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After the explosive growth of the iPod and other digital music players, technology companies look to do the same thing with another medium: video.
The idea is to put digital video on a host of portable devices, letting people watch everything from movie clips to news programs.
Microsoft (NasdaqNM:MSFT - News) was the first major company on board, with last year's launch of a version of Windows Mobile.
The software is designed to serve as an extension to Microsoft's Windows Media Center Edition operating system, which runs on desktop computers and laptops.
Users can capture video on their PC using Windows Media Player 10, then convert the file -- through a process known as transcoding -- into a more compressed version that can be played on a handheld device.
An application installed on the PC automatically downloads the files into the handheld player.
A number of hardware makers have announced plans to sell Portable Media Center devices.
But only Creative Labs (NasdaqNM:CREAF - News), Samsung and iRiver have actually delivered players based on the Media Center software.
Creative Labs was the first to hit store shelves with its $499 Zen Portable Media Center, and that was the unit we tested.
None of the Portable Media Center models, including the Zen, requires you to run Windows Media Center Edition on your desktop PC -- though you should at least use Windows Media Player 10 to get the most from your handheld.
The Zen Portable Media Center is considerably larger -- at 5.67 by 3.18 by 1.06 inches -- than many audio players, such as Apple Computer's (NasdaqNM:AAPL - News) iPod or Creative's other Zen models.
It weighs 12 ounces.
Easy On The Eyes
The video display on the Zen player is 3.8 inches, with resolution of 320 by 240 pixels.
That doesn't sound very high, but it provides a surprisingly watchable image. And the screen is back-lit, so you can see the image even in bright light.
While the attraction of a Portable Media Center is on-the-go video, the Zen and others of its ilk also are capable of handling other media -- including audio and still images.
Audio is supported in a variety of formats, including Microsoft's WMA encoding format, MP3s and WAV files.
TV shows need to be encoded into the .dvr-ms format used by Windows Media Center Edition.
Other video can be in MPEG format. If your digital snapshots are in JPEG format, these can also be stored and displayed on the Portable Media Center.
Seven Hours Of Video
The Zen has a 20-gigabyte hard drive, which provides storage for seven hours of video and up to 22 hours of audio.
The rechargeable battery provided lasted seven hours in our testing while watching video.
Overall, the Zen Portable Media Center is a fun gadget, especially if you travel a lot.
Getting the media into the proper format and downloading it into the player are the biggest downsides.
Encoding a one-hour TV program took almost an extra hour, and there is still a dearth of movies in the proper format available for purchase and download.
Other devices, which don't use Microsoft's Portable Media Center operating system, can get around this problem.
Take the Pocket Video Recorder AV420 from Archos.
The AV420 includes a unique cradle that lets you hook it up to a TV set and record TV shows directly.
You don't need to first record media on a PC, then transcode it and transfer it to the portable player.
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