Matsushita Electric Industrial (Panasonic) will soon sell two digital audio players that are designed to closely integrate with two companion home stereo systems.
The D-snap SV-SD800N and SV-SD400V are SD (Secure Digital) card-based players featuring no internal storage while the micro-stereo systems come with either an 80GB or 160GB hard-disk drive, the company said Wednesday.
In typical use, Panasonic envisages the user’s song library will be stored on the hard disk and selected songs transferred to the portable player as desired. Transfer is accomplished through a dock in the top of the stereo systems that can also recharge the player. Through the dock the stereo system communicates with the portable player and offers users the ability to resume playback of the most recent song that was playing on the portable player before it was docked.
It’s also possible to connect the players to a personal computer via a USB (universal serial bus) cable.
The 800N player comes with a pair of earphones with noise-canceling built into a pod in the phones cord.
Both players and home systems will go on sale in Japan on Sept. 8 and are destined for overseas markets, although Panasonic hasn’t yet determined their launch dates. In Japan the SV-SD800N will cost ¥20,000 (US$172) and the SV-SD400V will cost ¥16,000. The micro stereo systems will cost ¥80,000 for the higher capacity model and ¥65,000 for the lower capacity model.
Both portable players come bundled with a 128MB SD card so potential users will likely have to purchase a second memory card if the 60-song capacity of the supplied card is not sufficient. The players support the new “SDHC” high-capacity SD memory cards.
The portable players measure 35 millimeters by 87mm by 10mm (1.37 x 3.43 x 0.39 inches) and weigh 38 grams (1.34 ounces). Panasonic said each player will provide about 30 hours of music playback on a single charge.