Epson P-2000 Out Next Month in the U.S.
When I first heard about the new Epson P-2000, I thought it would be the perfect convergence media device. It has a hard drive and plays a bunch of different audio and video formats, and, given Epson’s reputation in the photographic print business, it provides some features not seen on other such devices, like ports for different memory sizes and support for numerous digital photo RAW file formats. With its huge 3.8” LCD and profusion of features, I suspected it would be at least as much as its predecessor, the P-1000, but Epson has actually dropped the price to $500! And it will be out next month here in the U.S.! Considering it has a 40GB hard drive, the same as the iPod’s current top-of-the line, plus has a huge amount of additional functionality, I can’t see why someone would pick the iPod instead.
Oh I suppose there is the user interface to consider. It’s hard to beat Apple in that area. But the UI on the P-2000 would have to be mighty clunky to opt for an iPod. Also, what about Apple's online digital music store iTunes? For those who have downloaded a bunch of songs or hope to in the future, will this device be able to? It’s unclear. It is supposed to support AAC files, which is the format Apple uses with iTunes, but it’s not clear if that automatically means it can support iTunes specific DRM. I’m sure Apple controls which devices can and can’t access their DRM’d files and so far there’s been no mention from any camp. There is one more issue which probably is not a big one for most but is for me, and that is that I use the iPod primarily to listen to audio books that I download from Audible.com. These also have a proprietary DRM and while they can be played on an iPod, that also doesn’t mean by extension that they can be played by any device that can play an AAC file. I’ve been attempting to get answers to these questions from the various parties and I will post any information as soon as I get it.
I guess I could look this up, but...
What's the battery life hyped to
be?
What media formats will it play? Is DIVX one of them?
William [portow@yahoo.com]
William, no info on the battery life, although it's supposed to be lithium
ion. With a 3.8" LCD screen, I'm sure it needs some serious power, so I'm
guessing maybe 5 hours give or take a bit? But it's a total guess.
As far as formats, no DIVX, but it does play MPEG-4 and motion JPEG. Can MPEG-2 be converted to MPEG-4 fairly easily?
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Yea. I convert MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 all the time. BUT - and this is a big
BUT - it has to be a HQ MPEG-2, like DVD quality otherwise it won't be
worth watching.