Creative is the first to start shipping a portable player featuring Microsoft's Portable Media Center, designed to work with Windows Media Player 10, just released a few days ago.
This player known as the Zen Portable Media Center features a 3.8" Colour display, 20GB capacity, up to 85 hours of video (medium quality 500kbps WMV) or 9,000 songs (low/medium quality 64kbps WMA), DRM Windows Media & MP3 support, USB 2.0, and a removable Li-polymer rechargeable battery. Its battery life is up to 7 hours video or lengthy 22 hours music on a full charge.
As the
player is designed to work with Windows Media Player 10, it allows simple or automatic synchronisation with the PC such as the music library or even Video recordings such as on a Windows Media Center based PC featuring a TV Tuner. It features four button presets which can be defined to start a particular track/video clip/picture/playlist. There is also a stand (doubles as its case) and a built-in speaker for standalone use. The player is now shipping for around $ 499.90.
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Creative, a worldwide leader in digital entertainment products for PC users, today announced that the Zen Portable Media Center is now available at Best Buy, Fry's Electronics and http://us.creative.com for an estimated street price of US9.99. As the top-of-the-line player in the award-winning Creative Zen family, the Zen Portable Media Center adds a full-color 3.8" LCD screen for viewing tens of thousands of digital photos or up to 85 hours of video on a 20GB model. Winner of a "Best of CES" award at the 2004 Consumer Electronics Show, where Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates introduced it during his keynote address, the Zen Portable Media Center with 20GB carries up to 9,000 songs. With its removable, rechargeable battery, the Zen Portable Media Center delivers up to 7 hours of video playback or up to 22 hours of music playback. "We were the first to bring the Portable Media Center to the world, and no MP3 player on the market today compares to it," said Sim Wong Hoo, chairman and CEO of Creative Technology Ltd. "We added a color screen to our pocket-sized player so people can share digital photos, slide shows, movies and music wherever they go. The Zen Portable Media Center is super easy and fun to use from the moment you turn it on because the interface is simple yet it offers the user so many options." See the full press release here. |
This is one of the few Media Center based portable players unveiled that offers MP3 support, although it is not clear if Windows Media Player is still essential to transfer music let alone if its content can be accessed directly through a drive letter. However while it supports Windows Media and MS-MPEG4 for video content, it is not clear if this includes support for other MPEG 4 based codecs such as DivX, XviD and so on.
One nice feature is has is a lengthy battery life of around double that of other Audio and Video based players. As it is removable, the user could easily carry a spare while on a long trip, unlike the iPod and other players with a built-in battery.
Source: Music Industry News Network
