(Special Report) - Since we had a lot of time at CES this year, thanks to lackluster exhibitors, we talked a lot about the future (like we wouldn't normally). These days, music players are a plenty, but there's nothing that's truly disruptive about them. Even the cheapest (and we mean that with utmost respect) of the bunch can display photos, playback audio/video and support in-line recording. What makes one better than the other? Audio quality could be a distinguishing factor only if mainstream consumers could hear the difference. Many of them continue to sport stock earphones, so asking them to compare audio quality between two MP3 players is stretching too much. Besides, who really buys anything other than the iconic iPod these days anyways?

At CES, we went around to SanDisk, Creative and a slew of other companies to see if they could reveal anything about the future of these commodity devices. Obviously convergence with cell phones is an obvious one. It has been happening for years now, but what took us for a surprise was talk of high-definition video on MP3 players. Seriously? It only makes sense with HD DVD and Blu-Ray making their way into our hearts gradually. Besides, with TV signals going digital early next year, we won't be impressed with anything less than spectacular. Picture perfect, if you will.

CES 2008 Bores Attendees

Look, storage isn't an issue. We've got plenty of storage options, and we could rip Blu-Ray or HD DVD discs, downsize them (convert them) and play them back on our music players. Why not? Sure, the capacity-per-movie is going to be on the high-end, but we could swap out discs everyday if it means crystal clear quality. After all, many of us connect our music players to our computers at least once a day anyway. It's not extra effort on our parts. Movies aren't a problem either. As said before, Blu-Ray and HD DVD are making their way to store shelves and picking between a slew of titles won't be an issue as we progress through the years.

However, for high-definition MP3 players, we can expect the prices to rise again, maybe even sharply, thanks to the R&D investments for displays that can bring pictures to real life. It's only natural to expect. Don't get me wrong, picture quality on music players looks impressive for what it's worth, but it's not quite there. We don't even believe it's DVD quality. Of course, we are talking about music players here, like the ones from SanDisk and Creative, not dedicated PMPs with comparatively better features and display for true quality video playback.

With music players going full screen, namely Apple's iPod Touch, could PMPs and MP3 players converge to become all-in-one devices? Absolutely! However, iPod Touch-like devices need time to take off, but expecting prices to be somewhere in that range shouldn't be out of the question. All in all, though, HD is making its way to portable devices, and this ride is going to be very interesting. Finally, a push to make these everyday gadgets a little spicy. You could expect to start seeing these devices in Q4, 2008 and in 2009, if they ever get out. Do understand this is just a grand vision for a lot of companies, and acting on this vision may be difficult than they currently predict.

Click here to check out the latest prices on Apple's iPod Touch!