Microsoft: Portable Media Center

Debuting its Portable Media Center, Microsoft is the broadly entering the consumer market, now for the second time. Now that the Xbox is highly popular thanks to its versatility, Microsoft wants to make audio and video portable for everyone.

The Media Center is based on a 400 MHz XScale processor and an 1.8" hard drive with up to 40 GB. Hardly surprising, the solution boasts a slight modification of the Windows XP Media Center Edition.

The navigation is certainly innovative: After selecting the media type (e.g., audio), a performer and, finally, the song, users have to manoeuvre into the "inner depths" of the program with a rocker switch. At the same time, however, it is possible to pace through the objects on the same hierarchical level by changing to the left or right, respectively.

In order to transfer data to the Media Center, users simply have to connect their home PC via USB (the device, by the way, weighs an estimated 350 grams). In the next step, however, users will need a future version of the Windows Media Player if they want to transfer movie or music files (WMV 7, 8 or 9, WMA of MP3) to the Portable Media Center. Existing data can be synchronized and evaluated for one's own purposes, so that the shuffle function will access marked files either more frequently or more rarely.

The solution also supports images in the TIP or JPG format. In addition, the solution provides a TV exit port, allowing users to display all those pretty digital data on their own TV at home. Since the video resolution of 320x200 is fairly modest due to the hardware's limitations, we're talking about VHS quality here, at best.