Intel presents XScale-based Portable Media Players

Ah there is always a lot of news when there is a big exhibition going on, just like now with the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It is there that Intel announced their collaboration with Creative Labs, iRiver and Samsung to help them delivering a new product called Portable Media Players (PMPs), based on Intel his XScale technology which will enable these devices to have a long battery life, and high quality video and audio. Creative Labs, iRiver and Samsung have also demonstrated their new PMP devices at the ICE show.

"Intel pioneered the PMP product concept to offer consumers the ability to personalize their multimedia content and have access to it throughout the home or on the go," said Peter Green, general manager, Intel Extended Computing Division. "PMPs are the next logical step in the evolution of handheld digital entertainment by connecting to the PC for content creation, while allowing anytime, anywhere access to your favorite authorized video, pictures and music residing on your PMP." A PMP with a 20GB hard drive is estimated to provide up to 70 hours of video storage, play 700 hours of music and hold up to 2 million photos. Actual device capabilities will vary. Intel XScale technology offers industry-leading, low-power consumption to help extend the battery life of these handheld devices by up to an estimated four to six hours**. To speed product development, Intel created a PMP reference design based on the Intel® PXA255 applications processor, and includes a color LCD panel, hard disk drive, AC97-compatible audio subsystem and a USB 2.0 interface. Microsoft engineers used the Intel PMP reference design to create their Windows CE*-based Portable Media Center software.