ZVUE! It's a PVP like the Archos AV320, for $99!!!

[Kiyoshi]

http://www.hheld.com/

This is a cheap video and MP3 player that will have an opening price of only $99!!! I just saw this in some blip on CNET's MP3 player section, and thought I'd relay it to everyone else, cuz the last discussion about a portable video player lasted for a while. The reason it's so cheap is because there is absolutly no onboard memory, hard drive or flash. It will use SD cards to store MP3's (MMC will be supported too, but who the heck uses them?).

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=wfaa.story&STORY=/www/story/07-08-2003/0001978042&EDATE=TUE+Jul+08+2003,+09:09+AM

That's also a press release about it, you can find it on other sites if you just do a search for "zvue". It has more info on it than the manufacturer's website, which pretty much only says what it does. Here's a pic of it:

http://hheld.com/t2/pics/hhe_player_05_glider.jpg

[GoldKey]

If it took CF, I might be interested just as a toy, but it can't compete with a PPC. Great for those that don't own one though.

[GoldKey]

After reading this in the press release, I changed my mind, I don't want it.

"Content will be available on postage stamp-sized Secure Digital/MultiMediaCards (SD/MMCs) -- which are becoming the de facto storage media for handheld consumer electronic devices -- and will be priced starting at $7.99. The HandHeld SD/MMCs will be available in sizes ranging from 8 Megabyte (MB) to 256MB capacities and will offer high-quality video playback on ZVUE! PVPs from eight minutes to more than one-and-a-half hours of uninterrupted full-motion video."

Although they don't say it, it is sounding like a proprietary video format. There is a toy called Hit Clips that is kind of like an MP3 player but has proprietary media that come with the content already on it. This seems like the same thing, and bound for failure.

[Pat Logsdon]

Although they don't say it, it is sounding like a proprietary video format. There is a toy called Hit Clips that is kind of like an MP3 player but has proprietary media that come with the content already on it. This seems like the same thing, and bound for failure.
I agree. I don't recall seeing a mad rush for Hit Clips, and I doubt this would fare much better.

Besides, this thing just SCREAMS "vaporware"...

[Kiyoshi]

Yes, I was thinking OQO also (Those seemed so promising!!!)

Somewhere else in the article I think that the also mentioned a proprietary codec for the video which I'm guessing that you'd have to encode the video in. Here's the clip:

"HandHeld has also developed its own compression-decompression algorithm, known as the HHE Codec, to handle real-time video decompression on the ZVUE! processor."

Real-time video? I hope that means that it decodes the files on the fly? Not that they plan on having you watch live video or something somehow....

Anyways, I guess that this proprietary codec would be the only format recognized by the ZVUE, so none of my anime in Divx wouldn't work on it. No fun.