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First Portable Media Centers Hit Store Shelves
An anonymous reader writes "After months of speculation and hype, the first Portable Media Center based on Microsoft's 'Windows Mobile software for Portable Media Centers' has finally hit store shelves. The Zen Portable Media Center, from Creative Labs, is now available at Best Buy and Fry's Electronics, priced under $500. That money basically buys a 3.8-inch color LCD screen, ultra-fast USB 2.0 port to transfer video, music, and digital photos from your PC, and an internal 20 GB hard drive."
I have one (don't ask) and I'm really quite impressed with it. While it won't replace my iPod for music use, I really think that the video/tv functionality would be fantastic for someone who commutes to work on a bus or ferry every day.
The UI is clean and easy to use, and the sync works great. I also like that it is easy to configure the system to transcode (in the background) all of your content to lower quality in order to optimize space utilization.
These are actually surprisingly good tools. There's a good review here.
I will say, however, that if I had not gotten one for free (again, don't ask) then I don't think I would have been willing to pay $500 for one. When they either get down into the $350 range, or have MUCH higher capacities at the $500 price point perhaps.
jrjBlog
What manner of DRM has been built in?
Which it will eventually- I think I just found a MUCH better solution to kid-in-the-car-on-a-long-trip boredom.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
does it
whew, close call.
run lin*whack*
http://www.archos.com Archos has been at this for well over a year.
This is the coolest thing in the way of personal entertainment that I have ever seen in my life aside from unmentional bedroom activities involving myself in a dark room with a glow-in-the-dark prophylactic. The future is indeed a bright one.
I honestly don't understand the reasoning behind these products. These are marketed and designed for use from the point of view people WANT to carry movies and photos around with them. Sucessful portable devices don't get in the way when they are not being AND are so simple to intereact with that one doesn't think about using them.
These look like little more than toys for people who buy things because they are new. Novelty, nothing less, especially at that price, useability, and size.
Burn Hollywood Burn
After months of speculation and hype, the first Portable Media Center based on Microsoft's "Windows Mobile software for Portable Media Centers" has finally hit store shelves. The Zen Portable Media Center, from Creative Labs, is now available at Best Buy and Fry's Electronics, priced under $500.
Service Pack 1 released 15 minutes later...
"What the hell is an aluminum falcon?"
I would have preferred something that would support more formats, such as xvid, ogg vorbis, etc.
divx would be nice too, but there would be a licensing issue.
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
Interesting that they call it the "Zen", since Zen teaches inner contemplation and quiet listening to oneself and body, not MP3s.
Dang it, I knew I should have waited on buying the mediocre-speed USB 2.0 port version. Now all my friends will be laughing at me because they have the ultra-fast version.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
So it has a color screen, sound volume control, all sorts of DRM support and costs almost $500? And I have no keyboard, no networking, no generic applications, it's just like a portable DVD player, but there's no DVD slot, just digital link?
Well, for $600 I can get this low-end laptop running Windows XP Home with wireless networking, 40 gig drive and DVD slot, which is capable of doing so much more, which pretty much includes all the options available in PMC.
For $300 the PMC might be interesting. For $100 it would be a hot seller. But $500? Give me a break.
Look, I don't know whether the original poster's claim is true or not, but..
If you read what he's actually written, as opposed to what you assumed he wrote, you'll see his comment is specifically about video, whereas your reply mentions only audio. In short, you're discrediting a claim that he didn't make and calling him a jackass to boot.
Calm down, take a deep breath, and read the whole sentence, mmmmkay?
Microsoft always wants to extend Windows even into areas where it does not belong. A handheld running Windows? What on earth for? Now this too? No thanks. Give me a Palm, give me an iPod, give me a simple tool that works well and elegantly.
My question here is how much of that price tag reflects the license tax to Microsoft? The hardware can't cost more than $150 by itself even at retail prices... even the LCD doesn't justify it. The software itself also doesn't justify the price... maybe another $100 for that so.... IMHO the license is half or more of the purchase price there. Surely the market can come up with a better or comperable offering for much less...I'm not buyin' it, figuratively or literally.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
there are a number of superior devices readily available:
Archos AV3xx
Archos AV4xx
iRiver PMP-1xx
RCA Lyra 27xx
All of the above at LEAST play mpeg 4 video. Most can record Audio, some video, and one is ever a PVR. Educate thyself, consumer.
And if you're a linux nut, I believe both the Archos and iRiver are Linux based however neither appear hacked to any great degree.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
If a media player plays an MP3 but no one's around to buy it, does it make a sound?
Gizmodo linked to http://pmw.sorobangeeks.com/news_51.html about an iRiver portable media player. It doesn't look like the same as the one pictured in TFA. On a lighter note, I just can't see shelling out for any of these damned expensive gadgets.
-end of post.
I would have thought it would be as simple as:
- Hook up device to cable
- Schedule recording
- Watch
Instead, you have to:- Hook up your computer to cable
- Go to your PC and schedule a show
- Once it is done, have the software crunch the video to be transfered to the device
- Hook up the device to the computer
- Transfer the video over to the device
- Watch
How much more would it have cost to include a tuner with the unit?! Based on a post above, the unit can do video compression. So, until that happens, I am not too interested in the device as there are too many hurdles to jump to get out the door.Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
"Microsoft always wants to extend Windows even into areas where it does not belong."
./ posts about of Linux on a wristwatch et al people tend to root and cheer. Personally, I agree with your sentiment. A large scale general purpose OS can only consume more than it's share of scarce resources on a micro-device. ;)
Yet when
However, in the future as computational power and memory resources grow ever smaller, the amount of bloat for the OS may matter less. For all we know, we'll see sixth generation "portable media centers" capable of playing DoomIII of course the display will look like crap on the holographic emitter and controlling the gameplay with hand gestures will be a chore, I'm sure it will be a hit for the hardcore game enthusiest
my mobile does most of this but the screen is smaller...
There was an unknown error in the submission.
The list of System Requirements says it all.
I'll buy this kind of device only if it is recognized as a Mass Storage Device when plugged on the USB port, not if I have to go through WMP to use it.
My cousin has a powerbook and he hooks it up to the tv all the time, so I'm assuming the powerbook can do the same. Anyone can verify?
Powerbooks have S-Video ports built in. A short cable is included that turns the S-Video into an RCA port.
Microsoft always wants to extend Windows even into areas where it does not belong.
:(
AMEN. Try having windows on your cellphone. It's absolutely miserable to deal with(work phone, otherwise I'd toss it in a heartbeat). Even simple tasks like dialing a phone number are long, arduous processes that involve re-keying often because I enter numbers too fast for the system to keep up. It's like having all the annoying problems of running windows on a low-end PC with none of the benefit.
Don't get me wrong, it's nice having so many features in my phone(email/instant messaging/etc), but couldn't they have at least left the core features like dialing ALONE?
I would expect such blatant racism on Fark, but on Slashdot? Mods please ban this asshole.
A couple of hours ago I exchanged my new fourth generation 40GB iPod for one of these units.
...the unit seems to be dummed down to the point that it doesn't do very much besides play songs and movies. Given that the unit is running Windows CE.NET (v4.2 I think) I expected the unit to be loaded with PIM applications and such. But, there don't seem to be any such applications. The iPod provides such things as tasks, calender and notes viewing applications. I had expected the PMC to be more functional than the iPod, not less.
I loved my iPod, but it was unstable and locked up repeatedly. It was my second such iPod to do so. My first such iPod was one that I had bought only two weeks ago. I exchanged the first iPod for the second iPod because after only one day of use the first iPod had begun locking up. Many thanks to Best Buy for living up to their 30 day return policy.
Anyway, with regard to the Zen PMC, my initial impressions are mixed:
1. The unit is very large and bulky compared to an iPod. In fact, the unit is large enough that you'll have to wear very loose-fitting pants in order to carry the unit in your pocket. And the unit is too heavy to carry in your hand for a long period of time.
2. Installation of the battery is needlessly hazardous to the unit and is needlessly annoying. Before installing the battery, you must adjust a tiny, delicate on/off within the battery compartment to the "on" position using whatever small tool that you might have sitting nearby. If you're not careful you could *easily* break the switch by pushing too hard on it. Also, if you don't have a small tool (e.g. a jeweler's screwdriver) sitting nearby then you're not even going to be able to start using your unit. I was fortunate as after a few minutes of scrounging around I was able to find a jeweler's screwdriver. Had I not found a tool I would have been pretty pissed off. My iPod didn't require any such silliness.
3. The unit's buttons have a cheap feel to them. The "Back" button not only feels cheap, but is too far recessed into the casing to be easily used.
4. The top (user facing) half of the unit is made of glossy black plastic and therefore shows fingerprints a lot. Within a few seconds of being handled the unit no longer looks new.
5. (Completly subjective) The unit completely lacks the sexy, cool appearance of an iPod. If I were a Mac user (I'm a Windows and Linux user), I'd probably say that the PMC is to an iPod as a generic Wintel desktop box is to a Mac G5 desktop box.
6. The directions claim that you should charge the battery for *sixteen* hours before first use. Sixteen hours is a long time to wait before taking a new toy for a walk.
7. The unit's UI is very easy to figure out. Mostly that's because...
8.
9. Windows Media Player 10 is required in order to synchronize the PMC with your PC. Without getting very far at all I got so annoyed with WMP 10 that I decided to post these comments. WMP 10 is bad in several ways. First, WMP 10 is still in beta. That's right. In order to get music onto your new $500 PMC, you're going to have to use beta software. Thanks Microsoft. And this is not just any beta software. This is software that installs a bunch of DRM stuff onto your computer. In fact, there are several steps in the installation procedure where you encounter DRM-related dialog boxes. These dialog boxes explain things such as the fact that the installer connects to Microsoft's servers to register your computer with Microsoft so Microsoft can assign your machine some sort DRM ticket. Depending upon how you feel about DRM, you might not be too happy about any of this.
10. Using WMP 10 to synchronize with the PMC seems to be broken. I keep telling it to synchronize and it keeps pretending that it is, but it isn't. I have about 16GB of songs to synchronize. With my iPod, I had the process of synchronization completed in less than an hour. I just plugged in my iPod to the cradle and everything just worked. With the PMC