Anyone attending the ongoing 2005 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) can sense that a new entertainment product - portable media players (PMPs) - are starting to go mainstream.

It began with the founder of US software giant Microsoft Bill Gates, who introduced a slim-sized Samsung portable media players,with which the users can play MP3, review photos, and even watch movies anywhere at any time.

The PMPs, which first emerged in 2003, actually evolved from the more common digital audio devices, the MP3 players, but they add new functions of storing video and data.

By late 2004, at least six companies offered the PMPs, with ability to record directly from a TV or DVD player. About six CES exhibitors, including Archos, Datexx, NH Japan and Thomson, are showcasing their PMPs at the ongoing 2005 International CES, whichruns Jan. 6-9 in Las Vegas.

Three companies, Archos, Datexx and NH Japan, are offering the PMPs with TV time-sharing capability. Their devices enabled users to program record times in advance so they do not have to be present when the device is recording a TV program.

Some PMPs based on Microsoft`s Portable Media Center (PMC) platform do not have TV connections, and they aim directly at PC owners.

With the spread of broadband Internet, it becomes easier to download video into digital devices, thus helping push the sales of more portable video players.

It was estimated that a total of 390,000 PMPs were shipped worldwide in 2004, with 51 percent sold in North America. And the shipments of PMPs worldwide are expected to increase to 975,000 units, and grow to 7.65 million units in 2008.

Currently, the PMPs mainly appeal to the tech-savvy customers who own computers and travel a lot, thus some analysts are not convinced that PMPs will have a broad-based market as the MP3 players in the future.

Steve Hoffenberg, analyst of Lyra Research in Newtonville, Mass., said that the PMP sales will not follow the same sales trajectory as MP3 players, ``because video is not as mobile as MP3.``

But he apparently discounted the possibility that the dramatic fall of price of PMPs, which now costs more than 400 US dollars per unit, can make them as popular as the MP3 players.

Source: Xinhua