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View Full Version : Portable Media Center's Hit The Stores Today


Jason Dunn
09-02-2004, 06:40 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/portablemediacenter/default.mspx' target='_blank'>http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/portablemediacenter/default.mspx</a><br /><br /></div><i>"New at a consumer electronics store near you on September 2, 2004! Experience the power and convenience of all your favorite video, music, and pictures at your fingertips anywhere anytime with Portable Media Centers."</i><br /><br />The Portable Media Center devices are unleashed today! They should be appearing on local store shelves, and I assume this means that Amazon will start shipping them today as well - they have both the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=jasondunn-20&path=tg/detail/-/B0002J6GLG%3Fv%3Dglance%26s%3Delectronics%26n%3D172630">Creative Labs Zen</a> and the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=jasondunn-20&path=tg/detail/-/B000294HDU%3Fv%3Dglance%26s%3Delectronics%26n%3D172630">Samsung YEPP</a>. So it's only fitting that I start to publish my series of review pieces about the Portable Media Center that Microsoft loaned me. :D The first will appear later today....

sting0r
09-02-2004, 06:58 PM
I plan on buying my tomorrow at bestbuy using the 10% coupon. What great timing, just in time for my birthday and a nice long weekend!!!! I was going to buy the Samsung, but for $450, I don't want to miss out on a good deal on the Creative Labs one.

Jason can't wait to see your review later, been waiting for this for quite some time. I even bought the Rca Lyra a few months back and returned it because it didn't really work well..

entropy1980
09-02-2004, 07:05 PM
I plan on buying my tomorrow at bestbuy using the 10% coupon. What great timing, just in time for my birthday and a nice long weekend!!!! I was going to buy the Samsung, but for $450, I don't want to miss out on a good deal on the Creative Labs one.

Jason can't wait to see your review later, been waiting for this for quite some time. I even bought the Rca Lyra a few months back and returned it because it didn't really work well..
What 10% coupon?

sting0r
09-02-2004, 07:23 PM
I got it in an email from bestbuy, but here is someone with a mirror

http://www.postpublisher.net/h/bestbuy/adhoc/200409/laborday/LaborDayWeekendSale.pdf

Some fine print, but it does say it can be used for mp3 players, one of the many things the Zen is :)

Felix Torres
09-02-2004, 11:35 PM
I stopped by BESTBUY and COMPusa for a look.
The Creative zen is nowhere near as big as the pictures make it out to be; it is roughly the same size as the RCA Lyra and the iRiver 120.
The screen is gorgeous.
The Media Center interface is a home run.

But I must say the biggest shock was seeing the SONY Walkman jukebox; the thing belongs in a jewel case; it is fabulously good engineering...
...coupled with fabulously stupid positioning; if the thing ran anything But ATRAC, it would rule the world...

As is, I think the Samsung PMC will have to do the honors.
Can't wait to see that in the flesh...

sting0r
09-03-2004, 04:37 PM
Felix, did bestbuy have the iRiver PMP-120 as well or just the lyra and the Zen?

Schade
09-03-2004, 06:39 PM
Baseball to go (http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/mlb/video/pmc_main.jsp)

This looks really neat if you're a baseball fan. It's also good to see someone like MLB immediately realize the potential of PMC.

Most people here probably aren't familiar, but MLB is already on top of it. You can stream video of almost any game, live or archived. You can download an entire game in 350k wmv to save for posterity at $4 a pop. (In fact, that's what they're pushing with this page for this year.) You can even request specific video. (For example, I can to their searchable video page and tell it I want video of hits made by all right handed Cardinals hitters against all pirates pitchers with runners in scoring position during the last month. It will assemble a stream of video on the fly and steam it through MLB's WMP based media player.)

Not a big deal if you're not a baseball fan, but you've got to admit it's a pretty impressive blend of entertainment and technology.

Now they're saying that next year I can have the previous day's game downloaded to my PMC automatically every day?

I was going to buy an 80gb mp3 player for christmas because I don't really care about recording TV, but it's stuff like this that will make me consider a PMC. Especially if they get up to the 80-100gb range.


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Felix Torres
09-03-2004, 06:45 PM
Felix, did bestbuy have the iRiver PMP-120 as well or just the lyra and the Zen?

All three side by side right next to the pod (big one only; never seen the small one live. I assume it exists but I guess it is reserved for the hipster NY and LA markets), the Philips, and the iRiver jukebox.
They also had the Carbon in a blister-pack on the other side of the hall.
The carbon is gorgeous; if only they hadn't excised the Rio DJ function...

Anyway, I was able to overlay the Zen on the Lyra and the PMP-120 and they're all comparable, except the Xen has the bigger screen....
the Zen is slablike, like the Lyra, instead of contoured like the iRiver, but they're all comparably sized.

Felix Torres
09-03-2004, 06:52 PM
Now they're saying that next year I can have the previous day's game downloaded to my PMC automatically every day?


You should able able to capture a late-night west-coast game and have it queued up in the player by morning.
Now.
There may not be a single killer application that makes PMCs must-have's, but, like PDAs, there will be a lot of "nice-to-have"'s that in aggregate will add up to a desirable product.

Schade
09-03-2004, 07:09 PM
Now they're saying that next year I can have the previous day's game downloaded to my PMC automatically every day?


You should able able to capture a late-night west-coast game and have it queued up in the player by morning.
Now.
There may not be a single killer application that makes PMCs must-have's, but, like PDAs, there will be a lot of "nice-to-have"'s that in aggregate will add up to a desirable product.

I agree. Yes, you can get games on a player now, but that involves either
A - stream the game and use a video capture tool to get the video. My streams from MLB usually crash or lock up at least once a game right now. If I'm going to be there to babysit the player, I'll already have seen the game and won't need to the next day

B - Buy MLB Extra Innings for $200 to get it through the cable box, and buy a new desktop capable of video capture from the cable box (like I said, I'm not already set up to catch TV because I don't watch much of it.)

Like you said, it's a lot of pieces that add up to something really neat, but a lot of people don't have the time or money to piece it all together.

A setup like this that uses broadband to deliver content on a subscription basis is pretty neat. Maybe there's already something out there that does this? I don't know.

I do know that if MLB partnered with MS to give me a year's worth of free subscription for purchasing a PMC, I'd probably be suckered into it.

Anyone at MLB listening? Or NFL/NHL/NBA/MLS? Or HBO / Showtime? Or major movie companies?

sting0r
09-04-2004, 04:38 AM
Got my Zen earlier, just started to play with it. It's all charged up. Just tried to sync an SVCD version of a home movie and it seems like its taking forever to convert it. Oh well, I remember reading somewhere its 1:1 to for converting dvds to the pmc format, so a 2 hour movie is 2 hours to encode. I hope that's not the case with everything...

gettinbranded
09-04-2004, 05:21 AM
So...will these things out-sell the iPod this chirtmas??

sting0r
09-04-2004, 07:32 AM
Anyone been playing around with their PmP? I can't figure out how to create a directory structure, just sticks everything under video, which is definitely not what I want. Jason any advice? I can create a sub directory under videos on my Zen, just cant get content into there.

Felix Torres
09-04-2004, 05:17 PM
So...will these things out-sell the iPod this chirtmas??

Not likely...
...nor intended...

Contrary to what the general media may pretend, PMCs are not intended to compete with the pod on a one-for one basis; current PMCs are intended to blaze the trail for a different breed of portable entertainment device.

If you're looking for a pod alternative you should be looking in a different direction, where a dozen credible competitors already exist, each with its own approach, strengths, and weakness, that happen to be different from the stengths and weakness of the pod.

Happy hunting.

Jason Dunn
09-05-2004, 02:33 AM
Oh well, I remember reading somewhere its 1:1 to for converting dvds to the pmc format, so a 2 hour movie is 2 hours to encode. I hope that's not the case with everything...

The Windows Media Encoder is not known for being fast - Divx is much faster - so this is normal. It varies of course depending on CPU power, etc., but in general I've found transcoding to be quite slow (on my 2.8 Ghz box).

Jason Dunn
09-05-2004, 02:34 AM
Anyone been playing around with their PmP? I can't figure out how to create a directory structure, just sticks everything under video, which is definitely not what I want. Jason any advice? I can create a sub directory under videos on my Zen, just cant get content into there.

It sounds like you're browsing directly to the device? That's not the "proper" way to use it - Microsoft expects people to use WMP10 to shuttle 100% of the content over, EXCEPT stuff that goes into the DATA folder, which WMP10 won't touch.

sting0r
09-05-2004, 03:31 AM
Thanks Jason. I was actually able to create a folder using WMP10. If you go to the right side, where the Zen is under the Sync tab you can create a new folder or sub folder. Don't think the Zen sees it. I really do like it, but now I am considering bringing it back and get the GMINI400 instead. I think DIVX maybe a much better format to work with. The only thing keeping me right now is that I am using beyondtv 3.5 and I am able to automatically tape in the pmc format and transfer it while the Zen is plugged in. Probably give it a few weeks and see.

Anyone been playing around with their PmP? I can't figure out how to create a directory structure, just sticks everything under video, which is definitely not what I want. Jason any advice? I can create a sub directory under videos on my Zen, just cant get content into there.

It sounds like you're browsing directly to the device? That's not the "proper" way to use it - Microsoft expects people to use WMP10 to shuttle 100% of the content over, EXCEPT stuff that goes into the DATA folder, which WMP10 won't touch.

vcneophyte
09-08-2004, 05:55 PM
Archos (http://www.archos.com/) came out with their new 400 series (One month after I bought the Av340 of course) and although it doesn't support WMV or WMA, it supports eveything else.

MPEG-4 SP with MP3 or ADPCM stereo sound, near DVD quality up to 704x480 @ 30 f/s, AVI file format.
Reads XviD and DivX®** 4.0 & 5.0.

Nice thing about it is that it records from everything into DivX on the fly. You can pop in a DVD-VHS Tape or record from TV. Even use timers and record stuff fromthe night before and watch iton the TRain/Plane during your commute..or trip.

The iRiver looks really good though. Wish it had a 40 GB or 80 GB drive option.[/url]

Suhit Gupta
09-08-2004, 07:41 PM
The iRiver looks really good though. Wish it had a 40 GB or 80 GB drive option.
Rumour has it that they are working on it.

Suhit