A number of times this conference the comparison between a PSP (Playstation Portable) and a Windows Portable Media Center has come up.
Most folks don't realize that a $250 PSP will fill a specific void in their [media] life. I couldn't justify buying a WindowsPMC brick for >$400, but a $250 PSP was a no-brainer. Why, well, not only is the true 16x9 screen truly unbelievable (literally has to be seen) and it can play games, but it is a VERY accomplished movie viewer.
I have a number of UMDs as they are very inexpensive and fantastically convenient to watch on planes. Flat out: if you fly regularly, buy a PSP and enjoy movies in a great form factor, with a nice screen and stop worrying about laptop battery life (I've yet to drain my PSP battery in a day) or worrying about the guy in front of you whose seat-back will likely come down during the flight.
However, the PSP can also be a fantastic companion to either a Media Center PC, or Beyond TV.
Take a look at PSP Video 9 and how easy (like one button) to transfer video onto a PSP. Note that a 1 GIG Memory Strik can be had for $80 (via Froogle) and can hold as much as 4 hours of video.
This means I can "PSP Cast" a TV show and have the latest episode of "House" show up on my PSP for viewing.
I just can't see how a Portable Media Center (read: brick) can compete with this brilliant device.
UPDATE: I've started using "Crunchie" to convert my Windows Media Center PC's *.dvr-ms files into mpeg or avi. Then they can be fed directly into PSPVideo. This makes one more source I can pull potential TV from. Since I'm going on a 5 day road show next week and have 6 flights, I'd like to have a bunch of TV queued up. I also use DVArchive to pull video from my two ReplayTVs.
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