Sony's concept photo storage/viewer device

We're not entirely sure why this thing is still in concept-device stage, since we'd have expected Sony to have one of these out a long time ago or be prepping to release one; all the same, they're showing one of these guys at the PMA show. Of course, the obvious comparison is to the Epson Photo Fine P-2000 (which we're highly in lust over, since it also plays back music and MPEG-4 files), but they're going to have to do some serious legwork to not only keep up with its multimedia features, but to ensure it's not totally worthless to the average consumer. Like, say, by not making it Memory Stick only.

[Thanks DirtHerder]

[Pancake @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

Totally Worthless Device.

[DirtHerder @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

If Sony is all about convergence... I kinda wish Sony would converge this device with it's VGF-AP1 and HMP-A1.

I guess what I really want is a Sony version of the Archos PMA 400. ^_~

[JazzyJeff @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

Sony would've done good of themselves to put a hard drive into the PSP instead of spewing out this crap. I know that doing so would've put the PSP out of reach of its target demographic, but it still would've been a nice touch. Good ol' Sony - can't concentrate on anything. Oyoyoy

[TheZodiac @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

Its still in its concept stage because they are truly useless device by themselves. Also, the same reason it took for Sony to completely pull their suck-cessful Clie line of the market totally. Wierd, man - it just aint right!

[Jezlyn @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

I have the Epson P-2000 device, and while it has a wonderful bright screen, is great for offloading pictures from your digital camera and showing them off as slideshows, I believe that is all you should consider if you want this device. Yes, it does play mp3s and MPEG4 files, but it's not the media center experience that you would expect.

Mp3 file playback is clunky. There's no support for playlists, you can't really queue up songs on the fly (which given the large screen and nice menus, you'd think it'd be easy to include as a feature), and there's no ID3 tag support. No album art or gapless playback. In fact, the gaps between two tracks is excessively long. No EQ settings or any other mp3 player features you'd consider to be standard on most players.

MPEG4 playback is just as clunky. The P-2000 is very picky about what MPEG4 files it'll play. Most downloaded DivX/XviD files are not immediately playable and require some tweaking. Even if you're encoding video files from scratch, you'll have to spend some time figuring out just the right settings (AFAIK, there aren't many people who've been encoding movies for playback on the P-2000, so there isn't a lot of online help for that). We've been able to figure out some good settings for Dr. DivX, but that was after much experimenting. You can't really scan forward or backward because the audio will go out of sync. The main playback controls are play, pause, scan forward/backward (but remember, audio sync problems basically render those controls useless), and stop. No option to jump to a certain timecode in the file, and no variable ff/rw speeds. But, if all of the stars are aligned and you are blessed with a compatible MPEG4 file, playback on both the device and your TV, if you connect the P-2000 to your TV, is very crisp and clean. One Top Gear video I downloaded looked like DVD quality when I played it back through my TV. Very nice.

So, if you're considering the Epson P-2000, just think of it as a really great photo bin that has bonus features of playing mp3s and certain MPEG4 files in a barebone fashion. If you think of it that way, you won't be disappointed when you try out those features.

[John @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

I have th p 2000 as well. It's very slow at reading the memory card from my high speed (40 and 80x lexar). And it's not very intuitive for album creation other than sucking the photos from a memory card. If you want to say dump photos on it from your computer to make an album there's not much support I've found. If I'm wrong please point it out to me.

Also the one sample video that came with it while stunning does have playback glitches... it pauses a bit here and there while it's playing.

It's excellent for storage of your memory card data though. Just what I bought it for.

[Jason @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

Maybe this will set up video devices.

[h digit @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

I have been using the epson p-2000 photo viewer for about 2 months, and the feature I appreciate most is its ability to store tons of images from my Nikon D100. I shoot mostly RAW (.nef) format, and the Epson p-2000 will show me those as well. It will not do slide shows of the .nef files, which is a big disappoinment, since I would like to use it to show my family and friends the images I just shot, and slide show is the neat way to do that.

The (lack of) ability to display videos is a major disappointment, since so far I cannot get any video material to display, except the little demo video it came with of course. I don't know how to tweak the settings on video, so I can't do what the previous person did. Epson - are you listening? I have sent them some emails for help, and all I get back is some drone who cut and paste the text from page 28 of the manual on what files are supported. Thanks, Epson, I never thought to read the manual - not. Anyone who has found on-line content that will display on the Epson p-2000 please post the URL here! Thanks

[Frankie @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

Jezlyn or any one of you,

Could you send me the setting for Dr. Divx? I have just purchased the Epson P-2000 and using Imtoo to convert the DVDs. But the converted files' video and audio go out of sync when played on the P-2000 (but not on the PC using WM player).

Please help.

[Frankie @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

My address is [e-mail]
Thanks.

[Phil @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

I to have just purchased the Epson P-2000 and using Imtoo to convert the DVDs. But the converted files' video and audio go out of sync when played on the P-2000 (but not on the PC using WM player). any Joy on getting Imtoo to convert to Files?