Portable Media Center

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Channel 9 have posted a great video of the new Portable Media Center's. The video is an overview of the devices from Brett Bentsen (Product Unit Manager of PMCs).

Portable Media Centers allow you to have all of your favorite video, music, and pictures wherever you are. At WinHEC earlier this year, I personally demo'd the Creative Zen Portable Media Center and it was rather impressive. The ability to store all your entertainment on a device that has a good battery life (8 hours) and one that can output films/TV recordings onto a TV is the unique selling point of the PMCs. PMCs are likely to be a huge hit with kids and teens wanting to watch their favourite TV shows whilst travelling.

If you're still not sure what the PMC is or are interested in the devices then check out this great overview below!

Video: A look at the Portable Media Center

View: More Information on Portable Media Centers

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#1 figgy on 23 Sep 2004 - 17:29

I saw this at the store recently.
This a very sexy looking unit -- the video doesn't do enough justice.
I am getting this for Christmas for sure.

#2 v_magal on 23 Sep 2004 - 18:03

Im getting one after reading about it in Maximumpc

#3 ThunderRiver on 23 Sep 2004 - 18:03

In the stand point of ergonomics, PMC is lousy in term of number of controls and user friendliness. I will pass it on and wait for second generation.

#4 Varsity on 23 Sep 2004 - 18:05

Watched this one earlier. I'm just suprised it took so long for someone to make it...I want one.

#5 Oneill on 23 Sep 2004 - 18:07

Just downloading the video now, bit of a porker but it looks nice, think ill wait for 2nd gen ones as well

(2 replies) #6 aitf311 on 23 Sep 2004 - 18:10

The only difference between this and my pocketpc is the nice gui and a 20gig instead of a 2 gig mem card

To me, it looks like they are trying to get a head start on apple and their new video ipod by updating pocketpcs with a big hard drive...

#6.1 macrosslover on 23 Sep 2004 - 19:14

apple hasn't even announced a video ipod, in fact Jobs thinks that this market is stupid. not everything is done to head off or copy Apple.

#6.2 lare2 on 23 Sep 2004 - 20:38

Ha ha, Apple fan preparing terrain to say that this was also copied from Apple

(2 replies) #7 Oneill on 23 Sep 2004 - 18:23

yeah but unless you have a really fast PDA you wont be able to play quality, full fps video. I know ive had 2 PDAs with 266 samsung and 300mhz xscale cpus

The only limitation as far as i can see is the microsoft only codecs, other than mpeg layers, it should have some sort of upgradeability codec wise, id want to play my xvid etc on one

#7.1 divertom15 on 23 Sep 2004 - 18:50

great thing is if you watched the video it automaticly does the conversion down to the res that the pmc uses thus saving space since most movies on your hard drive are going to be high res and that will drop the file size down considerably eliminating the need for xvid which it also converts the file out of to the pmc's codec.

#7.2 Fonze on 23 Sep 2004 - 19:07

the other thing that wasn't mentioned in the video, if you have movies in your movie library that need to be synced, if you leave wmp open, after 10min of idle time it will start to convert the files into a temporary folder so it can transfer the movies right to the player, saving time, instead of having to wait for them to convert while you are transfering them

#8 Fonze on 23 Sep 2004 - 19:05

I got the creative one. It's very nice how it syncs the media library between player and your computer. With the addition of the MSN music store, there isn't much separating a WMP10, MSN music store, and compatible player combo to the iTunes, iTMS, iPod combo. The only real difference is the wide range of players that will be able to play music from the MSN music store and the single line of players, the iPod, that can play music from the iTMS.

(1 reply) #9 raid517 on 23 Sep 2004 - 19:06

Since when have these become 'cool'? Every assessment/review I've heard so far has been 'bulky', 'fiddly' and 'impractical.'

I don't see much in the video that changes this impression.

#9.1 macrosslover on 23 Sep 2004 - 19:16

what reviews have you read and from where?

yes the reviews have said they are bulky, but that's too be expected from a first generation device. compare gen1 ipods to the new gen and talk about bulky.

all of the reviews i've read, have said it is definetely targeted to early adopters, but it's still a great thing to have and will probably reach the hands of many more consumers once the price of these goes down to mass market levels.

(3 replies) #10 burning_jonny on 23 Sep 2004 - 19:07

So all videos are recompressed? I wonder how the software to tranfer files supports the wide range of audio and video codecs out there. Same things with subtitles (though I'd not want to read them on there).

#10.1 macrosslover on 23 Sep 2004 - 19:17

as far as i know, it only supports windows media video codecs and wma/mp3 audio playback. unfortunately they won't play divx movies, but hopefully somebody will come out with a hack for these devices in the near future enabling them to do it.

#10.2 Fonze on 23 Sep 2004 - 19:55

true, they don't play divx files. but who encodes their divx movies into 320x240 resolution? WMP10 does all of the conversions for you, from divx to wmv, with the proper resolution and bitrate. the player supports a max of 800kbps, at 320x240 you can reach very high quality levels

#10.3 guppydrop on 24 Sep 2004 - 03:45

I converted Evil Dead 2 to .wmv for my PocketPC...version 9.1 video, 9.0 audio, both vbr, at 320x240, and it weighs in at a whopping 74.2 megs and looks incredible. Don't knock the format until you try it.

(2 replies) #11 maiios on 23 Sep 2004 - 20:31

Just to reiterate what others have been saying, WMP10 will convert your movies from any codec it can play to a WMV movie with a resolution fit for the PMC. So basically, you won't have to worry about it being able to play DivX. There have been some tests recently, and most show DivX and WMV9 pretty much on par in terms of quality, WMV9 falling short simply because it's encoder is slower.

#11.1 XanDaMan on 24 Sep 2004 - 05:58

Converting?

Is that not why all Sony players have falied so far? Because you hav to convert....

#11.2 STV on 24 Sep 2004 - 14:09

@XanDaMan: if you see the video, you'll notice that it doesnt take a long time for a song to be converted to wma. and the same goes for video. if you havent seen it, i suggest you watch it before saying such things.

sony's methods will fail because it takes too damn long to just convert one song.

STV

(3 replies) #12 Soviet on 23 Sep 2004 - 21:47

Be cool if it supported memory sticks too... sigh

hmm.. newegg doesnt have any yet.

#12.1 Oneill on 23 Sep 2004 - 22:16

why would you want memory stick, it has a 20gb hdd

#12.2 cal2002 on 23 Sep 2004 - 22:41

Memory sticks? You mean those crappy things Sony makes and few other companies?

#12.3 XanDaMan on 24 Sep 2004 - 05:59

No-one likes memeory sticks. They are too expensive!

#13 afext on 23 Sep 2004 - 22:02

I'd buy one if I had the money, if only for the very slow nights at work. I work overnights and we don't have any sort of television or anything like that, so we end upsitting around for hours at a time with nothing to do but annoy eachother, and this would be an awesome device just to set up at the end of the table so we could watch movies. Damn, I really want one now.

(1 reply) #14 angrybrit on 23 Sep 2004 - 22:41

Ima gonna get an iPod instead. I don't have enough content to watch (movies, anime, etc...) on such a device.

#14.1 cal2002 on 23 Sep 2004 - 22:43

A lot of people are that way, but that's why is basically marketed to people with Media Center PC's.

#15 slimy on 23 Sep 2004 - 23:11

very cool, but i won't get it yet

(1 reply) #16 STV on 24 Sep 2004 - 05:25

even though i think that this is a great thing, i wouldnt buy one. i would rather wait for a faster, more powerful pocket pc with more space because you can do more with a pocket pc. this media center is only for playing media, on more powerful pocket pc can play that kind of media and you can do work.

STV

#16.1 Oneill on 24 Sep 2004 - 13:04

Indeed, these are meant to retail at about £400 over here in the UK, for £120 less i could get a Dell axim X30, with a 624mhz xscale cpu, MORE than enough to crunch good quality movies and spend the extra on a CF or an MMC card, not to mention all the other good stuff that you can do on a PDA

#17 altermind on 24 Sep 2004 - 07:53

I'm trying to get a portable wifi HDD... then I can use it with my wifi ipaq

(1 reply) #18 baSix on 24 Sep 2004 - 10:51

I Like the PMC idea. As well as having an ishload of mp3's I also have hundreds of mpeg music videos that would be great on one of these! Noticably, the Zen is lacking a stand of some sort.

If you don't like the Zen, how about the Samsung Yepp YH-999

Heres a Demo

#18.1 Fonze on 24 Sep 2004 - 15:21

QUOTE

The Zen Portable Media Center also comes with a stylish protective case that doubles as an adjustable stand.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040902/sfth042_1.html

Last edited by 345 on 24 Sep 2004 - 15:28

#19 wizbit on 25 Sep 2004 - 13:09

If this had inbuilt wifi so i could sync'd over a lan it would be fantastic. Having said that i think im gonna buy one anyway.

Al

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Portable Media Center - An Overview

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