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How about some official real documentation?

That's for starters. Then there's the insignificant issue of playing your own content back in its native resolution.

You can continue to look for ways that Vista betters XP in ways other than these - there's plenty of statements out there about it, some are even from blogs!

Don't be an apologist. Vista blows so hard I don't know a single person that prefers it over XP, and only know 1 that still runs it, but only because the process of putting XP on his Vista laptop runs into issues with the OEM not providing XP drivers. Not only that, but Linux and Macs are now being actively considered at my workplace, and I'm sure mine's not the only one considering what we're now reading in places like cio.com.

You know, you can disable the UAC, and find your own drivers. Of course, if you are still using a sound blaster live! card, it is now under EOL (end of life) (click through to select your card) and will not have supported drivers for Vista.

These kind of steps are common with any new operating system that is expected to run multitudes of old, unsupported hardware (note that doesn't include OSX). But yes, the default sound drivers for Vista are crap, no argument there :).

It's becoming hard to find MP3 players that don't support the format.

It's becoming hard to find MP3 players that don't support the format.

It's becoming hard to find MP3 players that don't support the format.

Yes I did look at the manufacturer sites (obviously with the exception of the Zune site, I just assumed incorrectly).

I looked at the Sandisk site here:
http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Item(2057)-SDMX4-8192-A70-Sansa_e280_MP3_Player_8GB.aspx
Doesn't list formats (at least not where I can see) so I just checked newegg (specifications tab):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16855125013
The specs tab lists "Supported Audio Formats MP3/WMA/WMA with DRM"
no mention of mp4/AAC.

And Creative Zen W:
http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=15752&nav=1&bypass=1
Audio Playback Formats: MP3, WMA, WAV
no mention of mp4/AAC.

So I checked a couple other players -
Zen Vision M won't or doesn't list it: http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=14331&nav=1&bypass=1
Zen Stone plus won't or doesn't list it: http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=16696&nav=1&bypass=1
The regular Zen does
So at least one player from their current offering supports it but many of their players don't seem to unless I'm missing something.

Still the one consistency is that they all support MP3.

I do find it interesting that the Zune supports AAC, filed under "learn something new every day". Thanks for the link.

Yes I did look at the manufacturer sites (obviously with the exception of the Zune site, I just assumed incorrectly).

I looked at the Sandisk site here:
http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Item(2057)-SDMX4-8192-A70-Sansa_e280_MP3_Player_8GB.aspx
Doesn't list formats (at least not where I can see) so I just checked newegg (specifications tab):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16855125013
The specs tab lists "Supported Audio Formats MP3/WMA/WMA with DRM"
no mention of mp4/AAC.

And Creative Zen W:
http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=15752&nav=1&bypass=1
Audio Playback Formats: MP3, WMA, WAV
no mention of mp4/AAC.

So I checked a couple other players -
Zen Vision M won't or doesn't list it: http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=14331&nav=1&bypass=1
Zen Stone plus won't or doesn't list it: http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=16696&nav=1&bypass=1
The regular Zen does
So at least one player from their current offering supports it but many of their players don't seem to unless I'm missing something.

Still the one consistency is that they all support MP3.

I do find it interesting that the Zune supports AAC, filed under "learn something new every day". Thanks for the link.

Yes I did look at the manufacturer sites (obviously with the exception of the Zune site, I just assumed incorrectly).

I looked at the Sandisk site here:
http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Item(2057)-SDMX4-8192-A70-Sansa_e280_MP3_Player_8GB.aspx
Doesn't list formats (at least not where I can see) so I just checked newegg (specifications tab):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16855125013
The specs tab lists "Supported Audio Formats MP3/WMA/WMA with DRM"
no mention of mp4/AAC.

And Creative Zen W:
http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=15752&nav=1&bypass=1
Audio Playback Formats: MP3, WMA, WAV
no mention of mp4/AAC.

So I checked a couple other players -
Zen Vision M won't or doesn't list it: http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=14331&nav=1&bypass=1
Zen Stone plus won't or doesn't list it: http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=16696&nav=1&bypass=1
The regular Zen does
So at least one player from their current offering supports it but many of their players don't seem to unless I'm missing something.

Still the one consistency is that they all support MP3.

I do find it interesting that the Zune supports AAC, filed under "learn something new every day". Thanks for the link.

I have a similar problem. When I built a new PC earlier this year, of course I went with the best [that my wallet could handle]. All of the equipment is compatible to Linux... except the sound card, a Creative X-Fi. It has no support on linux whatsoever and probably won't until at least next year.

Wait, let me stop myself there. I had to check the Creative open source page to confirm, and there are beta drivers now! But, a Gentoo forum thread shows that these are really just alpha drivers. Still, some progress is better than none. Maybe we can get nVidia to release specs for their video cards...

The Creative Zen Stone or Zen V.

Good UI. Similar, if not smaller form factor. Same, if not more, space. Less price.

The Creative Zen Stone or Zen V.

Good UI. Similar, if not smaller form factor. Same, if not more, space. Less price.

iPod 30 gigabytes: $249.00
ZEN Vision 30 gigabytes: $249.99

Dunnoe, prices seem comparable in general. Here are the shops:
http://us.creative.com/
http://store.apple.com/

This is the first believable explanation I've seen for why this behavior doesn't occur on XP (brushing it off as 'XP doesn't have MMCSS' is stupid, as it doesn't have any audio glitches in periods of heavy network I/O either).

The new Windows Vista audio architecture is a massive beast compared to the simple architecture of XP. See this thread on Creative's forums for comparisons to XP, pretty pictures and explanations, or skip straight to the blog of the developer responsible for an overview of how the new audio sub-system works.

While I don't see any encryption layers, the XP diagram ends in "hardware" but the Vista diagram ends with "Audio Driver" .. anyone know what happens after that? What does does the Audio Driver have to do get the samples into the sound card's memory space?

I'm currently running Ubuntu on a Dimension 9200 - It's a great machine, really powerful, NVidia graphics, runs multiple guest VMs happily, Compiz spinning away on my desktop...a good all-round showcase example to show my colleagues that Linux is now desktop ready.

"Great" they say. Wow! And walk off with their shiny Ubuntu Cds. Then they send me a youtube link to something, and all they hear from my office is "Beep". Oh yeah, fully supported hardware except the Creative X-Fi audio, which has literally Zero linux capability. Creative have been promising drivers for 2 years now, but have repeatedly pushed the ship date as "It has taken more resources than expect to redesign our software and drivers for Vista." so at current look the beta will now not even be until Q4 (http://opensource.creative.com/soundcard.html#X-F I)

So until then, if you buy a top-end Dell box, you won't be getting any sound out of it except some Spectrum-era beeps. Shameful.

For some amusing reading (and some trolls, which isn't helping I guess), here's a (currently 73 page) thread on their forums complaining about this:
http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/mess age?board.id=soundblaster&message.id=31220&view=by _date_ascending&page=73

"please type the word in this image: obstruct" :-D

X-Fi series
The X-Fi series of products are not supported under Linux. (Yet)
Closed-source drivers will be available for the X-Fi series of sound cards.
It looks like the first public Beta will be available end calendar Q3 or early calendar Q4.

Lies, lies and more lies. How is Microsoft screwing Apple in this situation?

The iPhone doesn't have to interact on any level with DRM, and the component parts of my system that do interact with it (audio, video) have full 64-bit driver support. I should know, I'm using 64-bit Vista. Even better, XP doesn't have any of the same support for Blu-ray/HD-DVD DRM, so how are they not able to code XP 64-bit drivers? Apple have no excuse in this situation when plenty of hardware manufacturers are able to code them.

Then you reel off the same stupid list that you repeatedly cite to show that 'M$ am bad' which has been debunked a hundred times by Windows and Linux users alike.

Your final sentence is a gem that sums up the rest your post: "Windoze is like barren". What does that even mean?

I bough a creative nomad with twice the space at half the cost.

Well, bully for you.

Creative's revenue for quarter ending March 31, 2007: $183 million

Apple's revenue for quarter ending March 31, 2007: $5.26 billion

Next!

Not sure what time frame you're basing this off of but I know that the USA creative site has had drivers on their website for their current-at-the-time products since before XP came out. If yer referencing the Vista drivers for the X-fi, the beta drivers have been available since Vista Beta 1 and the retail drivers are out now. I definitely reccomend checking the forums on their site for workaround by other users. theres already a link on there to get the X-fi software for Vista from a 3rd party site that even Creative doesnt even provide yet (they just state that the software on the CD is incompatible. also any backend development can be traced at http://preview.creative.com/

What platform-specific hardware do I have then? ATI X1900 XTX, a Creative Live! 24-bit soundcard, an nForce 560 motherboard, an AMD 64 3800+ processor that I put together myself. Obviously so substandard that it Supreme Commander is playable at 1280x1024 at maximum graphics quality, and under Vista it hasn't crashed once. Ubuntu tried to tell me my hard-drive was corrupt when I tried to install it. Running off the live CD it couldn't detect my keyboard. These are problems that I wouldn't expect from any OS, and with Windows I didn't have them.

Face it, if I could find a distro that worked properly I could just move, but I don't want to.

Stop making excuses.

I can easily show you how odd is the story to which you linked, by adding a paragraph that would have to be true for the rest of the story to be as innocent as they describe. Here's my paragraph:

"David Placek, Lexicon's CEO, said, 'Although we have been a professional branding company for years, in this one particular case we did no research about the competition whatsoever. Therefore we didn't know that the name Zune differs from the name used by a famous, large, and very reputable competitor only in the vowels.' "

If my paragraph sounds credible, and if you think Steve Ballmer knew nothing whatsoever about the competition, and no one in Microsoft management knew anything about MP3 players, then fine, there was no morally adversarial intent.

Don't you think it is a bit odd that the naming of a Microsoft product was given a long, convoluted story in sfgate? It looks like a public relations effort to me.

The Zune does not compete with the iPod, it competes with the Zen. Can you imagine anyone saying they would rather have a Zune than an iPod?

I've only reviewed one model of the Zen carefully, but the one I saw is a surprisingly excellent product. Recently a 1 GB model was only $49 after rebate at Fry's. It's great for someone who can survive with a library of only 300 songs.

I agree, Ballmer is a bully. Ballmer has taken his ignorant behavior to an extreme, in my opinion: He is a prime example of someone who lacks social skills and technical insight, who can only survive in a technical world by being adversarial toward those who would rather not have a fight.

Don't forget: Microsoft's Zune music player is named after Creative's excellent Zen Player. Aside from being morally criminal to infringe on someone else's intellectual property, it's just mean.

If the world were technically knowledgeable enough not to be locked into Microsoft's file formats and virtual OS monopoly, and other adversarial behavior, Microsoft could not make a profit.

If you want a full sized video screen, why not go for the Archos, or the Creative Zen Vision?

If you mean float like rocks....

I just finished reading the wunderbar description about Vista's new User land driver models and what it means to Creative. I say rock on, everyone migrate to Vista and clamor for OpenAL and OpenGL games. Vista, apparently is going to be the best thing for OpenAL/GL gaming ever.

I'm pretty certain from their approach with audio, that the video path couldn't be much better, for the same reason. So vendor provided OpenAL/GL access to their hardware is probably going to be the best path for game makers to take. That could have wonderful implications for freeing games from MS entirely, as then it becomes relatively trivial to port to multiple systems.

Generation XP: Top 20 Games of the Last Generation

Given there's one DX-10 card line out there - nVidia's - and they're facing a class action lawsuit because their Vista ready card isn't Vista ready... Given that Vista takes away several audio features from Creative's line of sound cards... Given that the best known technical name in the gaming industry says it's not worth bothering with...

Can you really call the most current generation that actually works "Last Generation"?

As things stand, I was under the impression that all Vista does for gaming is disable features you have under XP. Oooh... And give you a couple of exciting menus for games and game specs.

Feel free to join us on the creative dicussion forums ( http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board?boar d.id=Vista ), so far their stated reason is 6 months ago creative got the finalised audio layers and so EAX would be broken. 6 months and thats all the information they will divulge.

I think the real question here is why hasn't creative collapsed as a company yet, I'll explain what I mean. Avermedia (TV Card manufacture) would not make a x64 driver for XP, apparently XP x64 didn't have the demand. A month after the first beta MSDN release (about a year ago now) a Windows XP x64 driver for my Avermedia Hybrid DvB (AR16) appeared on their website. It was driver signed, when i installed Vista beta 2 the driver was on the vista disk. Avermedia have had beta x86 and x64 drivers online as well as a beta application designed to work better in the vista enviroment. On the other hand a x64 driver doesn't exist for my Creative Live! Vista IM camera my parents bought me that camera because it had Vista in the name and they as Joe consumer believed it would work for Vista. My Creative Audigy SE 5.1 card doesn't have Vista drivers yet either. Creative have made beta drivers with a time limit on them, a time limit! Then they haven't rereleased the driver with an updated time limit so all these beta drivers cease to function.

I have to ask, we are living in a world were a small company like Avermedia can produce about a hundred good high quality drivers so vista versions aren't needed, but then redesigns their drivers to work even better in vista a whole six months before their needed. When a much larger company can't even produce 40 basic drivers, or even 1 fully working driver after 6 months (yes I'm excluding the other devices but they haven't managed with any of those either yet and sound cards should priority for creative.)

Yes, my Zen works with Vista. It seemed a little slower than usual, but I only uploaded a few files.
I didn't do the PlayForSure upgrade so all this might not even work for you, but you could give it a try.

The trick was in using not the latest drivers, which seem to do nothing in Vista, but whatever version is in the JB3MV2_PCWDRV_US_1_30_03.EXE file (my guess -- 1.30.03 ;) ). You should be able to download it here. It probably won't install properly when the setup asks you to plug in the player, so do a manual driver update and point it to "\Program Files\Creative\Jukebox 3 Drivers". It should find and install the drivers and the explorer plugin/browser. Let me know if you have any problems.

... playsforsure is compatible with all sorts of hardware.

Where from the "all" remark comes from? Last time I checked it is only available on hardware from manufacturers who have sold their souls to The Beast of Redmond. And if you have sold your soul to M$ - you are also by contract forbidden to look into competing music formats (e.g. MP4 or OGG or MPC or FLAC or whatever).

At least Apple with its DRM is open and honest that they want world domination...

Possibly, but unlikely.

There are other products with the same sort of interface.

I need the ability to just drop files onto my mp3 player, because I bring it with me to share music files with friends, and I don't want to have to deal with installing stuff on their machines. I want something that "just works".

The iPod line needed a reboot, and the iPhone was splashiest way to do it. In fact, this device is the logical evolution of the Newton MessagePad. Think about it. Apple realized that boring contact lists, calendars and handwriting recognition won't encourage the Unwashed Masses to adopt portable computers. People are far more media-centric than that.

The rejuvenated iPod lineup will tempt you with music, movies and games, while offering an addictive combination of go-anywhere Wi-Fi browsing and email. And you can bet that Apple is planning to open up third-party development as quickly as possible.

As for the iPhone device, the bleak reality is that it is slightly larger than a 5G iPod. Too big to slip into the pocket of my jeans, which means it's too large to use as my everyday phone. My hard drive-equipped iPod usually lives in a messenger bag on my shoulder or in a jacket pocket, simply because it's too bulky to function as an "everywhere" communications accessory. I wouldn't be willing to carry something as large or expensive as the iPhone with me everywhere I go. I'd look like a dork with my calculator on a belt clip. Besides, mobile phones are expensive enough to begin with and many people (especially students) will balk at the idea of committing to a 2 year $1000+ mobile voice/data/voicemail contract after shelling out $599 for the iPhone itself.

No, the real magic will happen when Apple releases a $299 version of this device - the next generation iPod - that retains everything but the GSM + EDGE phone technology. At that point, the iPod will be perfectly positioned to become everyone's favorite teeny-tiny ultraportable computer.

What about a 100 % monopolistic approach to iTunes songs and videos, perhaps?

iTunes files only play on an Apple iPod.

When Apple customers can play there tunes on this and their movies on this, while running an GPL OS license copy of iTunes on this,
then you know that Apple is dedicated to meeting the needs of ALL of it's customers, worldwide.

Typically, the marketplace favors the more open companies, more open formats.

So Apple should release a stripped down 'Lite' version of OS X for all PCs, for free.
(Include TextEdit, Calculator, DVD player, Safari, Mail, and iTunes, and the Utilities with the Lite OS X for PCs).
Sell iLife, QuickTime Pro, and iWork as separate products, that still can run on the Lite OS X for PCs.
License the Apple protected file format to other manufacturers.

Release the free Lite OS X the same day when MS Vista ships - let customers decide what they want.
Make Lite OS X downloadable as a burnable .iso image, or pick up a copy of it at the Apple store for $9.95 CD in a box. The Lite OS X CD should be a bootable full playing install CD like a Linux Live Install CD.

Still a full copy of OS X (with iLife) comes with the purchase of an Apple Mac PC.

Having more compatibility with an even larger user base does not diminish profits,
it should increase global sales for Apple and from iTunes even more.

iTunes proved that when iTunes went from a Macintosh Only software - to a Windows & Mac software.
OS X can prove that same example too - since it would run quite easily on any 'Vista' compatible PC.

The emphasis on "perfect control" is silly. Users should not need to move their mouse fast enough to the point where these perfect control numbers matter. The more important measurements are sample rate and DPI. The higher, the better for both, as it makes mouse movement smoother since the mouse updates come in faster and they don't need to be enlarged as much, which reduces "laggy" and "jaggy" mouse movement. This means that the Fatal1ty 2020 mouse is the current best, assuming the ergonomic aspects are to your liking.

If Zune is the best they could come up with against the iPod - and this is the prime example of 'new fresh blood' - they are screwed.

#1 Zune is Clunky - the very opposite of the iPod smooth design.
#2 Zune is incompatible with basically every file type that came before for windows. Why kill your existing user base?
#3 Zune Underdelivers - compared to the abilities of the Zen Vision W or the iPod, there is no comparison.
#4 Pocket Dish TV beats them all.

Apple just has to release that Full Screen Touch Screen iPod, and Zune will get Zoomed.
But Dish Network already has the iPod beaten down.

You should have looked at the Creative Zen Vison M or the Creative Zen Vision W. Both support Audible and PlayForSure.

But the best thing about these two players is their Divx and Xvid support. No need to re-convert video, like the Zune or Ipod.

You should have looked at the Creative Zen Vison M or the Creative Zen Vision W. Both support Audible and PlayForSure.

But the best thing about these two players is their Divx and Xvid support. No need to re-convert video, like the Zune or Ipod.

You should have looked at the Creative Zen Vison M or the Creative Zen Vision W. Both support Audible and PlayForSure.

But the best thing about these two players is their Divx and Xvid support. No need to re-convert video, like the Zune or Ipod.

Excellent, thanks for the info. For other Slashdotters, here's some data from Creative's site. It's significantly larger than the latest iPod Shuffle but offers some desirable features.

I'd like to see a wide-screen iPod by the end of the year

there are other options you know... i personally love the zen vision: m (which has FM)

http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/mess age?board.id=soundblaster&message.id=76320

lay it on the line, and why you should not get near it

As for working with Vista RC1... try just installing the Windows XP drivers.... it works for my Live! 24-bit! (The vista drivers creative puts out worked in Beta2... but stopped working in RC1 for me... so I had to search for solutions)

Also note that there is a lively Vista forum for creative labs owners over here:

http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board?boar d.id=Vista

Friedmud

I could say the opposite if I had more WMA+DRM media than AAC+DRM, although I would have better selection, since Microsoft is more openly licensing (read: 'is licensing') the WMA+DRM codecs than Apple is with AAC+DRM.

iTunes and the Fariplay DRM account for 80% of the legal music market. Microsoft's WMA DRM accounts for 20%...so yeah, you "could say the opposite if.." but that isn't FREAKING REALITY.

I'll ignor the FACT that Apple licensed Fairplay to Motorolla and just pretend I'm in your world.

Further, I don't see how you have more "selection" by having multiple stores with the same content. The iTunes store has over 3 million songs and thousands of exclusive tracks.

And finally, for the record, here is a list of supported file types:
iPod : AAC, Protected AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, Audible, Apple Lossless, AIFF and WAV
Zune : MP3, AAC and WMA (unofficial)
Creative Zen W : MP3, WMA, WAV

You are an IDIOT tool. An Apple tool for sure. Lets take MS out of the picture for a sec. The Creative Zen had many things right better than the IPOD. The IPOD is very propietary. itunes fairplay media is proprietary crap. Kudos for MS to support so many open file types! If MS only supported WMA than I would agree with you, but thats not the case.

Okay troll, you need to take a look at the original context - The supproted file formats. While the Zune supports WMA and the iPod does not, the iPod supports Apple Lossless, Audible audio books, as well as Apple's Fairplay file types...and I contend that supporting the file type that 80% of legally downloaded music is in (Fairplay) is more important to the market than supporting the 20% (WMA).

Why you want to bring beleagured Creative into this is beyond me but we can scrap over them for a minutes too.

The Zen has followed the iPod step for step. You can point out that the Zen has a radio and the iPod has a radio accessory if you want, but I contend that I didn't buy a $300 music player to listen to Clear Channel's Britany Spears crap. Further, how convenient is it to manage a music collection of several thousand songs without the benefit of the click wheel? I couldn't imagine trying to get to "R.E.M" when starting in the "A's" with Microsoft or Creative's traditional up/down click keys (The Zune's keypad is circular, but it it still and up/down/left/right pad, not a scroll wheel).

And so what the hell is so bad about an iPod or that it supports proprietary DRM? It doesn't make you convert MP3's to play on it. What the hell is Microsoft's DRM? It is proprietary too. Oh, you mean that Apple doesn't license Fairplay? Well then how in the hell is Motorolla selling cell phones that play Apple's Fairplay DRM protected songs? Certainly it couldn't be a license agreement could it?

And finally, for the record, here is a list of supported file types:
iPod: AAC, Protected AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, Audible, Apple Lossless, AIFF and WAV
Zune: MP3, AAC and WMA (unofficial)
Creative Zen W: MP3, WMA, WAV

Who the hell is incompatible now?

that looks familiar

As was previously stated, it's actually the Palm LifeDrive (but that can still be "confusingly similar". There is however a Creatve Sound Blaster Live! Drive, which was MY first thought on the article. It's a box that sits in a half-height 5 1/4 bay with various Analog and Digital outs and ins as well as an IR (remote) reciever. It comes bundled with the "Platinum" versions of their cards. There are also versions for the Audigy and X-Fi series of cards as well.

http://www.hardavenue.com/reviews/Image7.jpg
http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?categ ory=1&subcategory=16&product=9278

Another company already has a computer related product called "LiveDrive". It's a bank of front-panel audio receptacles for Creative sound cards, all in one 5.25" drive bay.