IFA 2006: Commodore Gravel – downloadable entertainment on the move or in the home

I mentioned earlier in the week that the first viewing of the new Commodore (the Mpet II mp3 player), but the new Gravel entertainment system seems altogether more in line with the Commodore name.

Commodore’s latest baby is Commodore World and the Gravel entertainment systems. The Commodore World website promises "a large variety of entertainment content – music, videos, games, favorite radio and TV programs", accessed on demand via the Gravel devices. As yet, the site is unavailable to view, so we can’t confirm what exactly is on offer.

What we can see are the Gravel devices. The Commodore Gravel In Pocket is a pocket-sized multimedia device with built-in Wi-Fi. It supports all major file formats, including MP4, MPEG, DivX, Xvid, WMV, streaming WMV, JPEG, BMP, GIF, along with MP3, WMA, WAVE music files. There’s 1GB or 2GB internal flash memory, expandable by SD card and comes with the claims that it’s world-first, high-quality flash video device that plays full screen, full motion (24 fps) on a 2.8-inch TFT screen.

The Commodore Gravel In Home is a home entertainment centre which provides access to Video On Demand, Replay TV and streaming music services directly to your TV. It comes with an 80GB drive, with all services accessed via the single jog remote control.

Both sound interesting – and both are up against some pretty strong competition in both the mobile and home-based entertainment market. We’ll porbably find out how well the systems will do once we see the downloadable content – and the prices charge for hardware and downloads.

Commodore website