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Microsoft Portable Media Center Reviewed
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."
More goodies to spend my unemployment check on!
[intekra] - [www.plex.nu]
DRM-Enabled media players? No thanks.
^^
From TFA: And please, I don't mean to get you worried at this point, I don't find them attractive in a sexual way or anything like that, I'm much more drawn to a nice 5'8" red head than anything made of silicon, LOL, err, no pun intended.
If only there was a way to combine the red head with the silicon. *ponders*
I'm pretty much an average geek...
As Homestar would say: More like NOT AVERAGE GEEK!
He has a link to mirrors of his photos and videos of the device (which I'm mainly interested in anyway). They are:
WMV: External Overview of Creative Zen PMC (temporarily down) Mirror 1 Mirror 2
WMV: Demo of Portable Media Center UI (temporarily down) Mirror 1 Mirror 2
Gallery of Images from Creative Zen PMC Mirror 1 Mirror 2
-- "A chicken is an egg's way of making another egg."
This guy has a real hate on for Apple doesn't he?
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!
I'm not. As a patron of the arts, I find this statement unexplicable. Creativity is what separates us from the lower animals! It is the foundation of civilization!
Go and play with your non-Creative devices, plebeian. Some people were just not born to appreciate the finer things in life. Run along now, you're cramping my contemptuos sneer.
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
If it's a Microsoft product I'm pretty sure you can count on it being non-creative.
-- Gargonia
Never play leapfrog with a unicorn.
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.
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.
Maybe it's just me being paranoid, but, this looks like a setup.
I mean, poor english, no train of thought and a site with a single blog topic.
Sounds like Microsoft advertising department to me. (trying desperately to not be an ad).
This does sound like a neat toy, though it's portability would certainly be limited. The ability to load up video files and play them on any TV certainly is an attractive prospect -- but I would only be interested if it can play back non-DRM encumbered Divx/Xvid files.
Back to the portability issue, this thing looks huge, and would only fit in the largest of pockets. I recently picked up a Rio Karma, and really can't imagine walking around freely with anything much larger than that. Also, I wonder how long this thing can run on battery power. With that huge color screen, I would think not long. (though maybe the screen can be turned off)
That has got to be the most long, drawn out review for a product I have ever seen. How about not writing it like a book that involves your mothers TV viewing habits, and your walk to the store.
Stay tuned for new sig...
<sarcasm>Remember, kids, it's a feature, not a bug!!</sarcasm>
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
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
Yeah, I'm going to break my iPod into teeny little pieces and use the polycarbonate shards to open my veins before I buy one of these POSes.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
So that's about $80,000 of CDs (which of course he purchased legally, right?)...all college students should follow his example.
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
Corey Gouker is a 20 year-old geek who likes 5'8" redheads. He sits on 204 GB of music. He has one media device. His hobbies including hanging out in Microsoft newsgroups.
He is reviewing Microsoft's "iPod killer". It is gonna be like iTunes, except instead of buying music, you rent it. We all know this is a foolproof business model. It is loaded up to the gills with more of that tasty DRM that everyone loves.
The first thing he did was plug it in to the mains. Then he tried to take it apart. I think we have a potential Darwin Award nominee, folks. Then he had trouble turning it on.
The device has a 400MHz XScale CPU and 64Mb of RAM. It can play videos on its 320x240 screen. It performs well, apart from the artifacts and frame drops.
The device has cables coming out of every side but one. The good news is, you can add blue LEDs and make it really sexy.
Battery life is 22 hours for audio and 7 hours for video. The device weighs as much as a can of coke.
If you scroll to the bottom, you can download a 23Mb video. I'm too bored to watch it, maybe someone else can post a summary of that.
fish and pipes
I think it will really take off and everyone will have one!
Sincerely,
Betamax
I'm pretty down on the PMC. I put my reasons together here on ExtremeTech. It's not a review, but I've had hands-on time with all of them (real reviewers are forbidden to post a review until the Non-Disclosure expires sometime in the near future).
Then, after being raked over the coals by Microsoft apologists, I revised my opinions. The PMC is actually a brilliant trojan horse that'll let Microsoft take over the porn industry!
jim
Hi! My name is Corey! I love myself. I'm a big geek and take lots of photos and have a big movie collection. And I like girls! I spend all my time on the Internet chatting about stuff
I spend lots of money on electronic things. And because I'm so important and special I got a Portable Media Center! It's way cool! It's not an iPod! It's something different
I have such a large movie collection, I'll wear once of these out a week! I have lots of on-line friends who love to read my blog. I live in my parents basement
Even though I just said I'm an ultra high-tech geek, I serve this web site on a slow DSL connection from my l33t Linux box. Please use a mirror!
Best Buy can have you arrested