All Portable media Feeds

Myvu tries to give video glasses style

Marc Chacksfield — 1210601640

The idea of wearing video glasses is definitely an intriguing one. In theory, they’re great: don them and you turn wherever you are into a cinema. In practice, though, while you wonder at your new portable cinema, everyone is staring at you, wondering who the berk is with the space-age face furniture.

Enter a new piece of video eyewear, the Myvu Crystal. According to the bods who created the glasses, you can “Watch what you love, when you want and look great doing it.” And while we’re not that convinced that you will look great, the glasses do boast some nifty features that may well keep the hecklers at bay.

Points of view

The Myvu Crystal is the lightest and thinnest videowear available, and boasts 33 per cent wider field of view than the company’s Shades 301 range.

Video output is Full VGA quality (640 x 480) and is designed to be worn with the latest iPods. You also get four hours’ battery life, connected earbuds and a remote control unit.

The glasses are available in two colours, amber or black, and are out in the US now for $299 (around £150).

If you check out the website, there’s a 30-day trial, which you may want to use. If after 30 days, the sartorial bullies haven’t mocked you for wearing them, then the Myvu Crytal glasses may be well worth a purchase.

Sony Wi-Fi photo frame sups on RSS too

J Mark Lytle — 1210230072

Electronic photo frames with LCD displays for showing off endless loops of photos you couldn't be bothered printing are very hit and miss in general, but Sony's latest has a little more going for it.

The ¥30,000 (£145) Vaio VGF-CP1 goes on sale in Japan next weekend and will hit the West later in the year. For a price that's very much the going rate, you get a 7-inch screen with 800 x 480 pixels and 100MB of flash memory to play with.

Wireless hook-up

There are also slots for all manner of memory cards, so it's not one for Cyber-shot fans only, thankfully. Oddly, though, 15MB of that flash is reserved for audio files and can't be used for photos.

As that last sentence suggests, the CP1 does more than just photos - it can also handle MP3 and WAV files, whether from a memory card or sucked down the Wi-Fi connection built into the frame. Even more strangely, WAV tunes can't be copied to the internal memory.

Regardless, that wireless pipe also brings a clock, weather and news updates and whatever RSS feeds you prime the device to read. In other words, rather than being just a photo frame, this thing's a simple computer. Why couldn't they just say so at the outset?

Hauppauge unveils Freeview PMP

Patrick Goss — 1204645272

Hauppauge has announced a personal media player with a 3.5-inch screen and built-in Freeview, as it looks to get involved in the blossoming portable television market.

As a company more associated with television tuner cards for PCs, Hauppauge is hoping to expand into new areas, and announced the pMP at this year’s CeBIT in Germany.

Weighing in at 200g, and sporting MP3 and WAV audio support as well as the necessary DivX 4.0/5.0, XviD and MPEG4 video formats, the Hauppauge pMP’s most enticing selling point may be its expected price of £115 when it hits shops in April.

Sony rival

But, TechRadar is holding out for Sony's Play TV - the ultimate Freeview unit for PlayStation 3. It has the additional benefit of turning your PSP into a portable TV on which you can access any of the Freeview channels that Play TV makes available on your PS3, as well as any of your HD movies and other content stored on your PSP.

We spoke with a SCEE rep today who confirmed for us that PlayTV will be with us sometime in the spring and will cost "no more than £100". We'll be sure to inform you as soon as we hear the official word on release and pricing.

PSP adds phone calls, video chats, IM

Anna Lagerkvist — 1204039540

Sony has teamed up with BT to add phone functions to the popular Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) gaming console.

GoMessenger, due to launch this Friday, is a piece of free software that transforms your Sony PSP into a fully-fledged communications device. Apart from surfing the web, you’ll also be able to text your friends, conduct video chats and send voice messages on the move without having to carry multiple devices.

All you have to do is to hook up to a Wi-Fi hotspot and you’re off.

The GoMessenger service is available through the latest firmware update for the Sony PSP. The IM and web browsing functionalities are available to all, but the video calls require an additional camera - the £35 GoCam - which sits on top of the console.

No call-out function

At the moment, calling non-contacts is not possible. But this function may be added in the future, along with video chats between multiple contacts and other features, Ian Pulford, chief of convergence development at BT Retail, told TechRadar this afternoon.

“We’ll wait and see what features are popular, and what additional functions people want from us,” Pulford said, adding “but it would make a lot of sense [to add a call-out function]”.

‘Better than Skype’

BT said its service is better suited for Sony PSP owners than Skype, which has long been available to use on the Sony PSP. Pulford pointed out that the video call and IM functionalities on Skype are not available on the Sony PSP.

The GoMessenger service is only available for registered users, so you won’t be able to chat to your MSN Messenger, AIM or Skype contacts unless they sign up to BT’s service too.

BT is hoping that the 11 million Sony PSP owners will sign up to the new service, which launches on 29 February.

Force is strong in Korean wonder PMP

J Mark Lytle... — 1204016532

It might only ever be available in South Korea, but that won't stop us drooling over the latest high-end PMP from Kaon Media, even if it does run Windows CE 5.0.

The 370g UPOP U48S, which went on sale in Korea today for around £300, appears closer to an ultra-light PC than to a media player. It has a 4.8-inch, 800 x 480 touchscreen and a full Qwerty keyboard hidden on a slider underneath.

Hard drive too

As well as playing back pretty much any media under the sun, it has a T-DMB digital terrestrial TV tuner (similar to the Japanese 1-seg) and can record broadcasts to an SD card or a choice of 30GB or 60GB hard drives. Wireless connectivity is about all that's missing, but it can be added via the SD slot.

The meaty package is topped off with 46 different dictionaries and a text-to-speech application for when you can't be bothered reading your ebooks. We won't even bother outlining the smorgasbord of I/O ports lest you get jealous of those lucky Koreans.

New affordable, portable Blu-ray player

Adam Hartley — 1203953901

Philips & Lite-On Digital Solutions (or PLDS, for short) has announced the latest addition to its Blu-ray range - the DX-4O1S; a handy, external Blu-ray disc ROM drive set for launch this coming April.

The DX-4O1S is described as a “versatile read-only device for all popular optical media formats” and, while Lite-On is yet to confirm a price for the UK, we are assured that it will be highly competitive.

Blu-ray for novices

The drive simply plugs into a USB port. It “makes Blu-ray playback readily available to even the most novice of computer users without any complicated hardware knowledge,” according to Lite-On’s blurb.

The drive can also read all DVD+/-R(W) and CD-R(W) media, but it’s clear that the company wants to publicise the Blu-ray capability following on from last week’s death of HD DVD.

Increasing volume of movies on Blu-ray

"Due to recent market developments we can expect an increasing volume of movies to be released in high definition on Blu-ray Discs", says Jelmer Veldman, European marketing manager at PLDS.

"The market adoption of Blu-ray as the optical disc standard for high definition content results in a growing demand for Blu-ray playback solutions. The portable external Lite-On BD-ROM drive allows users to playback their Blu-ray discs on any PC via a USB 2.0 cable".

Toshiba's new portable DVD marvels

Dan Grabham — 1203616041

At its UK press launch today Toshiba announced three new portable DVD players. Tosh says it has deliberately pitched the three players at different needs.

The 11.8-inch ‘flat panel’ SDP120DT (see right) delivers portable digital TV and radio via Freeview, has a three hour battery life, HDMI input and can display your digital photos from a memory card. Image detail and colour is greatly enhanced because of its IPS projection system, which also means the unit has a 170 degree viewing angle for family viewing.

The 7-inch SDP71 is pitched more as an entry-level ‘travelling companion’. It also has a three-hour battery life, while the SDP91 offers a pretty desirable five hour battery life and a 9-inch 180 degree rotating screen.

Each of the models shares core features including support for DVD, DVD-R/-RW, CD and CD-R/RW. DivX playback is present on all three models, with JPEG picture viewing, MP3 and WMA compatibility also supported as standard.

World's smallest digital TV tuner for phones

J Mark Lytle — 1203588123

Remember those Japanese 1-seg mobile digital TVs we told you about recently? They're already small enough to fit in most new phones, but are about to suffer even more winter shrinkage after Sharp created its smallest tuner yet.

The VA3A5JZ922 (well, it can't have a name as well as a record) measures 5.9 x 5.9 x 0.9mm, making it a third smaller than existing models. Moreover, the module promises longer battery life thanks to reduced power consumption.

Sharp promises to crank out a million of the modules every month, so we can expect the 1-seg bandwagon to roll merrily on its way. In Japan at least, that is.

Sony's USB stick Walkman gets garish makeover

J Mark Lytle — 1203587542

Hot on the heels of yesterday's new high-end Walkman, the NWZ-A820, Sony Japan brings a touch of colour to its entry-level flash players with swappable outer jackets.

The newcomers to the 28g E series of USB-loving sticks are the NW-E023F, E025F and E026F, clocking in at 1GB, 2GB and 4GB respectively. Pricing runs from ¥11,000 (£52) up to ¥16,000 (£76), which puts them somewhere between the iPods shuffle and nano.

Dress you up

For an extra ¥1,000 (£5) Japanese shoppers (no word on overseas releases yet) get to choose from 20 different snap-on 'Style-Up' panels for dressing their players up like little dolls.

With a selection as, ahem, rich and varied as Violet Glitter and Honeycomb Orange, it's a wonder how anyone will manage to choose, so Sony probably hopes bling-crazed punters will just grab a handful.

On the technical front, there's a three-line colour screen, an FM tuner, support for MP3, WMA, AAC, PCM and ATRAC, while battery life stretches to a very healthy 30 hours max.

Sony Walkman A820: monster battery life

Anna Lagerkvist — 1203526356

Sony today announced its latest Walkman portable media player – one offering an impressive battery life.

Under the ‘big screen, big battery life’ banner, the new ultra-slim Sony NWZ-A820 Walkman offers a very impressive 36 hours of audio playback, or 10 hours of video. That’s a lot more than the five hours of video and 24 hours of music the Apple iPod manages.

Bluetooth stereo

Even with Bluetooth stereo enabled, playback stretches to seven hours of video or 15 hours of music, Sony said.

Specs include a crisp 2.4-inch QVGA screen for high quality AVC and MPEG-4 video playback at up to 30fps, Bluetooth connectivity, wireless DR-BT21G headphones and up to 8GB storage capacity. There's also support for Windows Media Audio (WMA), DRM-free AAC, MP3 and Linear PCM music formats, plus JPEG files for photos.

The Sony NWZ-A820 Walkman is available in black, and two sizes are available: 4GB and 8GB. Pricing has yet to be confirmed nearer to the release in April.