Microsoft and Kenwood have got together to unveil a portable CD player which is capable of playing back more than 22 hours of CD quality music from a single CD. The Kenwood DPC-MP727 portable player is the first to support Microsoft's Windows Media Audio format, including the new Windows Media Audio 8 format released last month. Buyers can use Windows Media Player to convert their CD collections into WMA-formatted CD-quality digital music with file sizes half the size of MP3 files, and then transfer them onto a single disc.
This means that music fans can listen to the same CD for 22 hours continuously but will not hear the same song twice. The DPC-727, launched at the Streaming Media West exhibition last month, will be released in Japan in the second quarter of 2001 and should be rolled out around the world after that.
This new player also includes a bass boost feature to offer deeper and richer music playback, and Kenwood's innovative Digital AntiShockCircuit technology, which automatically stores up to 160 seconds of music data to help prevent music interruptions caused by shocks and bumps to the player.
