ANT plc, the market leading provider of software and solutions for the IPTV, hybrid TV and consumer electronics industries, announced today the first large scale deployment of personal media players (PMPs) utilizing the ANT PurePlay advanced digital media manager software. This initial product enables consumers to watch movies, view photos and enjoy music and other audio material any time, anywhere. The first volume deployment of the new product is scheduled for August 2006.

ANT's PurePlay software supports multiple device formats, including a PMP with a 7-inch viewing screen based on the Philips Nexperia PMP reference design. ANT PurePlay is pre-integrated onto the newest Philips low-power mobile multimedia processor, the PNX0190, and is optimised to maximise speed to market and minimise bill of materials (BoM), non-recoverable engineering (NRE) costs and development risk. By providing the highest-value embedded media player and manager solution for embedded devices, ANT PurePlay meets the needs of OEM's and their customers and ensures the best user-experience when launching products.

"ANT PurePlay manages all device functions while enabling a product's user interface (UI) to be completely customized," said Dirk-Jan Riezebos, product marketing manager for portable media solutions, Philips Semiconductors. "That flexibility is one of the key reasons why Philips selected ANT PurePlay for its PMP reference designs. ODMs and OEMs can now use PurePlay as the basis for a wide range of PMP products, facilitating fast product introduction into this rapidly growing market."

"In talking to major consumer electronics manufacturers, we have found that they often have as many different UI designs and underlying UI support mechanisms as they have products — all developed independently by different teams. If they want to change the UI they often have to start from scratch," said Simon Woodward, president and CEO of ANT. "ANT PurePlay separates UI design from product control logic to give Philips a single software architecture that can reduce product development cost, simplify the UI design and implementation, and substantially reduce product time-to-market."

ANT PurePlay offers a rapid and streamlined integration route for manufacturers of digital-media and entertainment devices. ANT PurePlay provides an intuitive way for consumers to navigate large amounts of media, including storing, recalling, recording and playback. ANT PurePlay, through its hugely flexible user interface design, controls all of these functions and implementation architecture, providing the sequence and navigation flow that helps the consumer interact with the device. In addition PurePlay's media management core supports seamless navigation across a wide range of media sources including attached, home network and Internet sources.