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Microsoft Portable Media Center Reviewed

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the movies-movies-everywhere dept.

dhopton writes "The first public review of the PMC that I've seen is interesting. It's critical in places, but also praises. It also covers Windows Media Player 10 to some extent. Overall, I'm looking forward to reviews of the non-Creative devices."

10 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. Homestar... by hypermike · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I'm Corey Gouker (obviously); I'm a Media Center MVP who hangs out in the Microsoft newsgroups...
    I'm pretty much an average geek...

    As Homestar would say: More like NOT AVERAGE GEEK!

    --
  2. My favorite quote by PunkPig · · Score: 5, Insightful
    "...so I had high hopes that they might be a breakthrough device that would fit my needs perfectly. Something that would really do damage to Apple's iPod."

    This guy has a real hate on for Apple doesn't he?

  3. It's a blog! by Philippe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's long-winded, reminescent of Jerry Pournelle's columns in Byte. It takes forever to get to the point. It's from a guy who (apparently) has a 204 MB music collection!

    And we should pay attention to him why?

    P.S. that thing looks huge. It has a GUI, for cryin' out loud!

    1. Re:It's a blog! by garcia · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It takes forever to get to the point.

      He doesn't ever actually make any points other than showing off at his DVD, music, TV, and movie collections. Honestly I don't give a flying rats ass WHY you were chosen to test something and I certainly don't care about how much music you have...

      He said that the UI is fast while loading the songs he put on the device. How long did it take to put those songs on the device? Did you have to load a special driver for it (possible DRM) or did it just use USB mass storage that is standard with more recent Windows versions?

      He did mention that the external sound sucks and that the display isn't any good in the daylight. Sounds like a bummer to me. I am not exactly going to be sitting at home watching movies on my portable media player.

      I am more concerned with battery life and heat from the 400mhz XScale CPU.

      I guess he didn't spend enough time explaining that afterall he did have to type out 204GB several times and count all his tracks in his music collection (44,190).

  4. Re:DRM? by e9th · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah. Gouker even seems to feel that licensing, rather than owning, music is the way to go. Maybe it is if all you listen to is here today, gone tomorrow top-40 crud that you'll be bored with in a month.

  5. The Zen Media Center by vijayiyer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's a Media Center, perhaps, but it looks about as portable as a Mac Portable. Can I carry it with me? Sure. Do I _want_ to carry it with me? Absolutely not.

  6. Affliations put to the side by SilentChris · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ignoring it's Microsoft, and ignoring that there will probably be a million posts about iPod in a few seconds, I think this is going to be very interesting to watch for an entertainment and psychological standpoint (outside tech).

    Will people actually carry one of these around for their commutes? How much of an increase will we see in TV viewing? Will it contribute to the growing social isolation I'm beginning to see (a world full of people wearing headphones)?

    I'd give it a few revisions and then consider buying one.

  7. What about Archos? by cj171 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Archos has had these kinds of portable media players out for at least a year now..with no drm, and recording from video sources to mpeg4 or divx I believe. Definitely something fishy in that blog

  8. Re:Surprise, surprise by Bombcar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Actually, considering how many people still use and defend Apple's failures (G4 Cube, Newton), one could argue that Apple doesn't usually design a crappy product, but sometimes overestimates the demand for it at the price point they use.

    --
    Fellowship 9/11
  9. Re:Maybe it's just me but... by huchida · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I believe it's a setup too. Google "Corey Gouker"... Wade through some of the results, interesting what you'll find.

    This is either the biggest-- and most clueless-- Microsoft fanboy in existence, or Microsoft's ad department is creating a fake blogger (actually, blog community) to give their products some "street cred."