I'm not sure how well this particular item will go over when you walk through the X-Ray machine before boarding the plane, but it's an interesting piece of equipment, nonetheless. ViewCast is now pitching the NiagaraMAX, a portable, streaming video encoding system housed in a rugged aluminum executive briefcase that they say fits in an airline overhead bin. The NiagaraMAX is part of ViewCast's family of Niagara Streaming Systems, which the company says are packaged encoding solutions designed to meet the needs of video professionals, service bureaus and corporations who need to take streaming video on the road. The NiagaraMAX has dual Pentium III 1 GHz processors, a 17" Digital Flat Panel display (1280x1024) with the viewable area of a 19" CRT, and gads of video and audio inputs, including Composite, S-Video, DV, and SDI with embedded audio, balanced and unbalanced stereo and AES/EBU digital audio inputs. You also get a 40x CD-RW and a full size keyboard with a Logitech mouse. The brawny portable weighs in at 32 pounds and includes Niagara's SimulStream for simultaneous multiple bit rate streaming in Real and Windows formats using only one streaming capture card; and Niagara SCX (Stream Control eXtension) which enables remote monitoring and control of multiple or distributed streaming encoders via a unified RealProducer and Microsoft Windows Media interface. These systems also feature ViewCast's Osprey capture or codec cards. It probably costs an arm and a leg, but it could probably save you money if you use the old "I brought the movies, you buy the beer and pizza" line. Throw a generator in your backpack and you could take it camping.