant, or about as good an idea as screen doors on a submarine. On the one hand, we all spend a lot of our time on the go, and there's nothing I love more than a way to take my recorded TV shows and movies with me. On the other hand, you kind of want your PVR to be sitting by your TV 24/7 to make sure you never miss a show.

Here's how AnyPlay works. You set it up by your TV and it works as a regular HD personal video recorder. But you can also unplug it from a docking station and take the AnyPlay with you to use as a portable video player with an 8.5 inch LCD screen and 60GB of memory.

I guess we can hope that the docking station functions as a sort of second PVR and continues recording shows when the P-DVR is unplugged. But really, wouldn't it be a lot easier just to add a USB port or flash card slot to your existing set top boxes to let users copy shows to removable media for viewing on an iPod or other portable device?