The Portable Media Player, The Ideal Companion
A portable media player combines audio, images and videos. Most often these have the MP3 audio format. They may also support other audio formats as Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), WAV and the Windows Media Audio. The images are usually displayed using OLED or LCD screen. JPEG format is the most common although other file formats such as PNG, TIFF and GIF are also used to view images. Most of the portable media players support MPEG-4 video format. They may also be compatible with AVI and Windows Media Video (WMV) formats. Both audio and video transfers between the player and the computer are possible with most portable media players and portable digital assistants (PDAs) using USB cables.
Data is stored by these portable devices using hard drive, microdrive or flash memory. You can now store data using the flash memory based devices up to 32 GB. There has been a steady increase in the data storage capacity though it is lower. The hard drive portable devices have the maximum data storage capacity which goes up to 320 GB. External devices as the memory Sticks, CompactFlash and Secure Digital card can be used to increase the data storage capacity. This facility is available with a number of PDAs and media players. Screen size going up to 7 inches is now available. The resolutions are up to WVGA. They have a color depth ranging from 16-bit to 24-bit. Touchscreen is one of the latest in technologies that is increasingly being incorporated into these devices.
Digital audio players, digital video recorders, portable video players and personal digital assistants are now offered by many companies. The important portable media players in the market are Philips’ Philips Gogear SA6185 8GB , Apple’s iPod series, Scandisk’s Sansa Fuze and Sansa view, Sony’s Walkman series, Creative Labs with their Zen series and Samsung’s Samsung T10 and Samsung P2.
The functions of portable media player have been incorporated into a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) which is a handheld computer. Beginning with the simple digital diary in the 1980s it has evolved steadily to becoming what is now called as a palmtop computer. It incorporates the functions of the portable media player. Key functions of the computer have been added further. It is sleek and compact in the size of the palm which makes it extremely convenient to carry around. It acts as a media player, web browser and mobile phone. Wi-Fi or Wireless Wide-Area Networks enable many PDAs to access the Internet, intranet or extranets.
