The best PMP (or personal media player) mobile phone hybrid is the new N8's label in this very speedy growing multimedia environment by home cinema choice ! And to be honnest, for me it'll be so only if Nokia allows playing native AVIs, well, anyway, HCC had an exclusive hands-on with the device, at Dolby Laboratories’ Wootton Bassett HQ, to really to grips with its multimedia functionality and here's some interesting quotes of their hands on :

HDMI out for HD and 5.1

The headline news is that this is the first mobile phone able to output high definition video and multichannel surround sound via HDMI. The N8 has a mini-HDMI output. An adaptor is supplied in the box. The mobile is the first to support Dolby Digital Plus, the next generation codec which builds upon the success of Dolby Digital 5.1. All DDPlus decoders are fully backwards compatible with first generation DD5.1, however the Plus suffix means that it can deliver high-quality 5.1 within a low bandwidth, puny bitrate environment.

This makes it attractive to both TV broadcasters and content owners looking to distribute high-performance files within tight space constraints.

To audition to the phone, we hooked it up to a regular home cinema system (large screen LCD TV, Onkyo AVR etc) and plugged it in via HDMI. The mobile’s GUI instantly appeared on the screen allowing us to browse through several screen loads of clips, comprising test footage and movie trailers. Holding the phone horizontally fills the TV screen. Our initial viewing session concluded with the 720p trailer for Tron Legacy, which looked and sounded fabulous.

The 720p video was encoded using MPEG 4 and the output looked crisp and detailed, while the DDPlus surround track was powerful and immersive. Subjectively, in the context of the system used, there was no difference between it and a standard DD5.1 mix from DVD.

 To learn more about the technology behind the phone, HHC interviewed Jonathan Jowitt, Dolby’s senior technical marketing manager, after their hands on session. To read this click here.