CREATIVE ZEN VISION 30GB PORTABLE MEDIA PLAYER REVIEW

[TN] Nathan · ALMIGHTY PWNER! Joined: 14 Feb 2002 Posts: 7406

Please feel free to leave your questions here.

Review can be found here:

http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/zen/

Pricing on this product can be found here:

http://tweaknews.pricegrabber.com/search_attrib.php?page_id=1907&form_keyword=creative+zen+vision&rd=1
_________________
Owner & Administrator
www.Tweaknews.net
www.Pocketbookpinch.com

Google · Sponsor

mojo1340 · UberTweaker Joined: 19 Jun 2004 Posts: 1022

Very nice review. Good job, Zhenya! Welcome aboard.

Josh · Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 9:39 am Post subject:

Nice one Mr.Z

You just had to show off your 53" Pioneer TV DIDNT YOU! DIDNT YOU!!!

Looks a great product, i wonder how something like that compares to a PSP for example...
_________________
»4 RS«»1Ж «»1 DENE«»1 FREAKIN LAME OH«»1 MONEY MONEY«
(-)

Yoshida · UberTweaker Joined: 24 Dec 2003 Posts: 1219

fussnfeathers · Lord of the Tweak Joined: 14 Dec 2004 Posts: 2763

zhensem · Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 5:31 pm Post subject:

Sally · UberTweaker Joined: 31 Mar 2004 Posts: 1158 Location: WA

you suck.

I want your TV and the ZEN

_________________
|¤|

zhensem · Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2005 7:44 am Post subject:

ROFLMAO!!!

_________________

zhensem · Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2005 8:34 am Post subject:

I don't know about the US but in the European UK store nearly a month after it's release Creative just bumped the price up from £339.99 to £370!!!! They also keep going out of stock. All I can say is thank God I didn't wait. Lol! It seems that demand surpassed their expectations and they've decided to cash in by bumping the price! Very Happy

They're having trouble keeping stock up in the European store so I doubt retail and other online stores will be stocking this thing in large quantities anytime soon.

Anyways, I'm one smug shopper. I remember reading somewhere people saying they'll wait until the thing comes out of pre-ordering when the price will drop. Lol it appears it's done the exact opposite. Early adopters just saved £30. Not a bad saving for being an early adopter. Very Happy

_________________

fussnfeathers · Lord of the Tweak Joined: 14 Dec 2004 Posts: 2763

zhensem · Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2005 6:40 pm Post subject:

WOWOWOW!!!! Back off there a sec. I ASURE you, you don't want my income! LOL! I don't work, still at Uni.

I think you were supposed to say, you want my parent's income.

My g/f, you can have her on weekdays as long as I can have her for those long boring weekends when there's nothing interesting on TV. On weekdays I don't want to miss my Becker, Frasier, Friends, Simpons, S. Park, etc, can't be dealing with nagging women while I watch those.

Just kidding....
_________________

fussnfeathers · Lord of the Tweak Joined: 14 Dec 2004 Posts: 2763

How about you just ditch the girlfriend and date me?

_________________
Big enough to scare you

zhensem · Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2005 10:23 pm Post subject:

LMAO!!!

_________________

MattBoo · TweakNOOB Joined: 13 Oct 2005 Posts: 1

After such a fantastic review I thought this the best place to ask an important question: Have you tried a .ratdvd file on the Zen Vision? Radvd gets great compression, down to about 1.xgb meaning i can make the relatively small 30gb hdd go a lot further. Would be very curious to know if anyone has tried to run a ratdvd on the ZV

zhensem · Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 3:48 pm Post subject:

I haven't tried ratDVD, but after doing a bit of research it appears that this is a proprietary file format that requires it's own codec therefore the Zen Vision would not be able to play these files back.

You'd have to stick to one of the supported formats.
_________________

sjjn · TweakNOOB Joined: 16 Oct 2005 Posts: 1

Can this thing be used as an e-book?
This would be perfect if it could read text files or pdf's. Any chance it can or be modded to do this?

Pitrie17 · TweakNOOB Joined: 16 Oct 2005 Posts: 2

First off, very good review...I've read more than a dozen reviews on this sucker (very interested and excited to buy one...only problem...not available in the US yet) and this one was the best/info packed review. The reason I've read so many is to find out what the actual compatability of the Zen Vision is. The site says that it has compatability for a bunch of codecs, etc... but does that mean that the actual PLAYER has that compatability...in other words, can I slap an AVI with divx codecs 4,5 or MP4's, WMV's, and all the rest without doing a special encoding of the files or do I have to use the software to convert it to a special file that the Zen Vision only accepts. Thanks for any answers and hope the question makes sense!

zhensem · Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 6:29 pm Post subject:

zhensem · Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 6:45 pm Post subject: Re: Question on Conversion...

Pitrie17 · TweakNOOB Joined: 16 Oct 2005 Posts: 2

SWEET!!! That's exactly what I wanted to know. I work in the film and broadcasting business so encoding, re-encoding, etc... is what I do a lot of the time, and in the past a lot of the portable media players would make you convert it into their file type instead of just being able to slap it on there (given that it fits the parameters) and have it work. All in all, Zen Vision is the way to go...none of this video iPod crap! Thanks!

zhensem · Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 8:06 am Post subject:

Xal · Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 8:35 am Post subject:

Yet another informative and well written review Applause

Well done

_________________
Phenom II x4 955 @ Stock
Asus M3N78-EM
4gb Corsair XMS2 DDR2 667 @ 800
1gb Powercolor Radeon HD 5850 @ Stock
X-fi Extreme Audio PCI E
Nexus 600W Silent PSU
Nexus Fans
Custom case

zhensem · Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 12:09 pm Post subject:

Thanks Xal!

_________________

moonfog · TweakNOOB Joined: 18 Oct 2005 Posts: 10

Any chance you will battle the Zen Vision vs Archos AV500?

I am very interested in bouth of them. The Archos is actually pulling me more as it is using the same screen the Sony PSP is useing.

Archos player : http://www.archos.com/products/av_500/index.html

Or if not compairing them atleast review it?

PLEASE!

moonfog · TweakNOOB Joined: 18 Oct 2005 Posts: 10

Sorry for the 2x post could not find the edit...

A question on the Zen Vision: How is the subtitle option for video playback?