Wherefore Art Thou Portable Media Center?

[Jason Dunn]

Yesterday Creative Labs announced their Zen Vision, a very drool-worthy player with a <a href="http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=210&subcategory=211&product=12985&campid=20618&nav=technicalSpecifications">list of killer features</a>. Let me summarize: a 3.7" VGA screen, only 0.78" thick, a magnesium shell in either black or white, 30 GB hard drive, USB 2.0, 4.5 hours video playback battery life, video format support for MPEG-1/2/4-SP, Windows Media Video (WMV) 9, Motion-JPEG, DivX 4 and 5, and Xvid-SP3. It plays back MP3, WMA, and DRM'd WMA because it's playsforsure-compliant. In fact, it boasts the playsforsure video logo, which is the first time I've seen that - meaning it will play DRM-protected WMV. It's got a CompactFlash slot, and with a CF adaptor, can accept almost any other type of memory card. 3.5mm headphone jack, audio and video out (still composite though). All in all, an impressive device.<br /><br />Take a step back and think about what this <i>should</i> have been: a second-generation Portable Media Center. It's not - Creative loaded their own custom OS on this thing. Let's compare this Zen Vision to their <a href="http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=210&subcategory=211&product=9882">Zen Portable Media Center</a>, which is still being sold on their site. The Zen PMC is $100 more, has 10 GB less storage, is thicker, heavier, lacks any media card slot, has 1/4th the screen resolution, and is much more restricted in it's playback of video formats. On the plus side, it has a bigger battery, and 0.1" bigger screen...<!>and that's about the only way it's better than the Zen Vision.<br /><br />Don't get me wrong, I thought the Zen PMC was a decent first effort from Creative, though it was underwhelming from a hardware perspective considering around the same time we were seeing VGA Pocket PCs with dedicated GPU acceleration. The lack of a media card slot is what made the Zen PMC useless for me, and while the PMC OS was certainly easy to use, it didn't exactly do a lot. That didn't surprise me though, because Microsoft's goal was to create a very usable, very friendly device - and they succeeded. When you look at the awkward user interfaces of other media devices on the market, the PMC was a breath of fresh air. But many people, myself included, were waiting for the next version - the version where they actually impressed us, and was priced more aggressively.<br /><br />The Zen Vision delivers on all that and more, but it's running a custom OS (embedded Linux?). From a hardware perspective, the new Zen Vision looks like it was meant for the Portable Media Center OS - but Creative didn't go that route, which to me spells trouble for the PMC. With only three partners making the hardware (Samsung, iRiver, Creative), the PMC platform wasn't exactly on strong footing to begin with. And now, a key partner releases a killer media device that's not running the PMC OS. Where does that leave the PMC? Unless we see a new release of PMC hardware before the end of 2005, unfortunately I think that leaves the PMC dead in the water.

[Jason Eaton]

Is this like MS shooting themselves in the foot again like the did the PDA?

By that I mean MS came in and laid down specs that PDA's had to adhere too. There wasn't much variation between devices and esentialy they all became the same with little difference in form factor or what not. Major manufacturers couldn't provide unique devices in a crowded niche market and had poor sales causing them to either leave, try different OSes, or scale back so far that the fight was who could do it cheaper. The CPU was restricted to one type of chip and everyone felt the stagnant growth as competition was removed.

Was MS too strict in the PMC authenticity that Creative took a different route? Are we seeing a similar trend? I think so.

The PMC market is asleep and will remain so until someone can shake it up. I think Creative sees that and are not waiting around for some upstart to come eat their lunch while they wait for the MS platform to pull into the station, they already felt that sting in the MP3 market.

[Jason Dunn]

By that I mean MS came in and laid down specs that PDA's had to adhere too. There wasn't much variation between devices and esentialy they all became the same with little difference in form factor or what not. Major manufacturers couldn't provide unique devices in a crowded niche market and had poor sales causing them to either leave, try different OSes, or scale back so far that the fight was who could do it cheaper.

Yeah, I think you're onto something here. Given how close the hardware is on the Samsung, iRiver, and Creative devices, you know that Microsoft has the hardware spec very tightly controlled. So much so that beyond physical size and battery life, the units are all basically the same - and all are equally uninspiring.

I'm still holding out hope that we'll see some killer PMC hardware in the stores for the holiday season...but by then I might have already bought the Zen Vision. ;-)

[gibb193a]

Creative sees that and are not waiting around for some upstart to come eat their lunch ...

or Apple.

iPod, anyone?

[Tim Williamson]

I'm wondering how much demand there is for a portable media center type device, especially for a device that's not easily pocketable. I'm guessing there's a lot more demand for a music only device, and wonder if this is another part of the problem.

Can the PMC interface be scaled down to a smaller pocket-sized device that is made just for playing music and viewing photos?

One more question, does the PMC allow you to connect it to a PC as a hard drive and just copy media directly over to it? Will it automatcially index the media on the device itself, or does it require you to use WMP to copy media to it?

[Jason Dunn]

I'm guessing there's a lot more demand for a music only device, and wonder if this is another part of the problem. Can the PMC interface be scaled down to a smaller pocket-sized device that is made just for playing music and viewing photos?

Right now consumer demand is for music first, and much lower down the list there's photo and videos. There just isn't a good ecosystem in place yet for video content. We've had MP3s for years, and with current music stores it's easy for people to buy music for these devices. Videos? Much harder to get that content, so the demand to get video on a portable device isn't very hot yet.

AFAIK, yes, the PMC OS could easily be adapted to a smaller audio + photo device and made much smaller. I think a device like that could be very successful if you took some great hardware (Creative, iRiver) and combined it with the great UI of the PMC OS. But my hunch is that Microsoft wouldn't allow a device like that to be released...which is part of the problem.

One more question, does the PMC allow you to connect it to a PC as a hard drive and just copy media directly over to it? Will it automatcially index the media on the device itself, or does it require you to use WMP to copy media to it?

Yes, you can connect it directly, and there's a Data folder meant just for moving files over, but if memory serves if you drag and drop media files over without going through WMP it doesn't work very well. Microsoft really designed it to work with WMP, for better or worse.

[Outlaw94]

just to answer your questions. I have used my Samsung YH-999 as a portable harddrive. So it can be pretty handy when it comes to storing a few very important files but i have a USB HD for that. I like to keep my PMC HD space for video content. Also, I have just copied .WMV vidoes that i had previously converted in a compatiable format over to the PMC in the correct folder. The PMC will see them and recognize them so they will play and show up in menus. I love my device but just wish I had more storage.

[[email protected]]

I think Microsoft cares a whole lot more about Playsforsure and that their formats are being used, than they do about the PMC platform. I think they see PMC as a case study or a "feeler", to find out what to incorporate into Windows Mobile.

[RenesisX]

Microsoft tried to "one-up" Apple by producing clever video-capable portable devices.

They created two fatal problems with the device:

1) There was no easy way to copy your DVDs onto it (this would be like having an iPod and not being able to copy your CDs to it)

2) 99% of the useful video content on the pirate underground is in formats which this device didn't support natively. And trying to get it to convert to WMV was beyond a joke.

I got mine as a freebie from MS which was incredibly generous of them, but I just gave it to my brother as he wanted something to play all his music on. There is no way I could even remotely explain to him how to get any videos on there, so he's just using it as a very flashy "iPod".

Creative's new portable video player is right on the money - it supports all the formats you need for all those dodgy movies and TV shows you've got on your HD.