Go Play AV: Portable Audio, Video, Media and Game Players

What more can we say? Apple strike gold again where everyone else found nothing.

CUPERTINO, Calif., Oct. 31 — Apple(R) today announced that iTunes(R) Music Store customers have purchased and downloaded more than one million videos since they debuted on October 12. Customers can choose from over 2,000 music videos, Pixar short films and hit TV shows for just $1.99. Top downloads include music videos from Michael Jackson, Fatboy Slim and Kanye West; Pixar’s “For the Birds” and “Boundin’”; and episodes of ABC’s hit TV shows “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives.”
“Selling one million videos in less than 20 days strongly suggests there is a market for legal video downloads,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Our next challenge is to broaden our content offerings, so that customers can enjoy watching more videos on their computers and new iPods.”

You may remember we wrote an opinion piece the day before the video enabled iPod was released suggesting:

If (or when) Apple release an iPod video sooner or later as widely expected, the reality is there’s no established player that owns the portable video player (also referred to as the personal video player) market for them to compete with. They could find domination of that market even easier than the MP3 player market.

One million in three weeks? Seems there just might be some truth in that prediction of ours…

Read source article: iTunes Music Store Sells One Million Videos in Less Than 20 Days

Lookup on Amazon: “Apple 60 GB iPod with Video Playback Black” (Apple Computer)

Lookup on Amazon: “Apple 60 GB iPod with Video Playback White” (Apple Computer)

Technorati Tags: Apple, ipod video, personal video player, portable entertainment, portable media player, portable video

Another review of the Creative Zen Vision, this time by PC Magazine

Bottom Line
With a big, beautiful screen, the Zen Vision offers a compelling audiovisual experience, but it’s not without its drawbacks.

Pros
Large, high-resolution screen. Good included earbuds. Strong headphone output. Video and photos look great.

Cons
Narrow viewing angle. Background noise during some audio playback. No line-in audio recording. No repeat for slideshows. No sequential playback or playlists for video. Inadequate documentatio

This thing is getting almost as much press as the video enabled iPod - and rightly so. With it’s larger screen in particular, it does offer a viable alternative.

Key Specs:
Creative
Creative Zen Vision
Display size: 3.7inch
Capacity: 30GB
Dimensions: 124.2 x 74.4 x 20.1 mm, 239gm
Hard drive
Audio formats: MP3, WMA, WAV
Video formats: AVI, MPEG4, WMV, DivX, Motion-JPEG, XviD
PC Magazine

Read source article: Creative Zen Vision review by PC Magazine

Lookup on Amazon: “Creative Zen Vision 30 GB Multimedia Player White” (Creative Labs)

Technorati Tags: creative zen vision, personal video player, portable entertainment, portable media player, portable video

I guess this is what happens when you’re standing upside down all day, but the folks from cNet Down Under have posted a review of why the older fourth generation iPod is better than the new 5G - for audio at least.

The new Apple iPod is no doubt the most capable iPod to date. It’s sleeker than its predecessor, and it gives you the option to watch video. But if you use your iPod mainly for music, which one is best for audio only?

1. Better overall battery life
2. Faster processing
3. More Click Wheel = defter navigation
4. More robust design
5. Remote control

After comparing the two, I’ve come up with five reasons why I’d pick the 4G iPod (the 20GB photo, to be exact), and over the 30GB 5G model if I just wanted to listen to tunes.

Read source article: Five reasons why the 4G iPod is better — for audio: Commentary / Opinion
Lookup on Amazon: “Apple 60 GB iPod with Video Playback Black” (Apple Computer)

Lookup on Amazon: “Apple 20 GB iPod Photo MA079LL/A” (Apple Computer)

Technorati Tags: Apple, digital audio player, ipod, ipod video, personal video player, portable audio, portable entertainment, portable media player, portable video, video ipod

Q-BE’s claim that the Q-Be is the smallest MP3 player in the world is hard to argue with, fortunately it doesn’t come in iPod white, lest we mistake it for a sugar cube and drop it in our coffee. Bearing in mind that these things even come with a screen, you have to wonder why the iPod shuffle doesn’t.

TrustedReviews who label themselves as “The UK’s Premier Source for IT Reviews & News”, have announced the availability of the Q-BE in the UK.

You may or may not already know about the Q-BE? Its been out in the US for a while now and is also referred to as the “MobiBlu”. Still none the wiser? Well, it claims to be the world’s smallest MP3 player and our war mongering brethren have been snapping them up so fast the hot cakes line is positively deserted. Now it has arrived in the UK.

Key Specs:
Display size: About the size of a thumbtack!
Capacity: 512MB and 1GB
Dimensions: 24mm x 24mm x 24mm
Audio formats: MP3 andWMA

Read source article: TrustedReviews - The UK’s Premier Source for IT Reviews & News

Technorati Tags: digital audio player, mp3 player, portable entertainment

TrustedReviews review what we’ve all been waiting for - the Swiss Army Knife with built in MP3 player.

Top of the list of cool products has to be the new s.beat. Building on the success of the SwissMemory Victorinox range of combined Swiss Army Knives and USB memory keys, the s.beat takes this concept to the next logical step – slotting an MP3 player into a Swiss Army knife!

The s.beat combines a truly tiny MP3 player with a slightly larger Swiss Army knife, but the whole package still only measures 74 x 22 x 24mm. Like the previous knife models, you get a blade, a pair of scissors and a nail file/screwdriver as well as the MP3 player/memory key.

Mp3 Player and all, we still can’t see you getting on an aeroplane though. Better buy an iPod as well.

Key Specs:
Capacity: 1GB, 2GB and 4GB
Dimensions: 74 x 22 x 24mm
Audio formats: MP3, OGG and WMA

Read source article: TrustedReviews - The UK’s Premier Source for IT Reviews & News

Technorati Tags: digital audio player, mp3 player, portable audio, portable entertainment, swiss army knife

The MP3 Players announce the upcoming release of the SVA HM1000

While a lot of China manufacturers imitate others’ design, some of them is trying to prove their ability with their own design. Pictured is the upcoming PMP of SVA - HM1000, which is patented.

HM1000 is powered by a 200Mhz DSP and 64MB SDRAM. The DSP (SD7001cb) is developed by SVA’s engineers. It is speculated to have 20GB of storage capacity with CF card supported. According to the source, HM1000 supports playback of real media(RM/RMVB) video!

Read source article: SVA HM1000 Preview | The MP3 Players

Technorati Tags: personal video player, portable entertainment, portable media player, portable video

Engadget provide a mini mini review of the PQI mPack 600, HDTV portable media player

Power Quotient International is a Taiwanese firm who will be releasing the “mPack P600” on November 12th in Japan. We’ve addressed the mPack 600 in the past — it’s a portable media player that features and integrated 20GB hard drive and 4-inch widescreen LCD. It can play MP3, WMA, AC3, M4A, WAV, and Ogg Vorbis audio files, and MPEG-1/2/4, DivX, XviD, and AVI video files. So why bring it up again? The unit features Component video output, and can pipe 480i, 576i, 720p, and 1080i signals out to your HDTV. This isn’t upscaling — this small thing is capable of decoding video streams with such high bitrates. Audio hasn’t been left out; it has optical digital output for 5.1ch streams. PQI also plans on introducing more functionality into the device, such as GPS, USB On-The-Go, PDA functionality, gaming, and so on. You should see about 4 hours of battery life from the player with video, but the company didn’t specify whether or not this number applied to the playback of HDTV content. We doubt it.

Key Specs:
Display size: 4inch
Capacity: 20GB
Audio formats: MP3, WMA, AC3, M4A, WAV, and Ogg Vorbis
Video formats: MPEG1 MPEG2 MEPG4, DivX, XviD, and AVI

Read source article: PQI mPack 600, HDTV portable media player

Technorati Tags: personal video player, portable entertainment, portable media player, portable video

DAPRreview.net, provide a quick comment on the Maxian’s T-600 and Viliv’s P1 portable media players

While browsing AVing, we also ran into this familiar-looking duo: the Maxian T600 and the Viliv P1. Both are to be considered “next-gen PMP/PVRs” and come with mightiliy fine next-gen specs as a result of that.

Hmmm… that T600 is way more compact than the P1, so it seems: 139 x 73 x 19 mm (T600) vs. 161 x 74 x 18mm for the P1. Then again, if you’re into PSP/iPod hybrids, the P1 will probably be more to your likings. Both units come in 20 and 30GB editions ( although they’re still working on the 30GB version over at Viliv) and WQVGA(480 x 272) TFT LCDs, among other things. Lots of supported file formats, just scroll down to the bottom of each page (or read our previous news items on these devices).

Note that very iPod ish click wheel on the Viliv P1…

Read source article: dapreview.net: News / Comments / More “other looks”: Maxian’s T-600 and Viliv’s P1

A plethora of reviews of Apple’s fifth generation iPod with video playback as flooded the internet. Rather than try to keep up with them all, we’ll take a leaf out of Engadget’s book and create one post with link to the reviews.
c|Net
PC Magazine
Designtechnica
Ars Technica
iLounge
IGN Entertainment
Playlist
AppleXnet

Overview of key specs:
Capacity: 30GB and 60GB
Display: 2.5inch
Dimensions: 4.1″ x 2.4″ x 0.55″ (60GB)
Audio formats: AAC, MP3, Audible (formats 2, 3 and 4), Apple Lossless, WAV, AIFF
Video formats: MPEG4

Lookup on Amazon: “Apple 60 GB iPod with Video Playback Black” (Apple Computer)

Lookup on Amazon: “Apple 30 GB iPod with Video Playback Black” (Apple Computer)

Lookup on Amazon: “Apple 60 GB iPod with Video Playback White” (Apple Computer)

Lookup on Amazon: “Apple 30 GB iPod with Video Playback White” (Apple Computer)

Lance Ulanoff for PC Magazine makes some interesting comments about how Apple can resurrect the ailing portable video player - or portable media player - market:

Despite the efforts by Creative, Microsoft, and Samsung, not to mention Sony with its portable PlayStation (PSP) and a slew of no-brand Taiwan-made devices, Jobs may be right. There is no portable-video market. All the initial hoopla and the subsequent release of players from Archos, Yepp, and others was followed by general consumer disinterest. Almost a year later, virtually no one is carrying the gadgets—a far different scenario than with MP3 players. What went wrong? And how are Jobs and the new iPod 30GB with video and iTunes 6.0 about to resurrect this stagnant market?

Read source article: Column from PC Magazine: Apple iPod’s Amazing Video Feat

Technorati Tags: Apple, ipod, ipod video, personal video player, portable entertainment, portable media player, portable video, video ipod