While we're not going to fault manufacturers for trying to innovate, previous attempts at
featurewatches have been, well,
less than attractive. Looks like
Epoq sent some of their designers to a watch shop, because their new EMP-CVWC-2/4 "MP4" watch finally lets you keep that mashup of your favorite
Battlestar Galactica scenes at the ready and still blend into polite company. Well, maybe -- that's still a lot of chunk to wear on your wrist, but we can't see how anything smaller than a 1.5-inch screen would be useful. We're assuming this is just a metal-and-leather reworking of the
Shenzhen piece we saw a while back, since the basic specs are the same (apart from a bump in capacities to 2 / 4GB): 128 x 128 res OLED screen, MP3 / WMA / JPG support, voice recorder, FM radio, and a 2.5mm headphone jack. As with that Shenzhen, the dealbreaker is video support, which is limited to the goofy NXV format. The six people still interested should be able to find a 2GB model a couple weeks from now for about $170.
[Via
I4U]
posted May 4th 2007 2:50AM
MP4, NXV, MTV, DMV, MPX, AMV:
Uncompressed RGB bitmaps, interleaved with raw MP3 audio frames by any other name...That's why 2GB will get you a whopping hour and a half of video.
Until these video watches come in non-stupid aspect ratios (the 128x128 screen should tell you it was designed for a cellphone and this manufatcurer picked it up on the cheap) and get a damn Rockchip for real MPEG4 decoding, I'm holding onto my cash and sticking with 3GP movies on my phone for tiny-screen fun.
Ok, so this is obviously a pile of junk that no one would want to be seen wearing, but I can't really understand the complaints about codec support (other than it being the rallying cry of nerds around the world who can't be bothered to think things through properly)...
I mean, do you all have a load of 128x128 videos in MP4 or DivX that you can't be bothered to transcode for your shiney new video watch?? Surely if you are down-resing content for the device, it makes no odds if you also transcode at the same time...
128x128
I bet it looks better than most youtube video.
Actually, I was thinking this would be a cool gift for a brand new parent that's really (really) gadgety. Instead of carrying around a wallet full of baby pics to show everyone, they could just be like, check out this vid of my baby.
-for some reason I also get an image of 11 year old boys with these watching pron in class five years from now, like when I was that age we would pass around a page from dads playboy in school.
Yes yes, all fine and dandy, but can it play Doom?
These watches are NOT $170. They are only $57 on chinavasion.com and they are available now. I already got the rubber and plastic one and it is VERY worth the money.
http://www.chinavasion.com/product_info.php/pName/mens-metallic-watch-mp4-player-2gb-15inch-oled-screen/
Also, the watch comes with conversion software. It took everything I threw at it and converted it to nxv (which gave the video much better compression too) though the quality isn't amazing but its still pretty impressive. Being an owner of one of these I would recommend it
128x128 resolution is terrible. OLED should be able to do 320x200 in a watch size. I don't think video is watchable in anything less than 320x200, and even then, at that size, you'd almost want to have a magnifying glass. Video on watches will only make sense when you can do realtime wireless videoconferencing (aka Dick Tracy watch).
"Thanks" soopergooman for telling us about your fantastic buy. How about a website to prove it. then you get bragging rights
chinavasion.com has the widescreen watch too. It is also dirt cheap
I got this watch (firmware 7.302) and it plays SMV (Sigmatel Motion Video) files.
It has 1 Hour of video in 200MB (highest quality).
1 Episode of southpark would take 65MB for me, so I could place around 30 on my watch. Quality is better if you convert it first to 128x128 with good software, and let the sigmatel tool convert it to smv.
My watch seems to lack FM support and had a virus already in the flash (hidden file named explorer.exe).
It does play mp3 and show lyrics, image-viewing (has zoom function) and records sound through your headphones. USB connection is plug&play, pretty handy.
Overall I am pretty happy with it.
Hi Daan,
I got this watch like you. The firmware is the same 7.302. I've a problem => impossible to switch from the clock default display "analogic" to the one "digital" showed into the documentation ! Did you try this change ?
Thanks very much.
Luc