iriver and Texas Instruments Unveil New Portable Media Players

September 7, 2004

Redefining the portable media player (PMP) market with the industry’s first CD portable media player, Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) and iriver introduce the availability of two new portable media devices. Powered by TI’s Digital Media family of digital signal processors (DSPs), along with multiple analog components from TI, iriver’s IMP 1100 is the world’s first audio/video (A/V) CD player, and the multifunctional PMP-100 is a hard disk drive A/V player with FM tuner.

“Advances in audio/video technology are enabling innovative portable products, such as the PMP, which offers consumers new ways to enjoy their digital content.” said Cindy McCurley, Senior Analyst, In-Stat/MDR. McCurley’s recent report entitled “Handheld Audio/Video Players: Audio, Video and More!” projects that in four years, more than 7.6 million PMP units will ship worldwide, with a compound annual growth rate of 179 percent over the 2003-2008 period. “As consumer awareness increases, functionality expands, and prices decline, a growing number of consumers will be drawn to having access to their content wherever they are, whether it is their favorite song, home video, or family photo.”

The IMP 1100 A/V CD player combines the convenience and reliability of a CD player with the cutting-edge capabilities of an A/V player. Consumers can watch home movies or digital photos on the 2” 260k color TFT LCD screen. Leveraging TI’s power-efficient DSP and high-performance DC/DC power management ICs, the IMP 1100 can play up to six hours of video and approximately 25 hours of music with one charge of the rechargeable lithium-ion (Li-Ion) battery. The IMP 1100 also supports a variety of additional features, including:
TV-out/line out to watch shows on the home TV
Upgradeable firmware to get the latest features of tomorrow
Audio formats -- MP3, Windows Media Audio (WMA) and ASF, DivX video, and imaging formats -- JPEG and BMP, offering broad support for content

The PMP-100 HDD A/V player is the first HDD-based A/V player with an FM tuner. It also offers the above mentioned features with additional support for MPEG4 video. The USB 2.0 device and host allow consumers to access content quickly and easily, whether it is from the Internet or personal use, such as pictures taken with a digital camera. Video and pictures can be seen clearly on the large 3.5” 260k color TFT graphic LCD screen. The PMP-100 can play approximately four to five hours of video and up to 10 hours of audio on a Li-Ion battery and up to 18 hours for audio playback after firmware optimization. iriver offers the PMP-100 with either 20GB and 40GB of storage.

"By partnering with TI, we are able to continue to develop next-generation consumer entertainment devices," said Matthew Yoon, Marketing Director, iriver. “We see tremendous growth potential in the PMP market, as innovation is the key to success in this growing market.”

As the leader in providing silicon to the PMP market, TI has a variety of solutions to offer manufacturers to help them take advantage of the power efficiency and performance headroom of TI’s Digital Media processors. In addition, TI’s DC/DC power management devices prolong battery life by achieving up to 96 percent power conversion efficiency. Portable media players require design complexity, enhanced user interfaces and advanced systems on chip (SoCs), and TI is one of the few companies that can meet these performance and cost demands.

Pricing and Availability
The IMP 1100 is scheduled to be available in the Q3 of 2004 and will have a suggested retail price of $279.99. The PMP-100 is available now and will have a suggested retail price of $479.99 for 20GB and $579.99 for 40GB.