PortalPlayer Launches Platform For Developing Music And Photo-Enabled Personal Media Players
(repost)
Together with Leading ODM Partners, PortalPlayer Announces the Personal Media Player: Photo Edition, Driving the Next Wave in Portable Music Jukeboxes
Las Vegas, Nev., January 8, 2004— PortalPlayer, Inc., the company that enabled the fast-growing music jukebox market, today announced a new development platform - the Personal Media Player: Photo Edition. The development platform includes a system-on-chip (SOC), Firmware Development Kit (FDK) and Software Development Kit (SDK) for customers to quickly bring to market a new category of products called "Personal Media Players." These battery-powered, hard-disk-drive-based devices will allow end users to capture, store, play and display their entire music, album art, and photo collections on a single device that fits in their pockets.
"PortalPlayer has captured 85 percent of the portable music jukebox market in 2003," said Michael Maia, vice president of sales and marketing of PortalPlayer. "We accomplished this leadership position by delivering complete development platforms to our customers which help them rapidly bring innovative and differentiated products to market. The Personal Media Player: Photo Edition is the next logical step and expands our leadership into the high-growth digital photography segment."
PortalPlayer original design manufacturer (ODM) partners Lite-On®, Tatung®, Wistron® and authorized developer Aeronix will be the first ODMs to design personal media players using the new PortalPlayer platform. These ODMs are fully enabled to tailor the platform to fit the unique industrial design, user interface and enhanced feature support requirements of their original equipment manufacturer (OEM) customers.
Features of the Personal Media Player
Products based upon the PortalPlayer Personal Media Player: Photo Edition platform will enable customers to develop personal media players that make complete music and photo collections portable to be shared with family and friends. End users can:
Copy, view, store, catalog, and modify images without a PC.
Print directly to HP and Canon® printers without a PC using the PictBridge® standard.
Transfer images from a digital camera directly to the portable media player through the USB 2.0 compliant On-the-Go port or by copying from the flash memory card. Synchronize images directly to and from a PC and the portable media player.
View still pictures (JPEG, GIF and TIFF) and video (MJPEG) on the color STN or TFT LCD on the device or on a standard NTSC/PAL TV, through the TV out connector.
Listen to music from the leading online music services such as Musicmatch®, Napster®, Real Audio® and more. Hear audiobooks from Audible.com.
Automatically identify CDs, name and categorize digital files, and generate custom playlists with the touch of a button using the Gracenote® Music Management System.
Record voice over narrations to go with the photos.
Synch digital music files and voice recordings with photos, providing the first of its kind multimedia slide show in a handheld device. Support for the industry standard MPV format (www.osta.org/mpv) enables slide show interoperability and quick indexing of metadata.
Interact with popular PC applications that are used to organize and view photo collections.
In the second half of 2004, the platform will offer image capture support, allowing people to take photographs using their personal media players. In addition, plans are in place to incorporate advanced OLED display technology from Eastman Kodak Company for brighter, more vibrant images visible from a wider viewing angle than conventional LCDs make possible.
The Photo Edition Development Platform
The PortalPlayer Personal Media Player: Photo Edition platform consists of three elements: a highly-integrated SOC; an FDK that includes robust development tools enabling custom feature sets and application enhancements; and an SDK that enables customers to create compelling PC applications.
The PP5020 SOC features dual ARM7TDMI® microprocessors. Its 160 MHz engine enables fast decoding/encoding of digital audio and decoding of JPEG and MJPEG images. Display support is included for YUV out to an external TV encoder, color TFT VGA graphics controller, 4-bit gray scale controller or a bridge interface to smart panels.
The PP5020 SOC minimizes system bill-of-materials (BOM) costs through on-chip integration of Hi-Speed USB® 2.0 Device, Host and On-The-Go (OTG) support and FireWire® (IEEE 1394a) connectivity. Fast data transfer rates for up to four hard disk drives are enabled by ATA/66 IDE controllers and dedicated DMA engines. As a result, customers can design a personal media player using the PP5020 without the need for many of the external controllers commonly required with other SOCs.
In addition, the PP5020 features advanced power management capabilities that enable shutdown of most functional modules when not in use. Personal media players that incorporate the PP5020 can operate more than 15 hours on a single AA alkaline battery.
The Personal Media Player: Photo Edition FDK includes the firmware necessary to develop compelling personal media player products. Specific capabilities of the PortalPlayer (PPI) FDK include:
Immersive Media Experience: Highest audio quality reproduction, PPI Optimized CODEC Suite, PPI CODEC Socket Architecture
Intelligent Library Indexing: PPI File System, PPI Database Engine, PPI Metadata Engine Digital Rights Management: PPI Crypto Services, Music Service Framework Adaptive Power Management: PPI HDD Micro-Pulse Power Control™, PPI Buffer Play Caching PortalPlayer also supports the Photo Edition platform with an SDK that enables custom PC application development, including synchronization, firmware updating, and slide show creation. The Photo Edition SDK libraries for the Microsoft® Windows® 2000 and XP operating systems are provided in C++.
Pricing and Availability
PortalPlayer has authorized four companies to develop production-ready implementations on the Personal Media Player: Photo Edition platform - Aeronix, Lite-On, TATUNG and Wistron. The PP5020 is priced at $19.50 in 10,000-piece quantities.IF WE ARE INVOLVED< HOW MUCH COULD WE GET OUT OF THE $19.90?) FDK and SDK licensing are available separately.
For more information, email photoedition@portalplayer.com or call 408-521-7007
