Currently, the typical way to use a portable digital audio player is to transfer music data ripped from CDs or downloaded from the Web by a PC to the player via USB, etc. However, to do so it is obviously necessary to use a PC; users who do not own PCs or do not have sufficient knowledge about how to operate the PC are thus not able to use audio players to their full potential.

For some time now, one of the most frequently asked questions among MD users has been, "why aren't there any portable audio players that can be used without PCs?" For this reason, many types of portable players that allow the users to enjoy music without involving PCs by directly encoding analog input sources to MP3 and similar are sold on the market, claiming that they are "PC-free." So far, it has not been realistic to use such methods with large-capacity players such as hard disk-type players, which allow recording thousands of songs, however, because even if the songs themselves can be separated, the song names are just displayed as "Track 1, Track 2" and so on.

The response of TRANSTECHNOLOGY to these music fans' demands for portable audio players that are truly PC-free is "TRANSGEAR HMP-100."

"TRANSGEAR HMP-100" is a ground-breaking, novel portable audio player that utilizes the US company Gracenote's "MusicID" technology for acquiring song information by analyzing waveforms of analog input sound data and matching it against databases, as well as TRANSTECHNOLOGY's own proprietary "MagicSync" technology, which enable the player to acquire new or additional song information via mobile phone networks. This is the first player in the world that has these features built directly into the main unit.

All kinds of music sources already bought by the user, such as CD/MD, cassette tapes etc., can be used as analog input sources for the external input terminal of the player. The music from the sources can then be directly acquired in the MP3 or WMA format and intervals between songs are automatically detected so that they are correctly separated into individual tracks. The name, artist and other information of each particular song are then searched for in the "e-MusicID (embedded MusicID)" database on the player's hard disk, which contains information on approximately 3.5 million songs, and recorded as ID3 tags together with the songs.

Moreover, song information of new music released day by day can be obtained by accessing Gracenote's MusicID database directly via a mobile phone network using the "MagicSync" function. It is possible to acquire the latest song information and record/display it as ID3 tags.

By utilizing these technologies, "TRANSGEAR HMP-100" entirely eliminates the need for external devices such as PCs and dedicated components connected to the Internet, making it the first portable digital audio player that can be called "PC-free" in the true sense of the word, not just a catch phrase.

Of course, TRANSTECHNOLOGY intends to make use of the "e-MusicID" and "MagicSync" technologies built into "TRANSGEAR HMP-100" in its proprietary products to be developed in the future; however, it will also be licensing them widely to other manufacturers that develop similar portable audio players and mini-component systems. Through these activities, TRANSTECHNOLOGY is aiming to accelerate the overall shift of portable digital audio players to PC-free devices and create new trends, which are different from the current mainstream, in the world.