The second model, the HMP-A1, contains a 20GB hard drive, the contents of which are listed on a front-mounted 3.5in, 320 x 240 colour LCD – larger than the VGF-AP1’s 2.2in display. The new unit is larger, too, and heavier: it’s 13 x 7.6 x 2.2cm to the first model’s 11.5 x 6.3 x 1.7cm. The two machines weight 250g and 195g, respectively.

The HMP-A1 plays back MPEG 2 and MPEG 4 files. Its software allows it to handle MPEG 1, AVI, WMV and DVR-MS, but these are converted to one of the MPEG video formats when they’re downloaded from a host PC to the player.

Likewise, BMP, GIF, PNG and TIFF files are converted to the JPEG files upon transfer.