I notice that the Commodore Gravel In Pocket is arriving onto the UK market. It’s a small video and music player controlled by a cheekily designed joystick at the back although from the footage I’ve seen it looks like you need two hands to operate it. It also supports WiFi with access to Commodore World but unfortunately no web browser.

What struck me most about the watching the demos was that increasingly, it seems people are viewing video on smaller and smaller screens. The Gravel has 2.8 inch screen which is large by some standards. The Cowon iAudio 7 for instance, has a 1.3 inch screen and is XviD compatible and Cowon obviously thinks there is a market for video playback in such a small space. The Viewty’s display is also part of this tendency towards smaller screens, although at 3 inch widescreen you get just that little bit of extra area which makes a lot of difference when watching video.

Clearly there is a demand. Players are coming out with expanding list of compatible formats, the Viewty is DivX compatible and the Gravel will play both DivX and XviD. The DivX codec has been downloaded 80 million times in last year and as one of their stated goals is interoperability it’s a good format for the portable market.

As people get used to viewing video on such a small screen and expectations of quality rise, plus the demand for portability that these devices provide, things like DivX compatibility are important features.