Calling all Creative Zen Vision: M users!

[KeithTalent]

Got a little bonus this week (from out of nowhere) so looking for something fun to buy.

I have read a tonne of reviews and looked at some other forums and pretty much everything is positive on this thing. I currently have a Dell 20GB DJ from a few years back, so I am definitely in need of an upgrade.

I have a couple of questions for Vision users though:

1. What media player do you use for storing and tagging all of your songs?

2. Are the stock headphones any good, or should I get new ones (looking at Shure E2C)

3. Is there anything else I should know before diving in?

I appreciate any feedback.

Thanks, KT

Edit: Ooops, forgot specify the Vision: M

 

[stardrek]

1) I use Foobar2000 to tag all my songs
2) I do not like the stock headphones. They have poor frequency responce for mid and low end.
3) Make sure you really want this player. I really like mine. The sound is the best I've heard from a portable MP3 player, the picture quality is great and the battery life is very good. But, it is slightly thicker then the iPod video.

I would suggest this player to anyone who is will to sacrifice slenderness for better sound and picture. It also has an FM radio and you can record radio if you want, just thought I would throw that in.

 

[The J]

1. I use Windows Media Player 11 as my music player, but I use the included Creative Zen Media Explorer software to transfer and organize songs on the player. It works pretty well and includes software that uses Gracenote to look up tags for you (I haven't used it much, though).

2. The stock phones are like iPod earbuds. I wouldn't reccommend them. I have the Shure E2C with my ZVM and I like the combo.

3. Note that the player uses MTP, so you have to have Windows XP SP1 or later to transfer songs. If you need to use the player as a universal mass storage device, you can set up a partition on the player (up to 16GB) for that purpose. There's a menu option to enter this mode and set the partition size.

 

[KeithTalent]

Great, thanks guys.

The size of the player does not really bother me, though I forgot to ask if the M is relatively durable. I usually just like to stick my player in an Ipod sock, then in my pocket when I am walking around listening to it and I would like to do the same thing with my new one. Is ir durable enough for that?

The reason I am not considering the Ipod was the battery life, I have heard it is terrible. Also the M has a higher res screen.

I did just start looking at the Gigabeat S, which seems nice, plus in comes in 60GB which would be a bonus. Though I have also read about battery issues with that one.

I have Foobar but have not used it very much as I am not in love with the UI, typically I just use WMP for transferring and Itunes for listening on my comp. Had MusicMatch for a while before, what a POS that thing was.

 

[Homerboy]

wait for the meizu miniplayer

 

[KeithTalent]

Originally posted by: Homerboy
wait for the meizu miniplayer

Yeah, that thing looks great. Probably be 2 years before it gets to Canada though.

 

[stardrek]

The Zen Vision:M does not have a higher res screen. It has a higher color count screen. Both are 320x240 but the the zen has 262k colors while the iPod is 65k.

 

[Homerboy]

Originally posted by: KeithTalent

Originally posted by: Homerboy
wait for the meizu miniplayer

Yeah, that thing looks great. Probably be 2 years before it gets to Canada though.

shipping in US in a month

 

[Ika]

Originally posted by: stardrek
The Zen Vision:M does not have a higher res screen. It has a higher color count screen. Both are 320x240 but the the zen has 262k colors while the iPod is 65k.

in any case, the Vision:M's screen looks much better - more color saturation.

I have a Zen player myself, and I use Creative's bundled software to transfer files (though navigating inside the player through the computer is a real PITA). To edit tags I use a program called TagScanner, it makes batch tag editing easy.

DO NOT get the Gigabeat S. Sure, it looks great, but there are too many basic problems with it. Here's a review of it, with Pros and Cons at the bottom - http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives...06/toshiba-gigabeat-s30-s60-review.php . I liked it at first but after reading this review it was a definite no-no.

 

[KeithTalent]

Originally posted by: stardrek
The Zen Vision:M does not have a higher res screen. It has a higher color count screen. Both are 320x240 but the the zen has 262k colors while the iPod is 65k.

You are right, I was confused by this section of the review here:

http://www.dapreview.net/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.259.5

That just means it can output at higher res I assume?

 

[stardrek]

Originally posted by: KeithTalent
That just means it can output at higher res I assume?

Correct.

 

[KeithTalent]

Originally posted by: Aflac

Originally posted by: stardrek
The Zen Vision:M does not have a higher res screen. It has a higher color count screen. Both are 320x240 but the the zen has 262k colors while the iPod is 65k.

in any case, the Vision:M's screen looks much better - more color saturation.

I have a Zen player myself, and I use Creative's bundled software to transfer files (though navigating inside the player through the computer is a real PITA). To edit tags I use a program called TagScanner, it makes batch tag editing easy.

DO NOT get the Gigabeat S. Sure, it looks great, but there are too many basic problems with it. Here's a review of it, with Pros and Cons at the bottom - http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives...06/toshiba-gigabeat-s30-s60-review.php . I liked it at first but after reading this review it was a definite no-no.

Wow, thanks for that. Too bad, because the Gigabeat looked really cool.

Ok, I think I am sold on the M then, plus some Shure E2Cs and I will be all set.

So does TagScanner only tag music files, or does it do anything else (ie: regular media player)?

Edit: sorry, one more thing. So with this just having more colours, not higher res, if you played the same video side-by-side with an Ipod, would it look better on the M?

 

[The J]

The video on the Zen Vision:M would have more saturated colors. I personally like the video quality, but some will say it's too saturated.

I use TagScanner, also. I'm pretty sure it plays music, but I don't use it for that. It's just really nice for mass tagging and renaming files. Just be sure to set your tags to ID3v2 (look at the top right of the window) since it might default to APE tags.

 

[Ghouler]

Originally posted by: stardrek
The Zen Vision:M does not have a higher res screen. It has a higher color count screen. Both are 320x240 but the the zen has 262k colors while the iPod is 65k.

Both iPod and Zen have on-the-screen resolution 320x240.
For this size of this screen this is excellent.
However if you output to TV or a projector Zen uses higher resolution
i.e. 640x480. Apple salesman told me iPod can output to TV at 320x240 which is more or less half of the TV resolution so not very good...
Zen seems to be a better choice here as it actually has higher resolution output then iPod.

 

[KeithTalent]

Ok, so I picked this up yesterday and wow, nothing but problems.

1. Stays 'docked' even after it is not docked anymore so I have to get the trusty paperclip out and reset, then it re-builds the library of course. Not a huge deal, but pretty annoying.

2. Tried to load over a dozen different viedo clips and a whopping 1 actually transferred over. They were in various formats, so when they didn't go the first time I tried converting them, but infortunately it did not work.

3. Biggest issue: I went to turn it on this morning and it booted, but then froze at the player screen (blue background) with no words on it, just the battery level. Was finally able to get it into the recovery mode and did a cleanup, rebuilt the library, etc... IT IS STILL FROZEN AT THE BLUE SCREEN NOW!!!

I am so freaking irritated with this thing, it seems I may just have to take it back. I mean I can't even turn the damn thing off!

I updated the firmware, no help. Does anyone have any suggestions?? I wen through the Creative forums but did not see anything on this, I guess I may have to call tech support, though I am leaning towards just returning it.

:|

 

[KeithTalent]

That's it, this POS is going back...Gigabeat here I come!

 

[Ghouler]

If it's broken return this unit.
My Zen Vision M works fine so sorry to hear it is a string of problems you have there.
Any videos I get from bittorrent work fine usually without transcoding...
Did you upgrade firmware to this version?
I would say this is a bad unit, perhaps they dropped it in a store.

 

[KeithTalent]

Originally posted by: Ghouler
If it's broken return this unit.
My Zen Vision M works fine so sorry to hear it is a string of problems you have there.
Any videos I get from bittorrent work fine usually without transcoding...
Did you upgrade firmware to this version?
I would say this is a bad unit, perhaps they dropped it in a store.

Yes, that is the firmware I have. Upgraded it twice, the second time through the recovery menu, but it did not help. I can get it to work for a few minutes when I plug it into the USB port, but as soon as I unplug it she freezes up again! I even totally reformatted, to no avail.

I think you are right, time for it to go back. I don't think it is worth the frustration of trying to figure out what is wrong with it.