Creative Labs to Release Video Jukebox Portable

An anonymous reader writes "Following the success of the Archos line of digital video portables, Creative has announced they will release the Zen Portable Media Player this fall. Like the Archos the unit will sport a 20GB hard drive, 3.8" screen and will be able to record your favorite TV shows on the fly."

Comments

What the article fails to mention...

[Johnny Fusion]

The use of the name "Zen" is intentional. The short battery life, will lead to a blank screen partway through your latest pirated movie, leaving you to only contemplate the emptiness of it all.

Re:What the article fails to mention...

[XorNand]

I dunno about you but I'm guessing that the vast majority of purchasers will only be using this two minutes at a time. It is made for one-handed operation, right?

Specs

[mr100percent]

The Specs weren't really mentioned. 20GB, but is it USB 2.0 or Firewire (400 or 800)?

Windows XP only, yawn, with full DRM. Not my type then.

3.8" TFT Color LCD- I used to watch portable TVs this size in the 1990's. This isn't appealing to me personally, I don't want to see a tiny Fight Club, with me straining to watch under the few pixels.

Record ability? What kind of input? Composite, S-Video, Component?

All I really like is the record ability, and then able to watch them on a bigger screen, like allow playback on a TV.

Re:Specs

[Anonymous Coward]

Propably USB 2.0

What do you mean by Windows XP only? I'm sure that it will work as an external storage device with any modern OS.

Game gear?

[mr100percent]

Does anyone else think it looks like a Sega Game Gear? Think it munches through batteries even faster with a HD inside? What was it, 3 hours of gameplay on like six batteries?

Re:Game gear?

[screwballicus]

Does anyone else think it looks like a Sega Game Gear? Think it munches through batteries even faster with a HD inside? What was it, 3 hours of gameplay on like six batteries?

This thing doesn't look physically even remotely like a game gear. These dimensions and design don't bear any resemblance at all.

And as far as how we can expect it to look architecturally, making an analogy to the Game Gear would be even more retarded.

The Game Gear ran off a 3.58MHz Z80 while this presumably will be running off at minimum at 400MHz XScale or equivalent if it's going to play 704x480 30fps DIVX. The Game Gear was all solid state while this has a hard drive. The Game Gear had a 160 x 146 screen while this has a 704x480 screen.

The Game Gear's architecture was never MEANT to be portable. It was a Sega Master System stuck in a stylish black case with minor graphical (colour depth) improvement.

How the hell does a post saying this looks like a handheld console from years ago to which it bears absolutely no resemblance whatsoever get modded 5 Insightful?

For my next act I guess I'll be responding to the next Linux article by saying

Doesn't this look like CP/M?

as a way of asserting that Linux should therefore function similarly. I mean, they don't bear any particular resemblance and are from vastly disparate eras, but I figure I'll get modded 5 Insightful.

Re:Game gear?

[jkabbe]

Did you actually RTFA? You know, the one that shows a picture of the product we're discussing? The product that actually does look like a Sega Game Gear.....?

Re:Game gear?

[Bowdie]

I'd say it looks more like a NeoGeo Pocket colour myself.

http://www.dreamstation.cc/images/neogeo_pocket_ co lor.jpg

The 90's called! They want their DAT back!

[Alsee]

Why the hell would anyone want to buy a product that records in DRM crap format?

-

Re:The 90's called! They want their DAT back!

[Anonymous Coward]

The article doesn't say it records in a DRM format. It says it records in a DRM-enabled format. Big difference!

Re:The 90's called! They want their DAT back!

[Alsee]

The article doesn't say it records in a DRM format.

Well duh! Who goes around directly advertizing that their product is crippled? Forget the companies press release! Look at waht the reviewer wrote: "the player only operates with Windows XP (which has Microsoft's full DRM capabilities), a sign of capitulation to the movie industry that wishes to put locks on how users view digital movies". You can play MP3's and view JPGs, but it's only going to record in encrypted Windows Media format.

-

Favorite?

[Anonymous Coward]

But can it also record shows I don't like?

Re:Favorite?

[BW_Nuprin]

Of course, thats one of the anti-piracy methods incorporated by DRM. That hot episode of G String Divas (or Screen Savers, if you prefer) will actually be an episode of Ed, Edd, and Eddy.

Re:Favorite?

[Cpt_Kirks]

There are many shows on Cartoon Network. I like most and love some.

I CAN"T FUCKING STAND "Ed, Ed and Eddy"! The creator of that piece of shit should be forced to watch 10,000 hours of The Shopping Channel and religious TV!

Video Labotomy. Heh.

Re:Favorite?

[rtaylor]

No, this player is only capable of recording pr0n.

I wonder...

[Sven-Erik]

how soon after it is released that someone has Linux running on it?

Re:I wonder...

[TheGavster]

And then how long after that before it becomes a felony to run Linux on your Zen, for fear that you might watch a TV show a second time!

Re:I wonder...

[linzeal]

Kill the re-run watcher! To the ramparts to kill them, fear the traitors who may be absconded in wait, but do not fear the cleansing power of fire!

This message brought to you by Fire for all your lynch mob needs.

it's really cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

ok i was at the creative hq in singapore awhile 2 days back, and the staff there told me that the 20GB version of the zen will be retailing for around SGD$800, to be released sometime in july.

it's got a really slick interface, and it's really light, if you guys wanna know ;)

Video iPod?

[Midnight Thunder]

Now that Archos, Sony and Creative labs have release video 'personal media players', will that mean that Apple will follow next with a video iPod?

Re:Video iPod?

[Anonymous Coward]

I predict that Apple waits till all of these gadgets prove to be duds and fade away, and then it strikes with VideoPod, by blowing everyone away.

Same story with mp3 players. Prior to iPod, mp3 players didn't get the kind of mass-market coverage. The only things which were selling somewhat moderately were those mp3CD portables.

Re:Video iPod?

[Raleel]

less likely, because Mr. Jobs has already said people don't want to watch videos on their 3" screen. reading some of the comments here, he may well be right on the money.

Re:Video iPod?

[Midnight Thunder]

less likely, because Mr. Jobs has already said people don't want to watch videos on their 3" screen. reading some of the comments here, he may well be right on the money.

True, but the Archos shows that it is handy for images at least, especially those backed up from you camera. At the same time, when I went to China I managed to buy myself a VCD discman. It has no screen, but it came with the necessary cables to jack it into a TV (headphone type jack on one end and three RCA connectors on the other). It is great when I am travelling around and I am in a hotel room and it raining outdoors an I have nothing to do. Surely they could do the same thing? The only catch is you would have to copy your DVDs onto the player - maybe Apple is not ready to tackle this issue yet?

Can someone please tell me why these are needed?

[Hawthorne01]

Given:

a) The spectacular lack of success of mini-tv's.

b) The existence of portable DVD players and DVD-R's.

c) You can't watch it while driving, working, running or 9/10th's of the locations you can listen to music on an mp3 player.

d) Size/weight/cost of comparable mp3-only players.

This just smacks of a "gadget for gadget's sake" mentality, and is a marketing disaster waiting to happen, IMO.

Why not a full fledged notebook?

[gotr00t]

Considering the price, size, and battery life, I don't see why someone should get this and not a full laptop, because its obvious that there is no advantage to buying what amounts to essentially a DRM-crppled mobile device capable of playing movies. Some more recent laptops have battery lives of up to 5 hours when doing things like listening to music and such.

I think that the niche market Creative is aiming for here is PVR, except the feautre here is that its portable, and capable of showing video without being connected to a seperate display. That, in itself, is probably a poor choice considering that the price far exceeds that of TiVo, etc.

I remember back when Microsoft touted that these media players running Windows would be the death of the iPod, but it seems less and less likely now. The only people who could possibly use this device as a music player primarily must have deep pockets (in both the physical and metaphorical sense).

Re:Why not a full fledged notebook?

[Amiga Lover]

I remember back when Microsoft touted that these media players running Windows would be the death of the iPod, but it seems less and less likely now. The only people who could possibly use this device as a music player primarily must have deep pockets (in both the physical and metaphorical sense).

I don't think these will be a death-of-the-iPod type machine, more a solid market of their own. Smaller, but no less worth following for a company that's capable of making the things.

A bit like the success of Apple when viewed from a distance. They may have under 5% of 'the market' but that is a damned gigantic market.

Re:Why not a full fledged notebook?

[linzeal]

For one, as a habitual laptop user in public places it begets thievery, as the Slashdot Article yesterday attests to. Smaller items are easier to use and pay attention to the people around you. It is very difficult to sit with a laptop with a 15" screen and stay aware of your situation.

My sister, who hates most technology is raving about the RCA lyra unit but describes it in very untechnical terms like sophisticated naming (IDv32 tags), compact music (mp3pro), and other such layman's views on mp3 devices. I overheard a conversation at a bar recently that went like this;

Man 1: I need to get me an mp3 player for my job, all my cds keep getting scratched up.
Woman: My sister has one of them, a 1000 song holder. Apple makes it, like you know those educational pcs so you know it will be good.
Man 2: You need to get one that can hold 10,000 songs or you are going to get bored listening to the same 1000 songs.
Man 1: 10,000 songs? My computer can't hold that many, how would I get them on my mp3 player?
Woman: You can use them like memory, just plug them in the printer port.

Etcetera ad nauseum.

Printer port I'm assuming she is talking about USB or he better have patience as one of his virtues.

Re:Why not a full fledged notebook?

[mobby_6kl]

Maybe it's too late (1:30AM here) and I can't think, but how a laptop is an alternative to this? I mean a new laptop costs $1000 or more if you want a 12" or 10" one. Yes, the screen is larger, but sunlight would be a problem. And the unit itself would be larger, as this Zen thing looks like a fat PDA. Also some notebooks have 5h battery life, and we don't know how long can this device work.

Again yes, TiVo might be cheaper, but I wouldn't call it portable.

And finally, if this thing would cost about $400 as somebody said here (no price in the article), how is this more expensive than a 20Gb iPod at $399.99? (ok, one cent?) /. seem to be ready to give away such amounts of money, so if somebody wants to give up some functionality/size/style to get video, it looks like a good thing to get. Except for DRM, but thats another story.

Too bad it's a niche product with a small market

[Digital_Quartz]

I really don't understand this trend toward portable video players. I think the only rational explanation is clueless execs who see the profitability of portable audio players and want to jump on the bandwagon.

Audio is portable, video isn't. You can listen to a song while you bike, while you jog, while you're at work, while you're driving. You cannot (or should not) watch TV during any of these activities (save perhaps jogging on a treadmill - although a treadmill isn't exactly portable either).

Furthermore, no one craves the ultimate small-screen experience. With video, bigger is better.

Finally, I can load up my iPod with my favorite songs, and listen to them all day. I cannot do this with video; most people have no problem listening to the same song a few times a week, or even a few times a day. Few people watch the same TV episode more than once a year.

Now, if you had a media player that had all the featuers of your competitor's music player, at the same price as that music player, I'd buy your media player, 'cause hey, you never know when you'll need to watch T'Pol getting busy in that decontamination chamber, but sicne the manufacturing cost of the video player is so much higher, this is extremely unlikely.

iPod

[N3koFever]

Sounds impressive (although I'd prefer an iRiver one because it's driverless so it works on anything that supports USB 2.0 and will have no DRM), but no matter how impressive other companies make their jukeboxes and media players the masses will continue to suck up iPods like there's no tomorrow.

"I know it's expensive with less functionality, shorter batter life, lower sound quality, and forces me to use bloated software, but it's so pretty!"

Battery Life

[MBCook]

Maybe it should be called the "Achilies", because battery life will be the thing's Achilies heel. iPods and other players only get 8 hours of battery life because they spin up the HD, load 64 megs of songs (about an hour), and spin down. The rest of the time they use about the same ammount of power as a flash player because they are getting songs from memory. If you constantly fast forward causing frequent disk access, the battery life plummets.

And THAT will be the problem with these video players. They will either have to have a TON of memory so they can do what an iPod does, or will have to spin the HD up/down alot or just keep it running; which will suck battery life.

I'm not sure how usefull one of these things would be, but I would want a MINIMUM of 5 hours of video playback, and I doubt these devices will be able to achieve that (at least reliably).

I'm worried about battery life and you should be too.

Re:Battery Life

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I own the Archos av380 and I have to say it is supremely usefu little thing. I travel a lot and being able o cart about 80 gigs worth of movies and mp3s is VERY useful.

The battery life is about 4 hours playing movies, longer playing mp3s because no screen use. I travel a lot round europe where travel times aren't usually longer than the 4 or so hours.

Re:Battery Life

[The Only Druid]

I normally wouldn't bust out the grammar nazi stuff, but it's amusing that someone would put quotation marks around a name, then spell it incorrectly. No big deal, just a little amusing.

Achilles. That is the correct spelling. Carry on.

(Oh, I should note that I do agree with the post however: the battery will be destroyed by the constant read-ahead required for video.)

Re:Battery Life

[Some Dumbass...]

And THAT will be the problem with these video players.

Whaddya mean "will be"? These things exist now. No need for speculation! Let's check out the reviews and see how many hours of battery life these video players actually have (when playing video, that is):

RCA Lyra RD2780: 4 hours max
Archos AV320: about 3 hours
Archos AV340: 3.5 hours

So no, you won't get your 5 hours from any f the current players.

I think the real problem here is that the manufacturers are trying to make these players too similar to audio-only players (e.g. the iPod). They're trying to use the same wimpy 800-1000mAh custom battery packs that most mp3 jukeboxes use. This makes sense from a business standpoint -- you only have to make one battery for your various jukebox products, and you get to sell those custom replacement batteries for $50. But from a practical standpoint, this just won't do.

The solution: video players are bound to be larger than mp3 players anyway, if only because of the screen size, and they're all an inch or more thick. It's time to start making these things use standard batteries, just like digital cameras. They'll fit, and the capacity of regular batteries is plenty high. I've seen AA batteries advertised with as much as 2300mAh of capacity. One of those would do the trick for sure, and two would rock! Even two AAA batteries with a 800mAh capacity each would be an improvement.

Re:Battery Life

[jkabbe]

It's time to start making these things use standard batteries, just like digital cameras.

Good digital cameras don't use standard batteries. They generally don't hold enough juice.

Re:Battery Life

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

"more thick. It's time to start making these things use standard batteries, just like digital cameras. They'll fit, and the capacity of regular batteries is plenty high. I've seen AA batteries advertised with as much as 2300mAh of capacity."

Remember, it's mW that counts, no mA. Those AAs are NiMH, and are around 1.4V nominal. The custom Li-Ion packs, while only 1000mAh, are 3.7V nominal.

Re:Battery Life

[OhioJoe]

It'd *probably* hoped that most end users will almost always be near an electrical outlet, and thus never really be limited to the battery life, except on rare occasions. I don't even know what my laptop battery life is, because I am almost always near an outlet when I am using it.

Re:Battery Life

[Some Dumbass...]

Good digital cameras don't use standard batteries. They generally don't hold enough juice.

Well, consumer level ones do.

I have a Canon PowerShot A70. Unless I use the flash and LCD constantly, its four AA batteries (mine are 2000mAh each, but 2300mAh ones exist) really are more than enough.

As someone who owns several portable MP3 players

[Powercntrl]

I think they're overestimating the demand for a portable video player. The appeal of a portable MP3 player is the ability to listen to what is in essence, a commercial-free radio station you control, while you're doing some other activity. I don't see too many people interested in trying to watch a movie while exercising, mowing the lawn, working, etc.

Generally, a movie is something you sit down for, relax and enjoy. If you're just going to be watching a movie, you may as well do it where the movie watching experience is better. Chances are, if you have the money to blow for a portable video player, you've got a relatively decent A/V setup back at home.

Now on the topic of having content for this video player, who really has a lot of (or any for that matter) Windows Media Video files? I know I certainly don't have any worthy of buying a portable player to watch. I'm sure most people's format of choice for a home movie collection is DVD. Unlike converting audio CDs to MP3s for a portable player, converting DVDs is a very slow and legally questionable (due to having to circumvent the CSS encryption) process. For anyone that wants to watch movies portably, an inexpensive portable DVD player has a lot more usability appeal.

While I'm sure eventually buying movies online will be a big deal, right now it offers none of the benfits of online purchasing. Puchasing music online allows you to buy just the tracks you want, purchasing a movie online screws you out of higher quality and a physical disc you can resell if you so desire.

Killer feature

[capz loc]

I would love to have the ability to capture digital video to this thing from a firewire-equipped camcorder. A feature like this could even be used to record video directly to hard drive instead of to those lovable miniDV tapes.

Re:Killer feature

[Catbeller]

Why not incorporate the hard drive into the camcorder and be done with it?

Call me when it supports Ogg

[NM156]

This would be interesting to me if it supported Ogg/Vorbis/Theora. I just bought the fantastic Rio Karma digital music player, and I chose it over the other offerings, specifically because it supports Ogg Vorbis. I'm in the process of encoding my entire CD collection in this format, for both quality and philosophical reasons.
Besides the Rio, there are two other HD based players that support Ogg/Vorbis, the iRiver H120 and the Neuros but I went with the Karma mostly because it's the smallest of the three, the price was right, and the sound is excellent.

Re:Call me when it supports Ogg

[CdBee]

Realistically - and this is said with no disrespect at all for the OSS community, to whom all computer users have some gratitude owed - if you make computing decisions based on philosophical constraints, you are not in the target market

Kudos to Rio for making a player you are happy with, but in general these companies are going to go for money and widespread adoption, and that probably means embracing the proprietary codecs. A Video player may not have the power and space to spare of an mp3 device, slimness of code will probably be a priority bearing in mind the bandwidth needed for real-time video display.

An iPod copies a track into RAM in its entirety, then plays it with the hard drive powereed down. This video player will have to stream off a disk and render in real time, that has to be a more intensive task.

Re:Call me when it supports Ogg

[NM156]

Kudos to Rio for making a player you are happy with, but in general these companies are going to go for money and widespread adoption, and that probably means embracing the proprietary codecs.

Your point is well taken, but there's no reason why they couldn't support proprietary and open standards. The Rio player supports the DRM laden WMA format as well as MP3 and the lossless, free FLAC in addition to Ogg Vorbis. I think that is a successful formula, and it will sell them a few more players, because people who care about this kind of stuff will specifically seek out the hardware that supports the alternative codecs.

Re:Call me when it supports Ogg

[Anonymous Coward]

There are actually four (at least) HD based music players that support Ogg/Vorbis. You missed out the iAudio M3. Plays OGG, MP3, WMA, ASF and WAV. Unlike the Rio Karma it's a standard USB Mass Storage device so no difficulty using it with Linux/Mac OS X/(insert favourite OS here). Plus it looks really cool.

Re:Call me when it supports Ogg

[phoxix]

The problem with Ogg-Vorbis is that it is much more CPU intensive in decoding than mp3 is.

Where is the proof?

Hit up various sites that teach one how to encode movies for the Zaurus. Being Zaurus users obviously we prefer the FLOSS, patent free stuff. But mp3 really beats the pants off of Ogg in terms of CPU usage. Lower CPU usage means more chances of having skip-free playback and possibly more battery life for us PDA guys.

Though Ogg-Vorbis's CPU usage requirements may not apply to this device specifically, I wouldn't be surprised if it did to many other Mp3 players in the market.

Sunny Dubey

Re:Call me when it supports Ogg

[Thing 1]

An iPod copies a track into RAM in its entirety, then plays it with the hard drive powereed down. This video player will have to stream off a disk and render in real time, that has to be a more intensive task.

I don't understand why. Wouldn't it be possible to grab 64 MB worth of the video (depending on the format, that might be about 5 minutes) and then stream from memory?

Even though it'd only be buffering 5 minutes instead of a full album, it'd still greatly reduce usage of the hard drive.

Oh boy

[Anonymous Coward]

i think i will have to start mugging people, your average student is going to be a nice target with his/her cellphone,pda,laptop,gps and now a mobile video device... 2000$ of gadgets will keep me in crack for a week , yummy :)

HD in Pocket PC's

[GarthSweet]

When will some engineer at one of these companys get a brain and put a 20gb drive in a Pocket PC!? Then we'd have the ideal MP3, Video machine that is infinitely more useful and at a comparable price.

Re:HD in Pocket PC's

[Anonymous Coward]

Or use a real PDA OS like the one from PalmSource.

Re:Too bad it's a niche product with a small marke

[tritone]

On the other hand maybe the prOn user is the ideal target for this device. Consider: thousands of short video clips online, small screen facilitates private viewing, and convenient one-handed operation.

Possible new niche market

[Kones]

Now, I know these won't be as popular as mp3 players are right now, but consider this possibility. Apple comes out with an iTunes like program that allows you to encode your dvd's in mp4 format with DRM similar to how it is now for their aac files. For people who travel often, this is a nice feature, carry around several of your favorites movies on a 40 or 60GB drive (assuming a dvd can encode to about 500-600MB) As well as being a kickass mp3 player, it would be a nice addition. If it had a video out, it would be a godsend on all those training trips I end up taking throughout the year.

Re:Can someone please tell me why these are needed

[CreateWindowEx]

The only real use that the article mentioned was subway commuters watching last night's game, which obviously only appeals to the small fraction of the US that uses public transit (although of course numbers are far higher in Europe and Asia).

A different use that occurs to me is the portable video players are a pretty good match for the little video clips you can shoot with most digital cameras. I've noticed already that when you have your camera with you with some videos on it, you always end up passing it around--"hey look at this guy wiping out on his snowboard" or whatever. I could imagine a portable video player with a big hard drive could facilitate swapping little video clips (which are better to watch on a tiny screen than a two hour feature film) especially if they could dock directly to each other and to cameras.

It could still be a solution in search of a problem, though. However, I'd be curious to see what Apple would do with a video iPod project, especially if it were well integrated into iMovie and iTunes--probably they'd need to either add video to iTunes (and iTMS?) or add an iTunes-like library with autosync to iMovie. Since only iTunes is available in Windows, and iTunes already uses QuickTime for playback chores, I would imagine they would go for the former, and leave iMovie as a Mac-only content creation tool.

Re:Can someone please tell me why these are needed

[Cpt_Kirks]

Why, oh why, oh why doesn't somebody make a portable DVD player with a USB/Firewire port and a hard drive?

This seems like a no-brainer to me. DVD's for movies and stuff you want to watch over and over. The hard drive for the stuff you recorded last night in VCD format.

While their at it, throw in a TV tuner...

small screens rant

[WormholeFiend]

I think the only way any company can make a successful HDD-based portable movie player is not to have a miniature screen, but to couple it with not-too-expensive video-goggles.

IMO, portable video players with a small integrated screen are the same as a MP3 player with a speaker on the front. Stupid.

All MP3 players come with earphones, dont they? Why dont all video-players come with video-goggles?

Needs More Harddrive

[INMCM]

If Creative even wants to have a chance, they have to beat the Archos high end model with an 80gb hardrive . Thjat leads me to a more general point that all these new "jukeboxes" have far to little storage space. If I have 100+ gigs of music alone, I want to buy a portable that allows me to take it all with me. Where is my 300gb Nomad Zen!!!

Excuse me? 20 gb?

[Nomihn0]

Since when is that adequate for video storage? I recently filmed a ten minute digital video at a reasonable resolution and it weighed in at 2.2 gb. This is the sort of media I'd be transporting and watching with this device. Now, am I supposed to accept that 2 hours of high-fidelity recordings would crap out my Archos device? I think there's a reason that the video-editing workstations of the desktop world have 250 gb drives (and, if you are serious enough to get something similar to this archos, you'd likely use 2x250 gb drives).

Video on the go... no thanks.

[mac os ken]

How obsessed do you have to be with your media of choice to plunk down a couple of hundred dollars for a heavy piece of hardware to watch on your commute? How much will new batteries cost? Given the cost, I might as well own a laptop which currently is the best all-in-one device.

I do not want a toaster that can play MP3s, I want it to make toast.

Ahem... so just WhereTF is DivX/X-Vid support?

[MukiMuki]

Wow, Windows Media 7, 8, and 9. Where the HECK is DivX/X-Vid support?

This is like releasing a WMA-only music player.

Re:Ahem... so just WhereTF is DivX/X-Vid support?

[mikis]

Absolutely. I hope they will get a clue.

OTOH, if it uses "Windows® Media Center Edition" it shouldn't be difficult to add. Oh, and TV out would be nice :)

Re:Ahem... so just WhereTF is DivX/X-Vid support?

[ScottKin]

When I went to beta-preview this at Microsoft Redmond, I specifically asked about DivX/X-vid support.

Their answer, as expected:

"We're only supporting WMV due to the lack of DRM capabilities in the other codec formats"

I think that pretty much answers it.

--ScottKin

Re:Can someone please tell me why these are needed

[Shmooze]

Wait... so why doesn't someone make a laptop? Good plan ;)

Re:Excuse me? 20 gb?

[karnal]

1. The player's screen probably won't be the same resolution as your video, so you'll be able to save space this way.

2. Since the screen is so small, doing a Divx-style codec on it isn't going to hurt the detail level, so you save a ton of space there.

I can easily fit a two hour movie divxed, in full res (720x480, minus the black bars) on 2 cds (1.4GB), with little loss in perceived quality.

Of course, if you need something to shuffle films around, you probably do need something that will store it, but not necessarily play it.

Re:Excuse me? 20 gb?

[Shmooze]

Compression is good.
If you compress using something like XviD, you can easily get 1 1/2 hours of high(ish) quality video on a CD - which is 700MB. So in 20GB you could get about 42 hours of video. Which seems adequate to me, unless you really need to take it to some desert island for a month. Then of course, its on a smaller screen, so you could have even more compression.

It'll fail for another reason...

[Aphrika]

The reason isn't Windows Media, battery life, drive space or unit size, it's something much more simple.

Sunlight.

I don't particularly think that screen technology is up to the standard required to watch a 3-4" TV screen outside on a bright, sunny day. Sure, transflective goes some way towards solving the problem, and might be tolerable on a PDA, but on a $400 device that's being sold as a viewer? If you're envisaging using this while sat on the bus, in the park or outside Starbucks think again - you aren't going to be able to see the screen very well if they're using current technology.

Re:It'll fail for another reason...

[mobby_6kl]

Nope, if the screen is like those on PDA there shouldn't be any problem with sunlight. I've got a PDA and it doesn't really matter: if it is dark, the backlight makes everything clear, if its bright, well you don't need backlight. So if you can read small text I don't think there would be a problem viewing a movie. My personal experience.

Tivo and Replay should make these

[Beebos]

I wish Replay would make one of these portables to leverage their PVRs. It is a logical extension. Simply put the portable on the network and download the programs you already regularly record on your PVR. For people who comute by bus or train or fly a lot it would be great.

Re:Excuse me? 20 gb?

[rco3]

Clearly, this device is not targeted at you. I think it's pretty obvious that anything with a 3.8" screen is making some serious compromises in the area of total visual experience.

Yes, you are supposed to accept that 2 hours of high-fidelity recordings will crap out this device. Why?

This is not a video editing workstation. This is a video-portability solution. Your complaints are akin to complaining that a minivan doesn't perform like a Katana. Now, of course, you can demand that the automotive industry sell you a 7-seat family transporter which does 0-60 in under 4 seconds - but you won't get one.

If you really want to get 2 hours of video storage in a portable package you can fit in a pocket, has good fidelity, and a built-in screen - go buy a DV camcorder.

if you are serious enough to get something similar to this archos, you'd likely use 2x250 gb drives

Where the hell are you going to find a pocket-ish-sized device which can hold 2x250GB drives? If you're really serious about that kind of video, you WOULDN'T get one of these anyway!

I have to ask - are you trolling, or just stupid?

DRM...

[Anubis350]

the player uses Microsoft's implementation of MPEG-4. As of this writing, the player only operates with Windows XP (which has Microsoft's full DRM capabilities), a sign of capitulation to the movie industry that wishes to put locks on how users view digital movies.

However:

can record video directly from the VCR's tuner

just hook the thing up to your computer on TV-out or your DVD player and record, no DRM problem.

Re:DRM...

[martinX]

How do you know the programs aren't recorded with DRM embedded in the file.

Record Your TV Program, Episode 6, sure, but it will only play on your device and transfer to your computer and nowhere else.

Microsoft Personal Media Center...

[ScottKin]

I had the opportunity to beta-review the Creative Zen PMC at Microsoft a few weeks ago, and was fairly impressed with the Creative Zen. Video playback was exceptional for a QVGA screen, Audio playback (mp3 or WMA) was very clean and crisp - in fact, 128-bit mp3's sounded as good on playback as 192-bit or better...and I have very good ears (not Golden, but close). It was fairly lightweight, although heavier that an iPod but had similar weight to any other kind of device. Connection options were to an included USB dock, and USB 1.1 and 2.0 are supported - with USB 2.0 the preferred interface & speed (naturally). We did the usual "shake it" test to check for playback stability during Video and Audio playback and didn't detect any skips or HD resynch problems. An extra feature was the ability to upload image files (jpeg) and be able to do a slideshow. This device might work well for portable presentations, but I can't remember if there is a video-out jack.

Battery usage didn't seem to be much of a problem, since the number of renderable bits you're pulling off of the drive to the device's FlashROM or RAM are only needed to render at QVGA size.

The Zen does a very nice auto-synch with pre-defined folders using WMP 10 (yes, we got to preview & play with that as well) - however, the synch of pre-recored media is only PC-to-Device and not Device-to-PC. We didn't get to check-out the TV Recording feature, so I'm not sure if that would be an exception to the unidirectional synching functions.

When I was there the total head-count of non-MS people at this preview was maybe 20. They had people in and out all day with a variety of hardware to test their device with (the prerequsite for attending was to bring your own personal system to the Event to test it against non-HCL, real-world systems and your average user) A fairly decent cross-section of users appeared to be there, with most of them bringing laptops - I elected to bring my desktop system along with me on the 2+ hour drive to Redmond.

The most humorous part was my loading-up on to the Zen of the "Red .vs Blue" "PDC" episode - where a sweat-drenched Steve Balmer shouted & chanted the word "Developers" over and over and over to the crowd at the 2003 PDC to the point of exhaustion. We had a good laugh at their reaction, which was pretty funny in and of itself.

Unfortunately, the "Thank You" gift wasn't the usual fair ("pick a Microsoft software title on this table"), but we were given a nice pair of Sennheizer PX-100 headphones and free munchies for the afternoon.

All in all, an excellent device.

--ScottKin

Re:Microsoft Personal Media Center...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Video playback was exceptional for a QVGA screen

Consumers don't mind whether the movie "looks good for such a crappy resolution screen", they just want a movie that looks good.

Re:Microsoft Personal Media Center...

[Anonymous Coward]

*arm farts*

Re:Excuse me? 20 gb?

[Nomihn0]

I was making an analogy. I was not saying that I expected to find a 500gb pocket sized device - that obviously is absurd. I was only trying to figure out what audience they were targeting and, in the process, ruled one target out for sure.

I am not trolling, nor am I stupid. I leave that to the mindless droves that critique posts without understanding them or asking for clarification.

PDA maybe?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm hard pressed to see the point with such tool, even as a total gadget-freak myself. People who have the money to spend on portable video player most likely have the cash -- or the luxury of employer buying all the gizmos -- to buy other similar stuff already and I'm fairly certain most people who would fit as suitable buyers for this tool already have a 400MHz+ PDA with full DivX/XviD decoding capabilities (iPaq 4150 for example can play 1000kbps+ DivX5 clips without problems) bundled with something (PDA) that most people find much more useful in their daily lives other than plain portable video player.

I agree that the storage space is something you need to think about, but 1GB SD cards (I mentioned, people who are most likely to buy the portable video device, are -- in my eyes anyway -- people who have the money to buy other neat technical stuff as well) are getting cheaper and you can carry several SD cards in your PDA wallet anyway.

Also, PDA (specifically PocketPC with PocketMVP -- don't have much experience with current PalmOS or Linux models) plays nicely most popular a/v formats, so the a/v files you have on desktop PC can be simply copied to flash cards to take with you (to keep you entertained while in boring meetings/seminars or in transatlantic flight).

Re:I wonder.. - Linux with portable audio players

[wehe]

At least there are Linux tools for almost any portable (digital) audio players available. Starting with tools for the Sony Diskman, which fas famous years ago, to portable jukeboxes from Apple (iPod), Creative (Nomad), Archos (JukeBox), Diamond (Rio) and other players as well as Linux PDAs from our days.

Creative Zen == Pure Junk

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought I Creative Nomad Zen Xtra 60GB from an online retailer and it has been nothing but a nightmare. The player lasted six days before dying of a sudden hardware failure.

The online vendor lost half the items that came with the player and blew off my return of the defective merchandise. Two months later, I am still arguing with them to get it replaced.

Creative's warranty is worthless even after jumping through all their hoops as the RMI is perpetually lost in the mail. I have contacted them over a half a dozen times. Each time a new RMI was promised, each time lost in the mail. They now claim it is beyond the return period despite all of the email chains.

I will never buy another Creative product again.

Re:Creative Zen == Pure Junk

[kneel]

i had a bunch of issues with buy.com returns as well. i ended up asking my credit card company to charge them back. that was the only way i got my 200 bucks back.
i advise you to try the same, and then never buy anything from them again.

Re:Creative Zen == Pure Junk

[ErroneousBee]

Ive had similar problems with other devices, including the Archos Gmini 220. These days the firmwares are so crap that the devices lock up given 1/2 a chance. I wouldnt buy a device till its 'family' has been on the market for a while and there is a long changelog of bugfixes.

Most new players that come out arnt even of Alpha quality, particularly as the Gmini clearly never had any testing done beyond the developers setup. The manual shows different hardware than what shipped and also dont describe the interface correctly: therefore the hardware and firmware was still changing when the the product went into mass production.

Re:Creative Zen == Pure Junk

[KoKoTC]

'In other news today, Sony will be releasing the "Jesus Christ" media player in Japan...'

In a year or you we're going to call it...

[Anonymous Coward]

A cell.

Why buy a vPod something when you're going to have the same thing plus taking photos and video clips right from your good old phone?

"Listen, it's not a home video. It's a phone video!"

Ugh

[Saturninus]

DRM? Haven't they learned?

its supposedly comming out next week

[falcon5768]

Seriously, for their high end model supposedly it will have AV hookups so it will play whatever movies you have stored in your movies folder on your HD. You wont be able to play it on screen, only on a TV but I think thats a better move than playing it on a little 2 inch screen anyway....

who wants to watch movies on a 2 inch screen????

Before you say pictures, supposedly it will have a color screen and yes you will be able to view pictures on it, just not movies.

Course this is all rumor, but you never know, we already DO know the next gen iPod will have encode on the fly and the ability to do color from leaked memos from the chip manufacturer.

Re:its supposedly comming out next week

[penginkun]

I could see having an A/V out so you could plug in to a handy TV. Assuming it could handle DivX, Xvid and 3vix video I'd buy one in a hot second.

But it would probably only work with Apple's variant of MPEG4, and require AAC audio. That would eliminate 99.99999999% of what's out there.

I don't know what use colour would be for the iPod, apart from simple colours for the display. It would be nice to be able to have yellow text on a blue background (which is worlds easier for me to read than black on white). OR they could have a more complex (like a GBA) screen which could show a visualiser like iTunes does while the music plays.

So let's see...a 60gb HD with a video adaptor (could use the same video adaptor they use for the iBooks and PowerBooks and eMac) and a simple colour display...for $500? I could swing that, if they released it. IF, and that's a pretty big if, knowing Jobs.

Re:its supposedly comming out next week

[martinX]

All Apple has to do is release a (your video codec) -> QuickTime MPEG4 converter and there's no more problem. Give it to people at 320 x 240 for free, charge for an upgrade to QuickTime Pro that does 640 x 480. Something like that. Then give away/sell video clips on iTMS.

I would love being able to display photos on the iPod as well as transport video for playing on a TV. Both of those features hit the sweet spot for me (nearly a new dad, so photos and videos are mandatory).

Watching video on a small screen doesn't grab me. I never have time to sit down and watch a half hour TV show unless I'm in front of the TV. And it will kill the battery. Watch a half hour video on the way to work, and then end up with a flat battery at lunch time.

I would guess that most people (non-geeks) would have trouble using an iPod-sized PVR. Most people can't use a VCR to record from TV.

Having a video iPod do the sync thing with video, just like it does with music now, would be perfect. Apple can't afford a loser in this field. The iPod is such a high-profile beast at the moment that a bad product would be very damaging.

Answer....

[vwjeff]

But can it also record shows I don't like?

No, it can't. The engineers could not add this feature due to the cost that would be added to the final product.

Re:Excuse me? 20 gb?

[rco3]

You didn't make any analogies, sir. You said that you would be transporting full-fidelity video with this device, and that it was inadequate. You were saying that the 20 GB was inadequate because video takes more space than that. You didn't ask what the audience might be, or suggest anything like your reply indicates.

If you wish to accuse me of misunderstanding your post (or of being mindless), I can only point out that what you said in your original post is not what you claimed in your second post. Perhaps you MEANT what you said in the last one, but you didn't SAY it. No one here claims to read minds. If you really want people to understand your posts, try writing clear, concise sentences which communicate what you mean. There's a preview button you can use to re-read after composition. You might try re-reading that first one now, just to see if you said what you thought you said.

Re:Excuse me? 20 gb?

[rco3]

Oh, and just for additional clarification - the desktop video editing workstations of the world typically do not employ 250 GB drives - they typically employ large RAID arrays of ~37 GB or ~73 GB drives, striped for speed. If they need more storage than provided by 8 73 GB drives, they typically employ external storage solutions.

Go on - ask me how I know.

Re:Excuse me? 20 gb?

[rco3]

damn - fubar'd a closing italic tag.

small video players

[timothy]

a) I think you're right; people are overestimating the demand here, analogizing from small music players (nifty, useful, amenable to things like typing as in the movie "Haiku Tunnel") to small video players (nifty, somewhat less useful, not at all amenable to background work or play).

b) At the same time, Hey, how many kids have had Gameboys or their newer, smarter cousins, used 'em to while away the ride to school, family vacations, the time they're supposed to spend sleeping, etc? That tells me there sure is *some* audience for watching TV shows and movies on a small handheld device.

For shows where I have a limited interest, where I could happily watch / glance at way less than perfect quality, high compression in a handhold video device would be great: I could watch a few minutes when I had the chance to, skip forward TiVo-like, etc.

timothy

But How Did It Compare?

[meehawl]

All in all, an excellent device.

A nice review, but what I really want to do is to calibrate it against a known standard. How did it compare to the market leaders in this segment, the newest generation of Archos handhelds?

Re:But How Did It Compare?

[ScottKin]

From what I've heard, it's lighter than the Archos AV320, but according to the published specs the Archos is 350g (12.5 oz) where the Zen is 400g (14.10 oz) - someone isn't right. I'm sure that the difference is hard to detect. I haven't seen the actual Archos UI, but the UI for the Zen is based on the Windows Media Center.

Also, it appears that the Archos AV320 has more interface options than the Zen, including SPDIF In/Out. The screen size is the same (QVGA).

Hope that helps!

--ScottKin

Replay Plays Well With Archos

[meehawl]

I wish Replay would make one of these portables to leverage their PVRs. It is a logical extension. Simply put the portable on the network and download the programs you already regularly record on your PVR.

You can already do this. Copy the files from the RTV with DVArchive. Process through ReVUE. Transcode down to Archos format. Copy over to the Archos. Here's someone who does RTV->Archos regularly.

Gospel According To Steve

[meehawl]

Mr. Jobs has already said people don't want to watch videos on their 3" screen.

Steve Jobs also said people would never want to have hard disks in their Macs. Take everything he says with a healthy dose of cynicism.

Re:Too bad it's a niche product with a small marke

[jannesha]

I don't get why people insist on comparing these with portable audio players. Simlar technology, sure, but it's a different product, with a different purpose.

Who cares that it can't be used in as many situations as an iPod!?

Someone who commutes on a train or bus could make daily use of this. I guess living in a car-culture narrows your view of the world....

I'll tell you why these are needed...

[hexag]

OK, so ignoring the DRM & battery "limitations", if there was a model which'd play standard DIVX/XVID files I'd love one! With my PDA I can get a couple of South Park episodes on it, but I want more!

Things I'd use it for:
1) I spend a few hours a week on a train, films, maybe not, but South Park/whatever would entertain.
2) Taking films to my lady's/friend's house, then plug into TV, sharing the love!
3) Cool geek toy, you know you want it...

OK, this isn't the (un)Creative device, but there IS a market. Imagine a PDA with a HD, something like that...

Re:I'll tell you why these are needed...

[baker_tony]

I've been considering an iPaq or something with a 1 or 2 GB compact flash in it... how long does the battery last in your PDA when watching videos, do you easily get two episodes of South Park? Do you think it would last for a movie or two? What's your experence been like...?

But can it play GAMES?

[Anonymous Coward]

The form factor of the unit does make look to be a
rather suitable gaming platform. For it's price,
they should allow it to load/run games under an
emulator.

Does the next Palm OS access 2 GB?

[michaeldot]

I understand 2 GB is the limit for Pocket PCs. That is, even if you put one of those Hitachi 4 GB microdrives in an iPAQ, you'll only get 2 GB out of it.

If the next Palm OS (Cobalt?) can access more than this amount, then maybe licensees really could put 20+ GB drives in a PDA.

I'd buy one.

Not much point at the moment: access limit = 2 GB.

[michaeldot]

Current Pocket PCs are limited to addressing 2 GB, even if a 4 GB Hitachi microdrive is used.

Re:Killer feature -- Go buy one, they exist.

[3D Lover]

You really don't need to wish for one of these. They exist now. http://lairdtelemedia.com/products/ultraseries.htm l#CAPDIV Check it out, a very cute gizmo. There are several other mfg's that make these as well.

Re:Not much point at the moment: access limit = 2

[tommyboyprime]

There are a couple of services (too lazy to post the links) that offer full movies to download that fit on a 128mb cf or sm card. I already have used my ppc (Axim 5 ) to view movies on the small screen. I also don't need 20 Gb to hold more than 2-3 movies at one time, so I don't see the point of these $800 gadgets.

QVGA

[meehawl]

The screen size is the same (QVGA).

Thanks.

There are *far* too many nVGA acronyms these days.