Shrinking high tech is impacting digital music and video

Portable music has come a long way since oversized boom boxes and Walkman cassette players. These days, you can do more with less. <br/><br/>News on 6 anchor Casey Norton shows us how the technology

Thursday, February 10th 2005, 10:07 am

By: News On 6

Portable music has come a long way since oversized boom boxes and Walkman cassette players. These days, you can do more with less.

News on 6 anchor Casey Norton shows us how the technology is shrinking, but the capabilities are expanding.

When it comes to portable music and video, there's more than just your car stereo. And just about every electronics company has something to separate it from your typical I-pod or Mp3 player. In just a few weeks, XAct Communications will put the Re-Go on the market.

A first of its kind when it comes to personal satellite radio. Tony Antolino with XAct Communications says, "We've converged two technologies. MP3 and Satellite Radio. You can record up to 4 hours of your Sirius content. Record it and play it later. Or you can upload up to 1 gig of your favorite songs from home. So it's about a thousand songs." It can plug into your car, your boom box, or even use headphones to pick up the Sirius Satellite radio.

Panasonic is breaking new ground with E-Wear. It's listening function and fashion with the first water-resistant sports wear and eveningwear. Patricia Liu with Panasonic says, "So you can see you can wear it around your neck and still look fashionable. This comes with an FM tuner, as well as digital recording capabilities, so you can record a memo or your FM tunes right off of there."

Technology is not just about getting smaller. Disks like this also have to be adaptive. One disk comes with 1 gig of memory and a USB adapter. Go video" will use cards like that to air hours of your favorite shows, right in the palm of your hand. Jonathan King, Go Video designer says, "This is a product designed to connect directly to your home network to pull content directly off your digital video recorder. So when you record ESPN or your movies, you and put it right on this player and take it with you wherever you go."

Other products can play back from digital storage or live, analog signals, but they're pricey and the signal is unreliable. But the day is coming for live digital TV and radio on your cell phone, so that little device will replace a complete dashboard in your SUV.

The technology is ready to go, so you can watch the News on 6 on your cell phone. It just might take a few years for the FCC to approve the signals and for the cell phone companies to determine the charges.