Sure, being able to carry around ten thousand songs is cool. You can listen in the car, on the train; on a bike, on a plane; on the run, in the sun; on a boat, hope you float; wait in line, walk through the pines. OK, OK, you get the idea. We’ve talked a lot over the last couple of weeks about digital music and personal music players, but there’s a new breed of personal media player about to come onto the scene. Some pundits are calling it “the iPod killer”. That remains to be seen. Let’s take a closer look and see if it lives up to its billing.

Four months ago at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Microsoft unveiled devices they called, at the time, “Media2Go”. Since renamed “Portable Media Centers” (another catchy Microsoft name job), these devices will be available this holiday season. They’ll contain Microsoft’s Windows Mobile software (an implementation of Windows CE .NET), and be manufactured by Samsung, Sanyo, ViewSonic, iRiver, Creative, and Dell, to name a few.

With all the different manufacturers, there will be many varied models to choose from. Basically, though, any Portable Media Center (doesn’t it just roll off your tongue?) will be a box containing a hard drive (up to 40GB capacity); a video display (four inches diagonal and up, starting at 320 X 240 pixels, about half the resolution of digital video from a camcorder); a control button array of some kind; headphone jack(s); a video output to hook up the Portable Media Center (come on, just call it a vPod!) to a TV; and, a USB 2.0 or FireWire plug (to hook up to a computer to transfer files). Oh, and a battery, the size of a loaf of bread. Just kidding. Actually, according to Microsoft, the internal battery should last up to 6 hours playing video, and 12 hours for audio. Pretty good, if it’s true “in the field”.

What about size? Creative’s “Zen” Portable Media Center, with 3.5 inch LCD screen, weighs 11.5 ounces (almost twice the weight of the 40GB iPod). It’s also nearly twice as long as the iPod and three times as thick.

How much of your digital media can the 40GB Portable Media Center (wow, after awhile it just sounds, well, right…) hold? About 8000 songs encoded at 128 Kbps in Windows Media Audio 9. Or, around 175 hours of video at the 320 X 240 resolution. Or, about 30,000 two-megapixel digital photos. Other media formats (MP3 for audio, MPEG-4 for video) will also be supported.

So, where will you get all the media to carry around on your (just read it slow, enjoy the words’ bouquet) Portable Media Center? From your Windows Media Center PC, of course. Photos from your digital camera. Music ripped from your personal (purchased) CD collection, from the upcoming Microsoft online music store (can’t wait to hear their name for that), or from, putting it politely, “other sources”. Video ripped from DVDs, downloaded from “other sources”, created yourself with your digital video camera, or purchased from (guess who) Microsoft’s upcoming MSN Premium service.

So, is this an “iPod killer”? I don’t think so, partly because they’re “two different animals”. As I alluded to at the top of this piece, music can be enjoyed almost anywhere, while performing almost any task. However, viewing photos and movies require you to pretty much plunk down in one place, even if it is a park bench or airline seat. Next time we’ll explore more of the Portable Media Center pros and cons, and answer the burning question: “What’s a Broadcast Flag?”

© 2004 Peter F. Zimowski