The PennyCam from StealthVue is a hidden camera that captures upwardly-angled pictures. It’s best used on the counter of a corner store, snapping a clear identifiable photo of the person’s face. The cam is in a Take-A-Penny, Leave-A-Penny tray, and is connected to a DVR with a standard BNC cable that is below the counter.

It’s powered by a 12V adapter, and will capture images in 500 x 582 resolution thanks to the 0.33″ Sony CCD image sensor. The StealthVue PennyCam will cost you $199. Once you have it, you can confront them with the evidence. “You took a penny, but never left a penny.” “No I didn’t” Then show them the proof. You’ll never again have to be taken advantage of by penny tray abusers.

Iomega is getting into the DVR storage expansion business with today’s unveiling of a new external eSATA-compatible hard drive. The model is called the Iomega DVR Expander Drive and pricing is set around $200.

The Iomega DVR Expander Drive brings 500GB of additional storage to the DVR, which Iomega says increases storage capacity “by as much as 300 hours of standard-definition TV or 60 hours of high-definition TV.” It is currently certified compatible with an eSATA-enabled Scientific Atlanta DVR when connected to the eSATA port on the back panel of the DVR.

If you’ve been looking for a cheap digital video camera for posting YouTube videos, there is the JVC Everio, but some might find it a bit too large to carry around on a daily basis, and maybe you’re looking for something cheaper still. The Flip camcorders a favorite, but they might have some competition with the latest Vivitar model.

The DVR565HD can record 30fps 720P “HD” videos in MPEG4 or H.264 directly to an SD card. (Up to 4GB cards are supported.) It can also apparently play 1080i videos and can connect directly to an HDTV with an included HDMI cable. It won’t be available for a few more weeks, but Target currently has it listed for just $129.99, which makes it pretty tempting.

D-Link, which first introduced the DSM-750 back in September, is now making this device available for purchase at around $330. It is essentially a set-top HD Extender for Windows Media Center.

The DSM-750 lets you play and display music, photos, movies, online content and live/recorded television on connected televisions throughout the house. You can get the full details on this device after the jump.

Sony is launching it’s BDZ series of Blu-ray recorders, with the A70 and high-end T90 that are capable of picking up unprotected HDTV feeds, relying on AVC (H.264) encoding in order to record shows for future viewing on their 320GB and 500GB hard drives. If you like, you can record videos straight to Blu-ray, and it can also convert videos directly to portable formats, which is really handy.

Some other features include both analog and digital TV tuners, Sony’s Room Link, HDMI output, S-Video, and RCA. Both models will ship on April 30th in Japan. The prices start from $1,664 upwards. No info yet on whether we will see these in the US.

Swann Communications has been putting out security peripherals for about ten years now and on Thursday announced the release of their latest surveillance convenience tool with the USB 2.0 DVR Guardian. This device can connect to a standard notebook computer via USB and allow it to perform as a quad-monitor surveillance system.

The Guardian can not only monitor and display the video from 1-4 cameras, but can also be set to record from the inputs direct to the local hard drive. DVR-like capabilities allow you to set it to record at specific times of the day or for a set duration upon sensing any motion in its view. The software will then let you control and monitor remotely. Combine this with its ability to send out an email when motion is detected and you can catch would-be thieves in the act.

Sling Media today has announced a new mobile client for those wishing to access their television programming while on the go. It is known as the SlingPlayer Mobile for UIQ on Symbian OS. It will run you around $30 for this software once it is released.

The SlingPlayer™ Mobile for UIQ on Symbian OS brings to compatible Symbian based mobiles the ability to watch and control home television when a Slingbox is installed at home. All of this is done over a wireless Internet connection, be it cellular or Wi-Fi. SlingPlayer Mobile also lets one “control their home digital video recorder (DVR) to watch recorded shows, pause, rewind, and fast forward live TV and even program and watch new recordings while away from home.”

Tivo this week released a paid update of its software which will make it easier for its customers to download video to their Tivo boxes. It is known as Tivo Desktop Plus 2.6 and it will run you around $25.

The Tivo Desktop Plus 2.6 software, available for Windows users only at this moment, makes use of the Tivo Season Pass functionality to let one manage web video content. With it one can subscribe to RSS feeds over a range of video content. This is done in conjunction with Web browsers, RSS video clients such as iTunes podcasts, or other video download software to automatically copy to their TiVo DVR’s Now Playing List alongside recorded broadcast and cable TV shows.

Mitsubishi just launched two new Blu-ray recorders set for Japan with the DVR-BZ200 and the DVR-BZ100. The two recorders each house an internal HDD with 500GB and 250GB capacities, respectively.

The part that really makes these Blu-ray records most notable is that they can record HD content onto a regular DVD disc with Blu-ray’s AVCREC specs. You can fit around a couple of hours of Full HD MPEG video onto a standard 4.7GB DVD, and set it to record using the super-cool, included touch screen remote control.

Tivo is getting set to add another online offering to owners of its digital video recorders. This time around the company has announced a new relationship with YouTube to bring online videos to your set top DVR.

Under the terms of the announcement Tivo will begin to offer access to YouTube videos directly to owners of Tivo Series 3 DVRs – sorry Series 2 owners, you look to be out of luck. Access will be included for the Tivo HD as well.

Starting Tuesday Time Warner’s HBO will begin HBO On Broadband, a trial of a new online video download service bringing HBO content to subscribers’ computers much like HBO On Demand does but with much more content. The new service will offer 400 hours of video content including 130 movie titles that can all be downloaded and viewed through a computer.

Before you get too excited about getting the Sapranos downloaded you’ll want to note that this is starting out as a limited area trial and has some requirements. The HBO On Broadband service will initial launch only in the Wisconsin areas of Green Bay and Milwaukee with plans of expanding to other areas at a later time. Those residing in the eligible areas must also be subscribers to HBO’s pay-cable network and must use their cable company as their internet provider, making the bundled services from the cable providers a more attractive prospect. The service is also limited to Windows systems.

Sony used CES this week as a platform to unveil a HD version of one of its computers. This “spherical digital living system” is called the VAIO TP and it will be available later this month in a standard version for around $1,600 and a premium version at around $3,000.

The updated VAIO TP is now HD friendly, according to Sony, and can support playback of premium HD channels when separate CableCARDs are plugged into it. This option though is only available on the premium version. The upside though is both versions come with a Blu-ray Disc optical drive.

Get more details on the new VAIO TP after the jump.

DVR heavyweight TiVo has been relatively quiet at CES this year, making only one announcement of note. It’s a pretty big deal, at least to TiVo users. TiVo is planning to let its customer base make use of RSS feeds to pull down Web video content for view on their DVRs. The company plans to roll out this service addition in March.

TiVo said specifically customers who upgrade to TiVo’s newest pay for desktop software will be able to use the DVR’s Season Pass functionality to schedule and automatically download new Web video across a variety of categories.

Soyo, a developer of consumer electronics products, is showcasing at CES a new line of televisions being branded under the venerable Honeywell label. These televisions are known as the Altura LCD HDTVs and will come in a variety of sizes ranging from 42 to 82-inches (damm!).

The Honeywell Altura LCD HDTVs share a variety of features in common, including full HD 1080p, SRS TruBass and TruSurround, Dolby Digital ProLogicII Sound and MTS/SAP, a/v stereo and a dynamic contrast ratio of 120,000:1. You can read more about this line up of Honeywell televisions via the full press release after the jump.

Archos showed up at CES this week with its own taking on the DVR category. It’s calling its product the Archos TV+ and it should be pricing at around $250 for a 80GB model and $350 for a 250GB one.

The Archos TV+ is, according to Archos, both a TV recording device and a wireless receiver for enjoying digital media content via your television. It can connect to both your home network and the Internet to stream video content, music and photos. You can also browse Web pages, check online email, synch content recorded to it to an Archos PMP and record video in VGA resolution.