The popularity of portable gadgets is sky rocketing. Wireless Internet access (WiFi) has increased its area of coverage. The portable gadgets are becoming even handier with this development. Portable gadgets include portable media players, laptops, the Ultra Mobile PC or netbooks. Contents can now be easily downloaded from the Internet. VCD or DVD movies, for instance, can be easily converted into digital formats with special software. Portable devices have become a part of work and lifestyle, and a personal travel companion. Portable devices include portable video players, digital audio players, personal digital assistant and digital video recorders.
The portable media player is also an electronic gadget that plays digital media which it stores. Basically it is a portable audio player with the added facility of displaying images and playing videos. Mobile phones which can also store and play audio files, and display images and play videos are also categorized as portable media player. Archos, a portable media player, was the first one of its kind to be successfully marketed in 2002. Most of the portable media players have MP3 audio format while some also support other formats such as WAV, Windows Media Audio (WMA) and Advanced Audio Coding (AAC).
Usually the images are displayed using LCD or OLED screen. Some players can record video using accessories. JPEG format is compatible on all players for display of images. Other file formats such as TIFF, PNG and GIF are compatible on some players such as the iPod series. Most of these players support MPEG-4 video format while some others are compatible with Windows Media Video (WMV) and AVI. Most players are able to transfer files between the player and the computer. Many electronic companies have been fast to bring out portable devices. Archos, a French company, for instance offers digital audio players, portable video players, digital video recorders and personal digital assistant. In 2007, the company released Archos Generation 5, a series of portable media players including Archos 705 WiFi portable media player 160 GB.
The data is stored in the microdrive, flash memory or hard drive. The storage capacity has increased to 320 GB for the hard drive based PMPs and 32 GB for flash memory PMPs. It is also possible to increase the capacity of PMPs’ storage. CompactFlash, Secure Digital card and Memory Sticks are used to transfer contents directly from external devices. The size of the screen is as much as 7 inches. Resolutions differ within players and go up to WVGA. Though the color depth is 16-bit, it could go up to 24-bit in some players. With the introduction of Touch Screens many PMPs increasingly sport this feature. Many more new features have been introduced in the PMPs in recent years such as text readers, the simple camera, game emulation and editors.
Media players have evolved. Before, watching movies was done at theaters or at home but PMPs have greatly changed this situation.
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