[opendtv] Portable Media Center Is the Wrong Choice For Nontechie Users
- From: Monty Solomon <monty@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: undisclosed-recipient: ;
- Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 17:08:44 -0500
December 2, 2004
Portable Media Center Is the Wrong Choice For Nontechie Users
By WALTER S. MOSSBERG
There's a tendency in the technology industry to think that, just
because a product can be built, it should be built, even if all the
necessary pieces to make it a success aren't in place. Sometimes
these premature products eventually become hits. Sometimes they just
fail.
It's too early to know which of those fates awaits the latest
premature tech device: the handheld, hard-disk-based video player.
But one thing is certain. It's not ready for prime time yet.
The most prominent hand-held video player is the Portable Media
Center, a design dreamed up by Microsoft and built, with different
hardware designs, by three companies so far -- Samsung, Creative Labs
and iRiver.
The PMCs, which cost around $500, play back music and display photos.
But their big claim to fame is that they can play videos -- even
full-length TV shows and movies -- transferred from a Windows PC
using Microsoft's new, free, Windows Media Player 10 software.
They are meant to compete with laptops and portable DVD players for
watching video on planes or in the back seat of cars.
I've been testing the Samsung and Creative PMCs with two Windows PCs
-- a standard Windows XP model and the new HP Media Center PC, which
can receive and record TV programs.
...
http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20041202.html
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