When you're away from home, you can still enjoy the digital entertainment that you store on your Media Center PC by using a compatible portable entertainment player or digital audio player. Let's sort through your options by looking at four types of portable players that can synchronize with your Media Center PC:- Ultra-portable audio players. Music you can fit in your pocket, purse, or even on your keychain. These affordable players, such as the Creative Muvo or RCA Lyra use durable flash memory to store up to 500 songs. Pick a flash-based portable audio player for jogging, working out, or traveling light.
- High-capacity portable audio players. These devices, such as the Dell DJ, iRiver H10, and Toshiba Gigabeat, use tiny hard disks to store your entire music collection. Even if you have hundreds or thousands of CDs, you can have your music library at your fingertips, whether you are in your car, on the subway, or at the beach. High-capacity portable audio players are perfect for road trips, business trips, and commuting.
- Portable Media Players. These devices, such as Apple's iPod with video, Creative's Zen Vision, and the Archos line of devices are capable of synchronizing with your Media Center PC and playing all of your media types, including recorded TV, videos, music, and pictures. All of these devices have their own menu systems, which are different from the Media Center menu system. These devices will convert your recorded TV files to a format that is compatible with the device for playback. These portable devices are perfect for entertaining kids on the go, making your commute fly by, or livening up a rainy day on your vacation.
- Portable Media Centers. These devices, such as the Creative Zen Portable Media Center, iRiver PMC-120, and Yepp YH-999, can also play back all of the digital entertainment stored on your Media Center PC. The main distinguishing feature of these devices is that they use the familiar Green Button to access a Media Center menu system designed for portables that is just like the menu system on your Media Center PC. Portable Media Centers use the same file format for recorded TV as your Media Center PC—which means that files don't need to be converted during the synchronization process. The experience of using a Portable Media Center will be a very familiar one. Find more information on Portable Media Centers.
It’s easy to choose a portable player that is compatible with your Media Center; just look for the PlaysForSure logo at most electronics stores. To find information online, visit PlaysForSure. You can also shop for all these products on Windows Marketplace. |
