Sony to ship portable video, MP3 player next month

El Reg reports that Sony are to launch the HMP-A1, a portable 20 Gigabyte video/MP3/photo playback device. It has a 3.5in, 320 x 240 colour LCD and weighs in at 250g. Although playback is limited to MPEG 2 and MPEG 4 files, it's software allows it to accept MPEG 1, AVI, WMV and DVR-MS files too, which are converted to it's native formats when you download them from your PC. Similarly, it converts any BMP, GIF, PNG and TIFF files to the JPEG format it uses.

In a change for Sony, the HMP-A1 plays back MP3 files instead of Sony's own ATRAC audio format, and will ship with MusicMatch's Jukebox software.

The built-in rechargable battery should give up to four hours' MPEG 2, six hours' MPEG 4 or eight hours' MP3 playback.