By Ted Kritsonis, Special to CBCNews.ca

LAS VEGAS - Creative may be trying to challenge the iPod¹s supremacy in the portable media player realm, but the company also has no problem offering some accessories for it.

The latest is the Xdock HD, where you mount your iPod (any model that plays video) to send the video to your HDTV screen.

The dock uses the same screen interface and menu system as Creative¹s latest ZEN portable media player. The dock up-converts the video on the iPod to a resolution of 720p or1080i for the larger TV screen.

Naturally, the dock will also allow you to play whatever photos and music are on the iPod as well. It will also communicate wirelessly with the Xdock receivers that came out with last year¹s model, so that you can "push" music from one room to another. New versions of those same receivers were shown, and the latest editions are less than half the size of their predecessors.

The price point will be somewhere in the $400 US range, which is a little pricey, given what Belkin and HP have already unveiled at the show. But considering how many people have iPods, Creative is hoping to get a good slice of the accessories pie with this offering.

The Xdock HD should hit retail in Canada sometime this spring.

The author is a Toronto-based freelance writer