Microsoft disclosed a prototype of its "Portable Media Center," a mobile video player with an HDD featuring tens of gigabytes of memory at the "WinHEC 2004" (Hardware Engineering Conference).

Earlier, at the "2004 International CES" held in January 2004, Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect of Microsoft, displayed a similar tool.

This player, shaped like a portable game machine, provides the function of replaying music, moving video, static images, and others.

Microsoft said that a user could record a TV program on a home server with Microsoft's "Windows XP Media Center Edition," and then copy it to the Portable Media Center, and watch it on the Portable Media Center unit away from home. Microsoft will market the product in the third quarter of 2004.

The Portable Media Center uses Windows CE .NET as the operating system. In spite of sharing the name of Media Center, it does not adopt the Windows XP Media Center Edition. But the usability is consistent between them, by designing the GUIs of Portable Media Center similar to those of Windows XP Media Center Edition, the company said.

Creative Technology of Singapore developed the prototype.