[Updated 2:30 P.M.] — Taiwanese motherboard maker FIC will unveil a Linux-based portable media player (PMP) at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. FIC's “Vassili” includes a 3.6-inch color LCD screen and a 20GB hard drive, and can play multimedia content downloaded directly from PCs and PVRs (personal video recorders) in a number of formats.

(Click for larger view of FIC Vassili PMP)

The PMP market appears to be heating up, with InStat/MDR projecting close to 180 percent annual growth through 2008, and several vendors, including Archos, iRiver, Veritouch, and Zupera have recently announced new Linux-based PMPs. Several new PMP reference designs, including those from Sharp and Freescale, support only Microsoft's Portable Media Center software. FIC's Vassili — which appears to be intended as both an end-user product and a reference design — supports only Linux at this point, although the company says the platform is also capable of running Windows CE.

The FIC Vassili is based on AMD's Alchemy Au1200, a highly integrated SoC (system-on-chip) designed specifically for PMPs. The chip is currently sampling.

The Vassili includes a built-in 20GB hard drive and large, 3.6-inch color LCD display. It also includes TV- and audio-out ports, a built-in speaker, a USB 2.0 device interface, a USB host interface, and a 10/100 Ethernet LAN port. An included docking station supports s-video.

The Vassili's 20GB hard drive can store up to 80 hours of video (320 x 240 at 500kbps AVI format) or 1,200 hours of music (Windows Media format at 64kbps), FIC says. The design includes a rechargeable/removable lithium-ion battery said to deliver up to four hours of video playback, or 12 hours of music playback. Supported multimedia formats include MPEG4, MP3, WMA, WAV, ASF, AVI, and JPEG.

The Vassili includes a media player and content management software stack from Implicit Networks, which has ported its Implicit Media Player to Intel's PXA270 chip, in addition to the Au1200. Implicit is also working on a Windows CE port of its PMP software stack, and it will offer software for managing PMP content from PCs and laptops running Linux, OS X, and Windows.

The Vassili comes with a cradle/dock, headphones, carrying case, installation CD, AC adapter, USB host and USB 2.0 cables, an audio line-in cable, a TV-out cable, and user manual. The device measures 4.9 x 3.5 x 0.75 inches (125 x 89.5 x 19 mm), and weighs 6.5 ounces (180 grams).

Availability

The Vassili will be priced at $500, according to FIC, and will be offered to OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) for rebranding. A target date for availability has not yet been announced.

For more news from this week's Consumer Electronics Show, check out PCMag.com's CES 2005 special report

 
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