CES: Pioneer's Digital Library for Multimedia Storage/Distribution

As music and video continue to migrate to digital formats, it almost seems like every entertainment device we use should have a hard drive or other means of storage. At CES this week, that idea seems to be a trend, and Pioneer Electronics isn't being left out of the act. The company just told the world about its plans for a Digital Library, the first product in its proposed line of Digital Network Entertainment devices. The Digital Library will let you distribute multimedia content including music, video, photos, and Internet content, wirelessly or through wired connections throughout your humble digs. The device offers four primary functions including a Music Jukebox, Photo Albums, Video Clips, and Internet Content. Pioneer says the Music Jukebox in the Digital Library has the capacity for up to 1500 CDs in a compressed audio format, letting you rip the contents of your CDs via the internal CD player or transfer music from your PC. A digital "librarian" retrieves the artist's name, song title, album title and genre from an online database. CD jacket art can also be retrieved and displayed. The Photo Album feature is said to have the capacity for storing thousands of photos in multiple digital formats, which can be added via a PC or the unit's internal CD player. The Internet Content feature lets you listen to streaming audio and video from Pioneer's online content partners. The Digital Library offers playback of MPEG 1, MPEG 2, Windows Media Video, Windows Media Audio and MP3. The Digital Library can distribute three DVD-quality streams and 21 audio streams simultaneously and is powered with software from the Mediabolic ONE digital convergence platform. Pricing isn't yet available.