JVC Announces Media-Centric Pocket PCs

An anonymous reader writes "infoSync World writes about two new high-end Pocket PC models from JVC, the MP-PV131 and MP-PV331. Running on Windows Mobile 2003, the Pocket PCs boast 128 MB SDRAM, built-in Wi-Fi and MPEG4 video and audio streaming and capture capabilities. The new devices are also equipped with software for use along with JVC camcorders. The new models will be available in the U.S. in September at $499.95 US and $599.95 US respectively"

Comments

It goes without saying

[mao che minh]

I would imagine that almost all future "high end" PDAs and Pocket PCs will be heavily media-centric - considering that most already are (the biggest selling points that marketers tend to focus on when advertising their newest hand-held is MP3 playback, image veiwing and manipulation, digital photography, and video capture and playback). Afterall, the PDA has long since evolved past a simple calculator and phone book. I always assumed that many average users upgrade to a Pocket PC for more power, power which is usually required to drive digital media (sure, you can play MP3s on a PDA, but high end media and their associated tools tend to require more power then a low end Sony Clie).

Too expensive

[Graspee_Leemoor]

Is it just me, or is the price of PDAs creeping up and up?

It doesn't affect me because I stopped using PDAs some time ago because of issues with battery life. I'd sooner trust my notes, addresses etc. to paper these days than an electronic device- and I'm a geek!

graspee

I smell a smash hit.

[rice_web]

It works with JVC cameras and boasts WiFi, which means that small television stations can now act like the pros. Doing live broadcasts that require many angles--like sporting events--requires cameras with expensive antennas, etc. Now, these small stations simply add this $500 device and they're good to go.

Re:I smell a smash hit.

[rco3]

Ah, advertising. Now it all makes sense.

"a typical camera goes at about 10MBytes a second, right?"

Wrong. 25 Mbit/sec is the rate at which consumer camcorders transfer video over Firewire. That's a little over 3 MBytes/sec. Pro DV formats (DVCPro, etc.) are 50 Mbit/s (6+ MBytes/s). 802.11b is 11 Mbit/s, which includes all the overhead and so your actal data throughput is considerably smaller.

Second, consumer cameras do NOT allow you to transcode on the fly, and so they CANNOT spit out video data at lower rates. When you run your MPEG-1 spots, those have been transcoded by a standalone PC (probably) to a lower bitrate, and a different encoding method.

You're now asking a PocketPC 2003 handheld to do real-time, on the fly video transcoding. It doesn't have the horsepower, and it's not stable enough for a production environment. Plus, you've got to have some way of switching between cameras for live events, which means DEcoding the data at the receiving end - figure on a PC per camera. If you're not going to switch live, then simply sticking a DV tape in each camera and doing everything in post is much simpler and more reliable.

Third, "more than acceptable" quality is fine if you're doing cable advertising. It looks like shit when you're doing live production. Looking "not bad, considering" doesn't get you return gigs.

So, to sum up:

Video bitrate is too high for WiFi.

PocketPC can't transcode in realtime.

Transmitted video over WiFi has to end up in a form that can be switched.

Simply putting tapes in the camcorders is MUCH simpler if you don't need to switch live anyway.

You might consider changing your .sig.

MPEG-4 or WM9

[Anonymous Coward]

A media-centric handheld based on PocketPC 2003 featuring MPEG-4 instead of Windows Media 9? Or is the author just perpetuating the old MSconception that Windows Media is synonymous with MPEG-4?

Re:MPEG-4 or WM9

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent post was not about the player, but about the article (and perhaps JVC) possibly misrepresenting a Microsoft format as MPEG-4.
One more time - AVI, ASF, WMV, etc etc are *NOT* standards compliant MPEG-4 codecs or file formats. Microsoft, by referring to their early ASF codecs as "MS MPEG-4" before the true MPEG-4 standard was ratified, created a climate of misinformation and confusion that has carried on to the present.
From the MPEG-4 Industry Forum http://www.m4if.org/

"MPEG-4 is an ISO/IEC standard developed by MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group), the committee that also developed the Emmy Award winning standards known as MPEG-1 and MPEG-2. These standards made interactive video on CD-ROM, DVD and Digital Television possible. MPEG-4 is the result of another international effort involving hundreds of researchers and engineers from all over the world. MPEG-4, with formal as its ISO/IEC designation 'ISO/IEC 14496', was finalized in October 1998 and became an International Standard in the first months of 1999. The fully backward compatible extensions under the title of MPEG-4 Version 2 were frozen at the end of 1999, to acquire the formal International Standard Status early in 2000. Several extensions were added since and work on some specific work-items work is still in progress.
"The MP4 file format is designed to contain the media information of an MPEG-4 presentation in a flexible, extensible format which facilitates interchange, management, editing, and presentation of the media. This presentation may be ï½localï½ to the system containing the presentation, or may be via a network or other stream delivery mechanism (a TransMux). The file format is designed to be independent of any particular delivery protocol while enabling efficient support for delivery in general. The design is based on the QuickTimeï½ format from Apple Computer Inc.

Note that this does not include AVI, ASF, WMV, original DivX, Real, or any other media framework, codec, or file format. The point is not that true MPEG-4 is necessarily superior to any of those, but its value as an industry standard is diluted when people casually refer to the others (especially MS formats) as "MPEG-4" when they are not.

When will the CE line end?

[arth1]

The differences from old Windows CE aren't that much, except for added multimedia functions, wireless functions and CPU and memory speed.
The loser, now as with earlier new PDA OS versions, is battery life.

When will they do something about this? When they find out that MPEG4 is only useful if the battery actually last through a long movie?

A cheap PC can do the same

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, a 233mhz Pentium system can "drive" most digital media. It doesn't require much power to play back an avi file. Ergo, an expensive Pocket PC isn't required.

Another Name Change?

[quandrum]

So, yeah... Windows Mobile 2003?

What happened to PocketPC?

What happened to WinCE?

Is the Microsoft mobile platform so disliked they have to change the name every-time they release a new version? Just an observation.

What about DRM?

[AtariAmarok]

What about DRM (better called DRD = Digital Rights Denial) in these devices?

Is it going to come to the point where you don't have digital rights on devices promoted as being "media oriented"?

i'd like to see...

[scotty777]

A cheap machine ($200-$250)
NO video (adds expense)
MP3 player
802.11g
-- easy ad hoc connection mode with nearby friends
-- IM / IRC ad hoc over the 802.11
-- email via any open 802.11 WAPs
-- share tunes (like with Kazaa), ad hoc over the 802.11
-- simple PK crypto for "private" IM conversations
Java on board (so apps/games can readily be written)
small keyboard (like on palm titanium)

Is that hardware price point impossible for the features?

Yes, but...

[lpret]

You're almost comparing apples to oranges. That PDA that ran on 2 AA batteries for 4 weeks had:

• 4 shades of black
• 4 Mhz processor
• Had Address book, Notes, Calendar, To-do list, calculator.

Now, my Toshiba e740 with the extended battery has:

• Color screen capable of full-screen video
• 400 Mhz processor
• Address book, Notes, Calendar, To-do list, graphing calculator, universal remote, e-mail, full web browsing (with Javascript), and two expansion slots for hardware or up to 1 GB each of memory.
• I stream and control audio wirelessly from my computer to my e740 which I can then listen to whenever I'm connected to the internet.
• The battery lasts 11 hours of constant wifi usage

Now, these are two completely different beasts and the one concession that has to be made is battery life. Everything else is much better in the new handhelds.