What A Portable Media Center Might Look Like

An anonymous reader writes "From the Redmond's answer to iPOD dept... While wandering the exhibitor aisles at Embedded DevCon, we were drawn to this slick looking reference design board in the Freescale (formerly Motorola Semiconductor) booth. The Portable Media Player Reference Design, a.k.a. "Jazz", is based on a Freescale i.MX21 embedded processor, runs Windows CE, and is compliant with Microsoft's Portable Media Center (PMC) standard. PMCs, Microsoft's answer to the iPOD, will initially support digital music and videos, digitally recorded television shows, and digital photos."

Not an iPod killer

[StraightTalkExpress]

There are several reasons this is not an iPod killer per se. Mostly because it does not beat the iPod in any of the areas in which the iPod excels: being a very small, very light, fairly durable, tightly enclosed music device with good battery life and a nice interface. MS's stuff is going to be necessarily larger, necesarily heavier, necesarily more precarious unless they ruggedize the HELL out of those LCDs and reinforce the plastic grating over the speaker. Battery life will probably be about the same as a portable DVD player, and if the interface is anything like Pocket Media Player, it's got NOTHING on the iPod.

In short: this looks like it has exactly the same features and price point as the device I traded in for my iPod, a Toshiba PocketPC. And just like the PocketPC, it'll have limited appeal which becomes even MORE limited when Joe Q. Fancydevice realizes how hard it is to get first run movies onto it...i mean, how fast can the processor be in these things and still keep battery life?

Still, competition is good for the industry. The market pressure will force Apple to make iTunes even better (and there's room for that). But I don't think they have too much to worry about...a bigass laptop wannabe is NOT in the same league as a tiny little music device.

Not widescreen

[YetAnotherName]

Nice looking board, no doubt about it, but to really make a splash they ought've made it 16:9 instead of 4:3. Just like the old car commercial says, "Wider is better."

Ogg support anyone?

[John the Kiwi]

Anyone know if this will support Ogg? I'm still regretting putting my whole music collection into OGG format. IRiver is still a little expensive for me.

Re:Not an iPod killer

[ivan256]

That's funny. Looks to me like they're trying to bulid competition for the Playstation portable. Seems like an ages old market...

Freescale vs Mot. semi

[csirac]

I had a bitter experience with Motorola's 9S12DP 1K79X defects (SCI interrupts, PLL registers, BDM bugs, CAN freakiness, etc).

Does anyone know what the roadmap is for their 16bit MCU lines? Perhaps I should be using Renesas or go 8bit AVR...

More of a PVR

[jzilla]

Well unlike an ipod it plays video as well and audio. I personally can't wait until these type of devices become affordable to people like me. My personal favorite of this type is the Archos 400 [archos.com] which can also record video as well.

Pocket PC

[mschoolbus]

My Pocket PC can play video and audio files, play emulated NES games, browse the web, and a whole lot more...

You need to re-encode your mpegs or avis to a PPC friendly bitrate, but its not that tough.

Having "JAZZ!" attached as Device Name

[CygnusXII]

You think, they would do some additional market research to possible, names. JAZZ, is so closely associated with iOmegas' Jazz Drive, and their infamy is well, known. I wouldn't want to be even remotely associated to that company.

Some kind of Name a little more media savy or Market Targetable.

Re:Not an iPod killer

[pherris]

There are several reasons this is not an iPod killer per se.

I'll bet that Apple already has an answer to that thing anyways. Somewhere deep in their R&D department has to been an iPod with a color screen that plays Quicktime video files. It wouldn't surprise me if Jobs hasn't already started talking to video production companies asking them for the rights to distribute their shows. Want a copy of Frontline, Simpsons or "Good Eats"? It will cost you a $.99 for a 30 day copy. Remember, DRM can be added to the QT format.

As you know (and as do most people that read /.) Apple has been two steps ahead of everyone else since the early '80s. They should turn out something by the end of next year and IMO it'll be worth the wait.

Forget MSPMC, buy a MEC Station Deluxe

[skermit]

MEC Station Deluxe [iavias.com]

6.5" 16:9 Aspect Ratio Screen
20gb, 40gb, 80gb, flavors ($599, $699, $799)
Compact flash support (so you can dump pics from a digicam card STRAIGHT onto the MEC, i.e. if you're on a vacation and need a lot of pic space but only have one card)
TV-out
~4.5 hour battery life

and for the supported media formats...

MPG-1, MPG-2, MPG-4 (DiVX, XViD, RM), JPG, GIF, BMP, WAV, MP3

and in the future...

TXT, OGG

Plus it runs embedded linux variant (not sure which one).

I have one, and it's out NOW. [christopherwu.net]
It rocks. It rocks...