Wear an MP3
Panasonic's pair of wearable MP3 players reach UK stores this week, more than a year after they were first paraded at the CES exhibition in January 2000. The two E-Wear models, the SV-SD75 and SV-SD05 are among the first audio players to go on sale in the UK that feature both AAC (advanced audio coding) and MP3 compatibility. Devel oped by Dolby and Sony the AAC codec offers superior sound quality and more efficient compression than MP3. Panasonic says that if CDs are converted using its AAC encoding software, the player's 64MB SD (Secure Digital) card can store around two hour's worth of "better-than MP3-quality" sounds.
One of the smallest players on sale, the £300 SV-SD75 is designed to be worn either on the wrist or hung around the neck. It is accompanied by a USB reader/writer and wrist and neck straps.
Panasonic is also offering the £300 SV SD05 - an MP3/AAC player built into a pair of foldable headphones. It, too, comes with a 64MB SD card. Neither player is Mac compatible.
E-movie
Sony has announced the imminent arrival of a trio of high-end digital camcorders.
Top of the range is the £1,500 DCR-TRV30E, the first Sony camcorder to sport a new facility called E-Movie. This enables the user to store moving images as MPEG files on the camcorder's accompanying 4MB Memory Stick card. The mini-movie can then be transferred to a PC and sent as an email.
The DCR-TRV30E's digital video image quality is superior to previous Sony camcorders. It boasts a 1.5 mega pixel CCD that delivers a moving horizontal image resolution of 530 lines and still pictures of 1,360 x 1,020 pixels. The camcorder also sports a 3.5inch LCD monitor, a 120x digital zoom, Super Steady Shot anti-shake facilities, and Super Night Shot, which enables the user to shoot images in complete darkness. Connection to a PC is via a supplied I-Link connector, which, for the first time on a Sony camcorder, offers both DV in and out. Sony says that the user can shoot for up to eight hours before they need to recharge the camcorder's battery.
The £1,000 DCR-TRV17E is similar to the DCR-TRV30E, but has a lower resolution CCD and has no DV in facility. A budget version, the £800 DCR-TRV15E, also shares many of its siblings' features, but has a smaller 2.5inch LCD monitor and has no MPEG movie or digital still capture facilities.
Toshiba joins in
Toshiba is also championing the AAC music format by delivering a joint AAC/MP3 player to stores this week. The tiny silver-cased £230 MEA210 features 32MB of embedded memory, enough for more than an hour of quality AAC music. It also sports a slot for a SD card which can increase the storage up to 96MB.
The player is accompanied by a Toshiba Audio Manager CD-rom, which includes software that converts music files (WAV/CD or MP3) to the AAC format. The unit, powered by AAA batteries, comes with stereo headphones, a USB interface and a selection of tone controls.
