Cyberhome To Use Philips' PMP Chip

Eindhoven, the Netherlands— Royal Philips Electronics said it has reached a deal with consumer electronics manufacturer Cyberhome to supply its Nexperia mobile multimedia processor for new Cyberhome manufactured portable media players.

Irwin Wuen, Cyberhome marketing director, said his company's forthcoming portable media players will operate on low power and will enable users to view broadcast television signals, in addition to movie downloads, music files, JPEG images and Adobe Flash-based video games.

In addition to playing back media on the go, the devices will offer DVR-like recording and will connect to television sets, up-scaling content to 1,080i and 720p high-definition formats.

The portable devices, which will have color screens measuring 7 or 8 inches, will be positioned as alternatives to power-consuming portable DVD players and portable media players with small view screens.

Units will be powered by rechargeable lithium-ion batteries offering up to four hours of video playback time.

Screen resolution for a 7-inch model would be 800 by 400 pixels, and hard-disk-drive capacities have not been determined, but Wuen said that 30GBs seems to be a key size. An SD card slot will also be included for removable file storage.

Cyberhome is looking to introduce products at prices starting at around $499 to $599.

Cyberhome expects the first PMPs to be available to OEM customers in July. Initial deliveries into the market are expected in Europe, moving to the United States by the holiday selling season, said Wuen.

The Nexperia processor used in the players will support Adobe Flash and DVB-T (for Europe) broadcast signals. Players coming later in the year will support a DVB-H broadcast content based on Philips' existing TV-on-mobile solutions.

Models based on the Nexperia PNX0190 processor come equipped with Wi-Fi IEEE802.11a/g capability, and supporting scaling TV output to high-definition formats for connection to HDTV TVs.