'Pocket Theaters' Emerge as New Trend

A new era is dawning for a "theater in your pocket," or the so-called "palm theater." Just the size of a cigarette pack, portable media players allow people to watch movies, TV shows and online lectures anytime and anywhere. Replacing televisions and computers, these fancy gadgets are attracting more and more viewers.

Portable media players are selling like hot cakes in Korea. Industry sources say over 2.3 million devices were sold last year, a 100 percent increase from 2006. Given that some 2.1 million TV sets were sold during the same period, it seems these new gadgets are not just for early adopters anymore.

Reigncom, the Korean multimedia device maker famous for the iRiver, said the rapid growth of the market has largely been fueled by American TV series and user-created content (UCC), which have enjoyed huge popularity in Korea since early last year. The device makers have also done their part by releasing enticing new products one after another.

From left, the LG Ann Shining Touch, Samsung YP-P2 and Apple iPod Touch

Reigncom introduced its Clix MP4 player last year, sporting an active-matrix organic light emitting diode (AMOLED) screen that offers a clearer image than a liquid crystal display (LCD) screen. The device has achieved great success with sales of over 200,000 units, an unusually high figure for a single model.

Samsung Electronics launched its YP-P2 touch-screen media player in October last year. Since then it has sold an average of 30,000 units per month. LG Electronics also entered the market with its Ann Shining Touch player which can tune into DMB broadcasts. Meanwhile, Apple has achieved tremendous success with its iPod Touch and other media players.

Portable media players are especially popular among students who want to take advantage of the many educational video resources developed by local language schools and cram schools. This has prompted Sharp and several companies of different fields, among them electronic dictionary and navigation system makers, to rush to find their way into this lucrative market.

There are drawbacks, too. Although there are dozens of different video format types today, many devices support a limited range of formats such as MP4. That means consumers have to convert their movie files to a format that their device can read.
More fundamentally, the illegal download of movies, TV content and other copyrighted material should be strictly forbidden, said Park Young-ryeol, a professor at Yonsei University.
(englishnews@chosun.com )