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ZVUE's $99 Video and MP3 Player
blackmonday writes "Hand Held Entertainment's ZVUE is an MP3 player, video and photo viewer with a color screen. At the price of $99, I think it might be worth the investment for the hacking potential alone. Uses Secure Digital/MMC cards rather than Compact Flash, but looks very cool. The funniest part - you can buy cartridges (apparently in some propietary format) of low budget wrestling movies and wannabe rapper videos."
Cool! I am still fiddling with the I-Opener from several years ago. Now something else to splice into the Jeep :)
Maybe I could use it for the OBD-II display?
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
After 2 years of tryin,
I' think I must be dyin,
Today sure hits the spot
cuz I got my first article posted on slashdot!
Can I get a hell yeah?
Yet another memory card format to contend with, ugh.
Pretty hyped site. Little on useful information. :-/
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It'd be sweet to wire one of these into the front of a casing & set it up as a secondary monitor for performance data.
"Hand me the bullet-shooty-thing and a box of little hurts" -Overheard on a USMC Rifle range
I bet it could be used as a pretty neat MP3 and video player too!
Socialism: A feeling of discontent and resentment caused by a desire for the possessions or qualities of another.
Just wait till you get buy low budget porn cards. Then things will really take off.
Optimism?
Seriously, I just don't get why you'd want to watch video's at a resolution so small.
... It sounds like the videos are going to shit on you..
Hot new music videos, extreme radical sports, wild, action videos that wreak havoc and lay waste
Who the hell uses the word "radical" anymore? WTF are "wild, action video that wreak havoc and lay waste"
Ugh.. just lame...
--D3X
NeoX3.com: The One Site for Free Adult Entertainment...
Something a little bit more convenient for porn.
...are more durable than their servers!
Five comments, and already slashdotted. Sigh.
=)
I don't want to sound like a troll, but what is with multimedia being handheld. Sound I can understand, but video.
Does not the detail as such become less apparent. Maybe when it has a bulit in projection device it may become fully useful. So far it just seems a mp3 player.
Zvue supports DivX video standard
Now I'm really going to have to wait for a bathroom stall to open up.. portable pr0n.. just what we all needed...
---
How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you're on.
so who was the very first one?
/ss
I'd rather have a bigger screen at the cost of some color and video quality. Does it atleast allow me to stream video out to a bigger monitor/TV? The FAQs and other pages don't say anything about it.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
low budget wrestling movies and wannabe rapper videos."
<p>
How would these be any different from big budget wrestling movies and non-wannabe rapper videos?
<p>
Though I'm imaging somewhere at a demonic alter representatives of the RIAA/MPAA are asking for guidance on how they can let out the lawyer dogs on this thing. I can see it now... "Well, it can view video and play muisc and well we control all things video and music, but we don't control this, therefore it must be abliterated!"
<p>
Also at this demonic alter Darl McBride is an alter boy(toy)
<p>
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Are they using this gadget to power their site?
Sounds interesting, but appears slashdotted already. In the mean time, does anyone know of a similar device which is Cd-based?
.jpg/etc and text files from the CD (and of course play audio and MP3).
Imagine one of those little round MP3-CD players, except it has a small color screen instead of 2 line LCD-readout, and it property display video files,
Does such exist? Am I the only one who would be interested in it?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Is it pronounced z-view or zavooey? I vote for the latter... Either way, I think that the ZVUE will lose out to other devices, such as the steadily cheaper PDA's that are also able to play video and audio, as well as a host of other even more useful functions. This is fundamentally the same as a portable dvd player with card support instead of the more useful dvd's, and should receive no more hype than all of the other things that now suddenly support cards that don't need them.
------- "A true friend stabs you in the front." -Eliot
a hacking potential, and as for memory formats, who really cares? I have an xD card camera, and the card I have in it is going to stay in it (512MB) and the one that came with it, a 32MB card, is really too small to do anything with. My camera is also not going anywhere, and if it breaks, I'll get another one or one from the same line, as the features are what I want (shameless plug for Olympus Z-50). Granted, I'd prefer a less expensive format such as CF, but if it turns out to be something I like, the memory used for this one would probably also be restricted to just this one device.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
No specs at all that I can find but at the bottom of their FAQ is this:
Why does the low battery indicator come on after I put in fresh batteries and use them for only a short time?
Depending on the type and brand of battery, the low battery indicator may come on while there are still hours of battery life left. You can continue to use the ZVUE until the batteries actually run down. You should also be aware, that when the batteries are low, the ZVUE may not operate properly.
huh?
Okay, so I couldn't load the article yet (already crapdotted) but I have issue with this line from the lead:
Wow, the content is so...exciting! Sounds like disposable technology to me. But I agree with blackmonday: it could be very promising in terms of hackability. Sure wish I could find the EULA though--I bet a whole karma point that it expressly prohibits any alteration. Sad world--we can't even play with our toys any more...
"I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq"
-- Paul Wolfowitz, 7/21/2003
For what it is worth, Lil' Jon is a platinum selling rap artist. He currently is involved with 2 songs in the top 20 of the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart and 3 songs in the top 50 of the Hot 100.
Can we get some specs? Site's already Slashdotted.
As a side note, this is only good for hacking if the internal components are amenable to it. Would be fun to do stuff with this...
I've reviewed one of these directly from Hand Held Entertainment and it's not all it's cracked up to be, the design doesn't fit in your pocket (tested in bluejeans) very well and it only supports mp3 (not ogg)
Additionally, they sent some of the proprietary cartridges to try out, 2 out of the 3 freebie proprietary cartridges we tested did not work.
I wouldn't pay cash for it.
Regards
Look here. It is not the same site as the slashdotted one, but at least you can see what it looks like.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
My latest attempt at getting my first article post just got rejected, you insensitive clod!
$99 for a a nice gadget. Seeing videos in this small screen is awlful, but it looks great to show the digital photos of your last trip for your friends while drinking a beer without computers around. It should be cheaper to have just a photo display device. This is usually a good use of color PDAs, but they are expensive. Does anyone here know about a cheap, good, and linux compatible device just to display photos? An internal HD would be better than a compact flash one.
As opposed to the high budget wrestling movies like "No Holds Barred" and ...,ummm, "All The Marbles" and ...umm, ...films like that.
I think this would be really cool to wire to the car. It would be a cheap and easy solution for adding mp3 capabilities to your current car audio options.
See here
In soviet Canada, Zed-View pronounces YOU!
do not read this line twice.
Cybiko is a low-cost, hackable handheld computer released at the end of 2000. Forum leaders may soon expand the boards to officially cover the ZVUE - it's a logical step from the Cybiko computer.
Feel free to discuss the ZVUE in the Development boards.
Totally.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
The page cannot be found
The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.
---
Please try the following:
If you typed the page address in the Address bar, make sure that it is spelled correctly.
Open the www.zvue.com home page, and then look for links to the information you want.
Click the Back button to try another link.
Click Search to look for information on the Internet.
HTTP 400 - Bad Request
Internet Explorer
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Here is a mirror
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
He didn't say it was hackable, just that the chances were good.
Potential adj.
1. Capable of being but not yet in existence; latent: a potential problem.
2. Having possibility, capability, or power.
3. Grammar. Of, relating to, or being a verbal construction with auxiliaries such as may or can; for example, it may be hackable.
Paul Lenhart writes words!
Since the main website is slashdotted, heres what it says on the home-page (not much for those of you expecting specs)
``You can be first to get a new ZVUE!
The new ZVUE is here now! And it really plays full motion, color video right in the palm of your hand! Order the new ZVUE! and you'll be watching the coolest new music videos, extreme sports and outrageous action entertainment--while you're on the go, anytime, anyplace!
> Order your ZVUE now!
For just $99.00 you can be the first to own a ZVUE--the hottest new video product in years! With your cool new ZVUE you can view full-color, high-quality video right in the palm of your hand.
Watch our exciting, new ZCARD! videos: Hot new music videos, extreme radical sports, wild, action videos that wreak havoc and lay waste--playing now on the ZVUE Player!"
Now if only it didn't have a name that looks as if it should be pronounceable only in select African tribal langauges, I could get up the courage to ask a salesperson at the next electronics shop I visit if they're going to carry it.
I mean the least they could do in this day and age of barely literate slashdotters is throw us a hyphen for clarity's sake.
I've got a Digi Cam with CF and an 8-track digital recorder that uses CF- I can swap cards like the day is long.
I'd like to be able to use my current flock of cards with any future purchases.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
If it uses Secure Media for storage of said "mp3s and pictures", it's unlikely you'll be able to hack it unless you can crack the content keys, or provide your own "secured" media.
The next remark is false. The previous remark is true.
Their server must run on one ;)
got sig?
And while your at it, vin-nay, Bag yr face!
[rubs eyes] damnit! I hate when I transmogrify into a Valley Girl!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
The ZVUE Personal Video Player
The first affordable video player that plays full-color, full-motion video for just $99!
The new ZVUE is the first, affordable handheld video player that plays full-color, full-motion video, photos and MP3 audio files.
Order your ZVUE now!.
Why just listen when you can view full-color, high-quality video that plays right in the palm of your hand? The ZVUE! can play any digital media! All the latest full-length movies, rock videos, TV shows, cartoons, photographs --almost any video, audio or image can play on the hot new ZVUE! personal video player from HandHeld entertainment.
Just want to listen?
With the ZVUE, you can download and play MP3 audio and listen at incredible fidelity. ZVUE's compact and portable with a rugged, easy-to-hold new hard-cased design that fits right in your pocket--and can survive life in backpacks, and courier bags. Plus it runs for hours on just 4 AA batteries.
And the price?
That's the best feature of all--the ZVUE is just $99! Yes, you read this correctly. The world's first video player that plays full color music videos, extreme sports, entertainment!--all for $99!
The ZVUE fits in most pockets! Clear protective screen cover allows for safe travel in backpacks, pockets, purses and courier bags.
When and where can you get it?
Right now! The ZVUE's in stock, and you can order and get it in just a few days!
Order your ZVUE now!
Or you can contact us now if you want to learn more about HandHeld entertainment and our incredible, new ZVUE video player.
Can be found here with picture of the thing here. Apparently it plays DivX too.
I don't care what Lil John has done as far as billboard and what not. He's no more a rapper than Shaq...Catch last week's Chappelle's Show for an accurate representation.
"from the bricks to the booth...I predict the future like Cleo the psychic..."
WTF are "wild, action video that wreak havoc and lay waste
'WTF' is so dot-com boom. Get with the times.
Ugh.. just lame...
'Lame' was popular during the SNL 'Wayne's World' run. Now that is an embarassingly out-of-date expression.
A guy who works for Zvue came into my store in the mall and said we might be carrying it and wanted our opinions on it. Its pretty slick. He said they are trying to make it so you can fit a whole movie on a 128 MB card. They lower the res and FPS a little to accomplish it. It is a tid slow while playing movies, he had seinfield(sp?) on it, and it ran pretty good.
http://seanism.com/
Hey! I work for Fuji! Quiet, you're lowering my stock price!
Seriously, xD isn't a bad format at all. Sure, it lacks an onboard controller, but the pins on xD readers break a lot less than the ones on SD readers (at least in the equipment I work on) and it doesn't have any of that annoying space-eating encryption stuff.
+++ATH0
Did anyone else immediately think "wannabe raper videos" when they saw this? I am one sick individiual.
Hasbro has a device called the VideoNow
. It's only $50, but the screen is black and white. It uses mini CD's, but from what I understand from a friend who tried to hack it, the CD-Now's have the boot data written on the inside of the CD further in from where normal burners write.I have blog like everyone else
I have a SD/MMC memory card with plenty of memory, but why do I get ZVUE errors when I put it in the ZVUE? The ZVUE can read only SD cards formatted in the FAT format. If the card is formatted in FAT32 the ZVUE cannot read it. To use the FAT32 formatted card, reformat the card in the FAT format. To format a SD memory card in Windows, right click on the card's icon, and select [Format] from the right click menu. You then select the standard "FAT" format from the Format Panel Window. To find out whether a card is FAT or FAT32 you can check its properties in Windows by right clicking on the card's icon, and selecting [Properties] from the right click menu.
As for video, it uses a highly compressed, rights-protected, proprietary video format
In the future it may support some more things, but right now no. This thing is more closed than a Microsoft legal meeting.
Hmm... So are you an employee of ZVUE? Why no OGG VORBIS support? Why no non-closed video support yet? This thing looks like an MPAA wet dream, not a consumer desire.
Doesnt suck power. It is hard to run a flashlight for 6-8 hours and the backlight is just as bright as one- so it uses an expensive LED backlight.
Specs are 200 MHZ ARM9 with 160x234 screen at 24 bit color. The screen uses fast fluid for video unlike most PDA screens.
It probably runs linux already.
Pretty easy to re-encode videos to the DIVX Handheld or portable profile if they aren't already using VirtualDub and the free version of DIVX.
The size of the display doesn't look like it.. but I still miss a nice eBook reader...
Here is a PDF with more detail.
ZVue Specs
It looks a little cheap to me, but for $99 I guess you can't get burned too bad.
The only format supported by the device is a closed, proprietary ZVUE-owned format. At $14.95 per a video clip, it isn't a sensible purchase.
...how long will it take for someone to reverse-engineer the format so that we can make our own SD/MMC cards with our own video (space-shifted from our legally-purchased DVD's [yes, I'm serious...] or 'home video'.)?
That is the specific feature that'd make it useful to me. I have no need of a special proprietary-format-only player where the low-quality proprietary video cards cost as much as full DVD's, especially when portable DVD players seem to be obtainable these days for only $50-$100 more than this player is selling for.
(Hmmm...what's the capacity of the SD cards with the proprietary movies on them? Can they be erased and used as normal SD cards for other applications?)
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Your reference to "six inch floppy disks" is pretty obscure, but I guess that is the point. Most people have 3.5 inch floppies, several have (or had) 5.25 inch floppies (my parents still use them) and fewer still have seen or heard of 8 inch floppies. Either a masterstroke in obscure references or you made it up. I am giving you the benefit of the doubt.
Language students: Don't try to learn English here. This ain't it.
I can't I just read a review of an MP3 player that didn't mention how much memory it ships with!
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Compgeeks has them for $144.50; you can check the site for the specs. It has MP4 capability, which is nice for you Xvid fans. For those of you who don't understand why we're griping that it has no CF slot, perhaps you'll understand better after I tell you that people have been getting cheap 4GB minidrive CF cards by cracking open devices such as the Creative Lab's Muvo2 MP3 player -- i.e. the higher capacity drives/memory cards so far, tend to be CF cards. It's still up in the air whether or not the 4GB minidrive from the Apple iPod can be used in devices that support CF Type II cards.
Linux at home
That looks like it exactly! I wonder if it can display text files and act as an ebook reader?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Hack value, eh?
What would it take to cut a zvue-sized hole in the front of a humidor and run wires it to a mini-itx inside?
Or is this painfully obvious? Has someone who Really Knows done something a lot better already?
Well if you want to stick to CompactFlash, and you've got a Game Boy Advance, you can get the $40 GBA Video Player.
http://www.i4u.com/article1225.html
http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/index.php?topi c_id=4675
When they announced this product I immediately thought to myself
... which means hardware which we can encode to. That is what made MP3 a success, that is what made the initial ZVUE a complete and utter failure.
... it's a nice bit of kit, now that they are making it actually usefull.
"Another small time company who should be interested in selling hardware, but is instead sticking its tongue up Valenti and Eisner's asses."
I hope they do well, but wasting time trying to get Hollywood on board has hurt their company. DRM is only going to be of any use for a hardware company if it is an industry standard, in which case you will have a lot of competition, otherwise you better be making hardware we can use
I bet the hardware engineers thoroughly hated their management for a while there
You can get one of those mini dvd players for under $200 bucks...
with like a 3 inch screen?
They play svcd/mp3 et all...
but I think divx would cost a bit more..
Please use [ informative / summarizing ] SUBJECT LINES
Flame me here
How does this compare to the PVP from Hasbro sold for $50 during Christmas 2003?
I feel for those people that don't realize that the page is *unencrypted*... Besides, I filled out some bogus values, clicked "Order Now" and got a 404:
/preorder was not found on this server.
The requested URL
Great.
"Content is King"
These 'z-card' folks have found a formula that can't fail.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
but... how much can it hold?
till a phone can do this?
Oh boy, if you buy it now, you can download a SAMPLE video in their proprietary format. Otherwise all the video you get is at $6 a pop and all shite you wouldn't watch anyway.
However, their site says that in a few months, you'll be able to buy a firmware upgrade for a "reasonable price" to allow it to play Mpeg4.
Thanks, I think I'll wait to see if the reasonable price is more than the original cost of the unit before I get into this.
I wonder if you could hack this device so that it includes a Hitachi mini-hard drive? That would be sorta cool. You could get one cheap by taking it out of a Creative Muvo, like in this wired article.
In linux libertas
GAWD, would you shut the fuck up about OGG already? NOBODY ANYWHERE fucking cares about it. Why on earth would a company build a device that conforms to a standard no one outside the slashdot commuity has ever heard of? Dont you get it, OGG will NEVER be popular. Its just stupid....like vqf was
.vqf files...."
"Hey, check out my new music player. It plays
It does everything the ZVUE does and LOTS more and it has a huge developer following and TONS of apps you can DL for free like console/arcade emulators, MP3 players, PIMs, etc. ) Brian
Are you a Candy Addict?
Looking at the size of this thing I don't think the battery life would be good for more than MAYBE a couple hours...
I ordered one friday... from what already been found, it's looking good. Having the processor completely documented helps a lot - but I'll have to wait 'till I get mine to judge for sure. The firmware upload format looks like it may be ELF-based!
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets