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Creative Zen Portable Media Center | |
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| Time: 16:05 EST/21:05 GMT | News Source: VNUNet | Posted By: Brian Kvalheim | ||
Portable digital audio players like the Apple iPod exist thanks to file compression technology such as MP3. Just like music, digital video can be compacted and squeezed down into manageable files that are perfect for handheld devices.
Creative's Zen Portable Media Center takes advantage of this. It's based on Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system and, to that end, can store and play recorded television, digital photos, music and video. | ||
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| #1 By 37 (67.37.29.142) at 11/24/2004 12:51:54 PM |
|
Archos AV 400
http://www4.tomshardware.com/mobile/20040706/index.html I noticed however that it doesn't qualify for the PlaysForSure program: http://www.playsforsure.com/ I wonder if they are updating the player to qualify for that program at some point. The Archos looks really nice. |
| #2 By 3339 (64.160.58.137) at 11/24/2004 1:15:52 PM |
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Virtually nothing qualifies for PlayForSure. There are the same 36 devices on the web site that were there at launch, the same 8 stores.
The PlayForSure web site is useless. The campaign and logo are useless. Player/store compatibility must be determined by other means or you are limiting yourself right out of the market. |
| #3 By 37 (67.37.29.142) at 11/24/2004 2:19:32 PM |
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Again, Soda is clueless. Not only has this been successful (we had a meeting at Redmond with the PlaysForSure team), it's a great idea that has worked to their advantage as well as the advantage of the consumer. It details on the back on the feature/compatibility with XP/Media Center as do the Xbox games that detail the features with the same marketing on the back of the games.
Do you have ANY idea what is required and what standards need to be met to be PlaysForSure compliant so that the user can get the best experience with these devices? Do you have ANY clue what so ever? This post was edited by AWBrian on Wednesday, November 24, 2004 at 14:24. |
| #4 By 3339 (64.160.58.137) at 11/24/2004 3:06:22 PM |
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I really piss you off, huh, Brian?
Are half of the devices that qualify on the web site? No. Has the web site ever been updated? No. Are half of the devices on the web site the same device but a different capacity? Yes. There are actually only 20 unique devices on the site. Have people reported problems with devices that are allegedly compliant with PlayForSure? Yes. http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/solution-20041027.html So, again, what don't I know? "Do you have ANY idea what is required and what standards need to be met to be PlaysForSure compliant so that the user can get the best experience with these devices? Do you have ANY clue what so ever?" Yes, but Microsoft apparently doesn't care to promote those that allegedly do on the web site. Even those that have met compliance standards still have problems. And, anyway, what do the standards that need to be met have to do with whether or not Microsoft is doing a good job of making this program effective? That real world compatibility is reflected by the program's badging? From what I see, nothing. There are devices that are compatible not in the program, and there are devices in the program that have compatibility issues. What am I missing, Brian? Please, do tell. |
| #5 By 37 (67.37.29.142) at 11/24/2004 3:57:35 PM |
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Piss me off? No way. Life is too short to be pissed off over technology discussions over the internet. Plus I know that outside of these comments you are a nice guy.
The site has been updated, however the products have not. However, they introduced some more new players at our conference that are PFS ready, and those will be posted shortly. The link you provide only has one PFS product, the Rio Carbon. The remainder do not appear on the PlaysForSure website as PlaysForSure compatible. In addition, they didn't have "problems" with the Rio, they just didn't like the sound quality or the interface in their opinion. Also note that they were using the MusicMatch software (which isn't PlaysForSure supported....only Windows Media 10). So you say that "even those that have met compliance standards still have problems". Can you tell me exactly which products that meet the PlaysForSure standards are having problems along with links to your source? Standards equates to effective. In fact, you should have a quick peak at this site: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/mp10/devicesupport.aspx I wish MS would make the standards more widely available to the public as to what they are. But I know for sure that they must AutoSync without user intervention. They must be driverless, requiring no user setup or software/roms, they must meet the Media Transport Protocol (MTP) standards, allowing to transmit metadata two ways as well as offer the user a minumum of 7 music rips per song that is DRM protected....that includes each music store. There are more, but these are the ones I remember off the top of my head. These devices meet these standards, and lets the consumer know that they will have the best experience with those particular devices if they want to use those feature sets, including the PMC (personal media center). I have not seen any problems with PlayForSure devices giving consumers problems. Microsoft is working on a huge expansion of this campaign with better advertising of the products, including additional PlaysForSure logo branding on the packaging of each item. When a consumer goes into BestBuy, they see a PlaysForSure logo, they know they have a device that autosync's and works with Media Center PC, Xbox Extender Kits, and Windows XP/2003 machines with out the worry of hardware complications, and they know they will have an acceptable number of DRM licenses from items they purchase online. Since Microsoft makes software for all hardware vendors (unlike Apple, which has limited hardware), this is the best way to ensure compatibility (and effective) with consumer devices. You said, YES, you know what is required. If you do, please add to my list of standard requirements that I missed, because I missed some. I assume you know the rest. |
| #6 By 2459 (69.22.124.228) at 11/24/2004 4:16:22 PM |
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sj, I'm not saying it's not possible to have problems with a playsforsure device, but the article you linked is short on details.
It makes no mention of what version of WMP or MusicMatch they used, nor does it specify the version of DRM or rights granted for the files the Carbon had problems with. If WMP wasn't version 10, it totally negates playsforsure because WMP 10 includes MTP and is required for the driverless enumeration and syncing. If the device happens to support the mass storage device class, you can get auto-enumeration and syncing for music files only on any version of WMP from (IIRC) 8 and up, but not the level of support MTP provides. Also, the Carbon PFS logo specifies audio downloads only. If the problem DRM files were from subscription content, that would explain the problems. You'd need a device like the iRiver H30 which supports downloads and subscription content. There's also the case that the rights afforded in the DRM license prohibits portable transfer altogether. This can be checked via the file's properties. Without more info, we don't know if WSJ simply didn't follow the PFS requirements and executed a flawed test. PFS wasn't even mentioned in the article, so it likely wasn't even a consideration. This post was edited by n4cer on Wednesday, November 24, 2004 at 16:27. |
| #7 By 37 (67.37.29.142) at 11/24/2004 4:19:02 PM |
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There are licensing limitations to the codecs. But I know that they want to add that to the next version of media devices and playsforsure updates. This is their first wave. I believe there will be an introduction soon at one of the media shows where they will release their new advances. Some of them were explained to us already at the Summit I was at in Redmond last week.
I know that we shouldn't hold our breath on Quicktime support anytime soon they said :) |
| #8 By 37 (67.37.29.142) at 11/24/2004 4:22:36 PM |
| To add to #8, the new boxes for the marketing of PlaysForSure devices will carry the Xbox-esque branding on the back, showing which PlaysForSure features the device supports...which falls inline with the Carbon's audio downloads only limit. The link mentioned nothing about PlaysForSure that Soda supplied. It was just a comparison of the Apple device vs. 3 PC friendly devices. And again, MusicMatch alse negates any PlayForSure compatibility. |
| #9 By 2459 (69.22.124.228) at 11/24/2004 4:27:23 PM |
| #7 About the only sane way I could think of to do that is have a CPU that supports code morphing or has something like an IL engine implemented. Else, the device manufacturers would have to use the same CPU architecture. With each generation of codecs, new directions are taken or functionality added that may be incompatible with and older architecture is significantly fixed towards current methods. Because of the increased generality needed to support arbitrary algorithms, overhead increases. Instead of being able to accomplish decoding of a few formats using a cheap, fairly fixed-function chip, you'd instead need a more expensive general purpose CPU. |
| #10 By 37 (67.37.29.142) at 11/24/2004 4:50:06 PM |
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n4cer, don't you think transcoding is essentially what that is? I have saved this article to refer back to on occasion:
http://www.intel.com/cd/ids/developer/asmo-na/eng/segments/games/189155.htm |
| #11 By 3339 (64.160.58.137) at 11/24/2004 4:52:29 PM |
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No mention =
"When I synchronized the Carbon with my music library using Microsoft's Windows Media Player software, the process went mostly smoothly, though some copy-protected tracks in Microsoft's format wouldn't copy over." |
| #12 By 37 (67.37.29.142) at 11/24/2004 4:59:37 PM |
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"Have people reported problems with devices that are allegedly compliant with PlayForSure?"
"the process went mostly smoothly, though some copy-protected tracks in Microsoft's format wouldn't copy over" So now you go from people reporting problems, to an article review by one person who had a smooth process, less at DRM controlled file and no details on the DRM and whether they were using Windows Media 10, which is the only version that is MTP/PFS compliant. Try again. |
| #13 By 2459 (69.22.124.228) at 11/24/2004 5:08:48 PM |
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sj, The re-read my post. They don't mention the version of Windows Media Player.
If it isn't v.10, PFS doesn't apply. They also never mentioned PFS in general so evidently weren't testing it. AWBrian, transcoding is great if you keep your content archived in a lossless format (more people are doing this each day). That said, I have done lossy - > lossy transcoding before with no noticible quality reduction (mostly mp3 -> WMA), and on today's portable devices, it isn't a big deal, but in general I'd rather have direct format support. Just to add, I do think the current transcode strategy is a plus, and a nice general solution for handling multiple formats. This post was edited by n4cer on Wednesday, November 24, 2004 at 17:11. |
| #14 By 3339 (64.160.58.137) at 11/24/2004 5:58:20 PM |
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enforcer, read Mossberg... he's been using WMP10 since before it came out.
Brian, I cited one example because I had the link available. I can provide more. I'm leaving for the Holiday though in 10 minutes. |
| #15 By 37 (24.183.41.60) at 11/24/2004 6:23:54 PM |
| Have a good holiday Soda. |
| #16 By 2960 (68.101.39.180) at 11/24/2004 9:14:02 PM |
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When I can take a handfull of DVD's out of my substantial collection and queue them up on a portable Media Device (with the blessing of all involved so it's not so damned convoluted a process) then I'll bite.
Unfortunately everyone is yelling the "mine, Mine, MINE!" tune right now (Hello MPAA) and I think it will be years, if ever, before consumers are actually permitted to CONSUME the media that they purchase in a way that's convenient, efficient and meets their needs. Yeah, I know how to do it the way they DON'T want me to do it (tough poopie on them - I paid for it), but before I shell out $500 for a device I don't want to go through all this. TL |
| #17 By 23275 (68.17.42.38) at 11/25/2004 5:22:30 AM |
| We built an MCE 2005 with one of my guys and added both this device and an XBox Extender to the mix. I checked it out and it's a great platform. It has a sync tool that converts all kinds of media and we very easily stored DVD movies of all types on it and then connected it to a TV set and it played flawlessly. Its interface is nearly as good as MCE 2005 and just as easy to use. Opposite an MCE system and a broad DVD collection, it's hard to imagine what else one would want in a mobile device. Confirming that the original source is lawful via DRM is fine with me - otherwise the value of any collection is reduced. |
| #18 By 2459 (69.22.124.228) at 11/25/2004 10:43:38 AM |
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Brian, RE: Transcoding
One thing I thought about was transcoding from lossy -> lossless. This should be an option for when quality is valued over space or when space isn't an issue at all due to realtime transcode. I was thinking that having a base lossless format supported would solve most of the problems we currently have with devices such as home theater receivers. If the receivers supported an extensible lossless format like WAVEFORMATEX or compressed lossless format like WMAL or MLP, you would no longer be as dependant upon native format support. For instance, WMA/DTS/DD/etc., all needed support in silicon and required people wanting to use those formats to purchase new equipment. With the exception of speaker limitations and the current limited bandwidth of SP/DIF (USB/1394 or wireless USB/1394 could remedy this), if all receivers supported a lossless format, you could take any format playable on the PC and have the PC convert that format in real-time to a lossless format that the receiver natively supports (the lossless format could be standardized or discoverable/installable on the PC). Then native format support, for most cases, would no longer be an issue for HT receivers. This could also be extended to other devices such as the networked media distribution devices on the market. The transcoding doesn't even have to be limited to PC scenarios. The PC would be most flexible because it could transcode any new format as long as it had codec support. But on a more limited scale, the same could be done with standalone DVD players or other such devices. A DVD player that supports MP3/DTS/DD/WMA/WMAL/etc., could support hardware transcoding of all of its supported formats to a lossless format that a (comparatively dumb) receiver can use. You could have a case where the receiver only supports lossless, and has no problems outputting almost any source audio because the source device transcodes the audio to the lossless format the receiver understands. No longer (for most cases) is the receiver a barrier to enjoying new formats. The native format support is only necessary on the new devices sold based on their support of a new format. About the only time you'd need to upgrade your lossless equipment is to get the full experience from formats that support more speakers than your current equipment can handle, or to experience new formats that support higher resolution than you current equipment's DACs can handle. This post was edited by n4cer on Thursday, November 25, 2004 at 10:51. |
| #19 By 37 (24.183.41.60) at 11/28/2004 2:40:42 PM |
| thanks for the details n4cer! |
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