Microsoft Portable Media Center Reviewed

dhopton writes "The first public review of the PMC that I've seen is interesting. It's critical in places, but also praises. It also covers Windows Media Player 10 to some extent. Overall, I'm looking forward to reviews of the non-Creative devices."

Links to mirrors of video and photos

[tao_of_biology]

Hey, since it's getting slashdotted already. ;)

He has a link to mirrors of his photos and videos of the device (which I'm mainly interested in anyway). They are:

WMV: External Overview of Creative Zen PMC (temporarily down) Mirror 1 [coreygouker.com] Mirror 2 [coreygouker.com]
WMV: Demo of Portable Media Center UI (temporarily down) Mirror 1 [coreygouker.com] Mirror 2 [coreygouker.com]
Gallery of Images from Creative Zen PMC [coreygouker.com] Mirror 1 [coreygouker.com] Mirror 2 [coreygouker.com]

Slashdotted Already

[bburton]

Creative Zen Portable Media Center Review, Part 1...
I guess first things first A brief introduction Some of the people reading this will be friends of mine who have been eagerly waiting (impatiently) for some time in fact. If you’re one of them, then too bad, you’ll have to wait a bit more.

I’m Corey Gouker (obviously); I’m a Media Center MVP who hangs out in the Microsoft newsgroups for everything Digital Media and Media Center related. I’m 20 years old and starting up college again at SJSU after already doing a year abroad at the University of Manchester in the Queen’s Country.

I’m pretty much an average geek. I think anything electronic (that at least has some class and style) is totally sexy. For example my cell phone, my Klipsch 5.1 Ultra’s, a 2TB RAID, a super fast Internet connection, you name it. If it’s geeky, chances are I love it and might find it sexy. And please, I don’t mean to get you worried at this point, I don’t find them attractive in a sexual way or anything like that, I’m much more drawn to a nice 5’8” red head than anything made of silicon, LOL, err, no pun intended. Besides that, I’m just an average guy with an anything but average collection of digital media. Some stats I compiled about a month ago are pretty out there. I was sitting on a 204GB collection of music. That’s approximately 44,190 tracks for the curious. My main Media Center Edition PC has a 250GB HDD which at any given time has about 200GB of recorded TV. Then there’s about 500 or so DVDs as well. I’m not even going to guess on the number of pictures, all I know is that there’s a 50 CD folder sitting on a book shelf that is filled with DVD+R’s with nothing but JPG’s from my Canon G2. I’ve actually warn out 3 batteries in the little time I’ve had the camera.

I personally don’t own that many media devices. In fact, I’ve only got one at the moment. A small but nice 256MB Creative MuVo TX. I’m in a unique situation in that unlike some, I couldn’t hope to fit my entire collection on a device to take it with me. Whether it be music, videos, TV, or pictures. I’ve almost bought a Dell DJ, 40GB iRiver, and 20GB Rio Karma, but didn’t buy any since I still felt none of them quite fit what I had in mind.
Being a Media Center MVP with some interest in the Digital Media Division as well, I’ve been keeping track as much as possible about some of the new stuff coming along. Portable Media Centers (PMC) really caught my eyes and ears when I first heard about them. Back then I hadn’t a clue what size drives they’d have so I had high hopes that they might be a breakthrough device that would fit my needs perfectly. Something that would really do damage to Apple’s iPod. While some might have put the idea out there that Microsoft wanted the PMC to be an iPod killer, I don’t really think this is true. I think most people within Microsoft who were working in the area knew perfectly well that this device was different and really could not be compared with previous Portable Music Players. The OEMs that signed on to make the device, Creative, iRiver, Samsung, knew the device was different. The only real way they could be compared would be in terms of size, weight, battery life, easy of use, style, and sexiness. The feature set of a PMC far surpasses a regular Portable Music Player. Besides it having a GUI that’s strikingly similar to the Media Center (imagine that) it’s got the PMP part down perfectly. You’ve got playlists, album art, and all that. But you’ve also got videos, TV, and pictures. It really is a on the go Media Center. Or like Microsoft says, [almost] all your media. Here. There. Everywhere.

The devices can be used with or without a Media Center PC but

Re:mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck.
http://cainsconsulting.net/slash/PermaLink.aspx.ht ml [cainsconsulting.net]correctified

Direct links

[Joey Patterson]

Those links all go to his (slow) Web site, which then redirects to the mirrors themselves.

Direct links:
WMV: External Overview of Creative Zen PMC: Mirror 1 [mvps.org] Mirror 2 [ucla.edu]
WMV: Demo of Portable Media Center UI: Mirror 1 [mvps.org] Mirror 2 [ucla.edu]
Gallery of Images from Creative Zen PMC [auroravisions.com] Mirror 1 [mvps.org] Mirror 2 [ucla.edu]

I saw these things in California

[betterthanducttape]

I was in Silicon Valley last month when Microsoft debuted these at the National Youth Leadership Forum on Technology. Honestly, I loved the things.

There are three models and all of them are excellent. All of them feature TV-out as well which was truly awesome.

The software was excellent, the GUI was pretty intuitive, and the formats it supports are entirely up to the manufacturer outside of WMV and WMA. They can support whatever they want, be it OGG, AAC, whatever.

Re:It's a blog!

[mrklin]

"I am more concerned with battery life and heat from the 400mhz XScale CPU."

Many PDAs, like the Dell Axim, use the 400mhz XScale CPU. It gets warm but never hot. More details can be found at Intel [intel.com].

I am surprised they did not go with the 624Mhz XScale.

Mac Portable

[green pizza]

Mac Portable

For those not in the know, the Mac Portable was Apple's first portable Mac. It had about 8 hours of battery life, a full size real keyboard, a full size trackball, a 3.5" hard drive with desktop performance, and a whole slew of I/O ports on the back--but it weighed almost 20 lbs!!!

http://lowendmac.com/pb/portable.shtml [lowendmac.com]

(This was a few years before the Sony-designed/built Apple PowerBook 100 and Apple-designed/built PowerBooks 140 and 170)

Re:Maybe it's just me but...

[dasmegabyte]

You may be on to something. Check this out [auroravisions.com]. If this is as it seems, Corey's not a 20 year old student...he's been working with Microsoft for 8 years.

Fucking insidious.

Re:What about Archos?

[mrchaotica]

Just "something fishy"? It seems obvious to me that he's nothing more than a Microsoft shill, and probably a complete liar. For example, he claims to be 20 years old, yet has hundreds of gigs each of movies, music, and pictures. I find it highly unlikely that he's had the time, let alone the money, to amass that much stuff. Also, considering this post [slashdot.org] he might be lying about his age. And, he even talks as if he's a Microsoft employee.