MP3 and portable video preview

The year of video, subscription, and satellite integration

MP3 and portable video is no doubt one of the premier categories at CES, and thanks to the current boom in the MP3 player market--the CEA says MP3 players are number one on everyone's holiday wish list--we should see players coming out of the woodwork. According to an IDC report, MP3 player sales will enjoy a 20 percent-compound annual growth rate in the next four years, with worldwide sales reaching $58 billion by 2008. Add to this the fact that only 15 percent of Americans own an MP3 player. The question that remains is not whether you will listen to digital audio and watch digital video on the go but which device amid a sea of choices best suits you. We expect the category--which includes standard flash MP3 players, do-it-all hard drive players, and portable video players--to continue a rapid pace of evolutionary improvements to design, features, price, battery life, and overall ease of use.

Rise of video-enabled devices
Last year at CES 2005, we witnessed the emergence of color screens as the MP3 industry standard. Along with being more legible, color screens made photos, album art, and video possible, and this year, we'll see the rise of video-enabled devices en masse. From tiny flash memory-based devices such as the Cowon iAudio U3 to wide-screen-boasting portable video players such as the Archos AV500 Mobile DVR, MPEG-4 video-playback devices will try to attract consumers, as did MP3 players a few years back. MP3 players are looking more like portable video players and vice versa; the lines between music and video will be blurred even further at CES. Hopefully, we'll see more sources for legal video at CES 2006 so that we can feed these gadgets.

Not a flash in the pan
Last year's microdrive mania led to the launch of 5GB and 6GB MP3 players from Dell, Creative, Apple, Virgin, Rio, and others, and it had many thinking that flash-based players, which were then maxing out at an expensive 2GB, were either relegated to the skipless sports-minded or cheap giveaways--though we never denied that flash players would become even more deeply entrenched in society. Fast-forward nearly a year, and we see that flash-based players are not only hot but also able to store more songs; plus, they're more advanced featurewise than ever. Just look at Apple's 4GB iPod Nano, which can display photos, or SanDisk's 4GB m200, a subscription-ready player that is available for less than $200. Although microdrive players are still desirable (check out the new 8GB Creative Zen Micro Photo), their appeal will wither away as smaller and more capable 8GB-and-higher flash players appear.

Subscription-based media is hot
Renting your music and video files will no longer be an esoteric concept. Nearly all the new WMA players coming out can play back Windows Media DRM 10 files, which allow the user to fill up a device with music for one monthly fee. Both hardware and software, such as Napster and Rhapsody, have had a year to fine-tune the services, which have given many users headaches throughout 2005. Expect more MP3 players and portable video players with Microsoft's PlaysForSure branding, as well as other companies such as Sony and Apple following suit with similar services in 2006.

Satellite radio integration
We've seen quite a few portable satellite radio devices, including the Delphi XM MyFi and the Pioneer AirWare, but there will be at least a couple of new smaller satellite radio-ready devices that can play back MP3 and other digital audio files as well. Although they aren't fully blown portable satellite receivers--meaning they're receivers only when docked at home or in the car--the Samsung NeXus (XM) and the Sirius S50 will allow users to take recorded satellite content with them anywhere. Dell should have a player that also includes XM integration. In other words, the next cool and useful extra feature for MP3 players looks like satellite radio.