20GB portable media player from Sony (again) Portable AV / Sony Posted by zmcnulty on May 27, 2004 - 09:54 AM |
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If you didn't like the VAIO Pocket [1] introduced by Sony a mere two weeks ago, take a look at this. Sony will release the "HMP-A1," a portable video player with a 20GB HD, on June 26th. While the official price is Open Price, the estimated price is around 63,000 yen. Supported operating systems are Windows 2000, XP, and XP Media Center Edition. This is a portable video player with a 3.5" TFT capable of displaying 320 x 240. It contains a 20GB HD, and can playback files transferred from a PC such as MPEG-1/2/4 video, MP3/WAVE audio, and JPEG. It features a touch sensor interface to the right of the screen, which is said to "allow intuitive operation." The player is furnished with a USB 2.0 port, and video data is transferred to the device using the included "HMP-Image Transfer Manager" software. The supported file formats are the "Giga Pocket" format local to Vaios, MPEG-1/2/4, JPEG, MP3, etc. Furthermore, it does not support the playback of ATRAC3/ATRAC3plus. Also, DV(AVI), WMV, dvr-ms (Media Center Edition's recording format), etc. are converted to MPEG-2/MPEG-4 during transfer. BMP, GIF, PNG, and TIFF still image files are converted to JPEG during transfer. For audio file transfer, MusicMatch Jukebox is used. Although Sony has had the "PCVA-HVP20" portable video player with a 20GB capacity on sale for a while now, the "HMP-A1" supports playback of MPEG-4 and MP3. Also, it has a smaller body size, and is 50g lighter. Apart from a USB 2.0 port, it features a video/audio output jack. It connects to a PC via USB, and can be used as data storage, though video and audio files directly copied with this method cannot be played back on the HMP-A1 (yet, I'm sure someone will hack it). Using the internal lithium ion battery, the maximum battery life while playing 1Mbps MPEG-4 is 6 hours, a 4Mbps MPEG-2 at 4 hours, and 8 hours for MP3. Recharging takes about 2.5 hours. It also supports recharging via USB, and will take around 7 hours to recharge in this manner. The external dimensions are 129.6 x 22 x 75.6mm (W x D x H), and the weight is around 250g. A remote controller that can play/stop, adjust the volume and such is included as well as headphones, a 1.5m USB cable, an AV cable, AC adapter, hand strap, and exclusive carrying case.   Inspired by (plenty more pictures): http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20040527/sony.htm [3] Press Release: http://www.sony.jp/CorporateCruise/Press/200405/05-0527/ [4] Product Information: http://www.sony.jp/products/Consumer/HMP/ [5] PCVA-HVP20: http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20031110/sony.htm [6] VAIO Pocket (TechJapan): http://www.techjapan.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=276 [7] |
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This article is from TechJapan http://www.techjapan.com/ The URL for this story is: http://www.techjapan.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=313 Links in this article [1] http://www.techjapan.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=276 [2] http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20031110/sony.htm [3] http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20040527/sony.htm [4] http://www.sony.jp/CorporateCruise/Press/200405/05-0527/ [5] http://www.sony.jp/products/Consumer/HMP/ [6] http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20031110/sony.htm [7] http://www.techjapan.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=276 |