Sony unveils first U.S. Walkman video players
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Aug 30, 2007 at 7:46am
Sony has unveiled two new Walkman players that not only support audio—but for the first time in the United States—video. The new NWZ-A810 and NWZ-S610 series of Walkman digital music players will support an open platform, “providing more choices for downloading and managing music and video collections online,” says Brennan Mullin, vicepresident for audio products in the Digital Imaging and Audio Division at Sony.
The video players have a large Quarter Video Graphics Array (QVGA) LCD screen thatdisplays video at 30 frames per second. QVGA is a display mode for small screens in which the resolution is 320 pixels vertically by 240 pixels horizontally.
The battery life allows up to eight hours of video playback for the NWZ-A810 series and nine-and-a-half hours for the NWZ-S610 series, Mullin says. The battery also provides up to 33 hours of music playback for both series.
The players support security-enhanced Windows Media Audio (WMA), aswell as non-secure AAC and MP3 music formats, plus JPEG files for photos, in addition to the AVC (H.264/AVC) Baseline Profile and MPEG-4 video codecs. Users can download movie trailers, music videos, podcasts and video clips from the Internet and use (Windows compatible) shareware to convert the clips for use with the Walkman video players. Sony Pictures Entertainment has also provided video content for both of the new players.
The top-of-the-line Walkman video players have a two-inch QVGA (320 by 240 pixels) LCD screen (measured diagonally). Pricing ranges from US$140 for a 2GB version to $230 for an 8GB model.
Designed with a younger demographic in mind, the NWZ-S610 series has an 1.8-inch QVGA (320 by 240 pixels) LCD screen (measured diagonally) and
includes an FM tuner with 30 presets. Pricing ranges from $120 for a 2GB model to $210 for an 8GB version.
The Walkman video players store up to 1,850 songs on the 8GB models, 925 songs on the 4GB models, and 440 songs on the 2GB models. For those who just want music sans video, Sony is also introducing the NWZ-B100 series. These audio players—priced from $60 for a 1GB model to $80 for a 2GB model—include USB direct connect, a
three-line color LCD display and an FM tuner. They feature up to 12 hours of battery life and have FM recording capability, so users can capture and play back radio programs. The NWZ-B100 series also has a voice recorder function with a built-in microphone for taking notes or recording sing-alongs.
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 10,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
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