That's right, I'm setting myself up as an oracle of all things Zen Vision:M. Post your questions and I'll do my best to answer them. Some questions may take longer to answer than others, so please bear with me. I may not have all the answers, but I will try to find them.
That said, post away!
(Only ZVM questions please...)
TH

Heheheh good luck. I have one a 60GB, so I can always check your answers are correct

heres some questions:

When will the new thinner 60GB Zen vision:m be available in the UK?

I curretnly own a zen xtra, and that allows you to change the order of the selected music list, ie add a track to the now playing list, then highlight the track and select change order from the options list, from the selcted music list, the options on the zen xtra are:

play now ( plays the highlighteed track imediatly)
play mode ( normal/shuffle/repaet etc)
collapse ( if theres an album in there, or another playlist you can list either all the tracks on the album/playlist, or just the album/playlist name)
change order ( highlight the track and move it up or down the list so it will play sooner, or later)
track details ( album/artist/bitrate etc)
remove ( remove that track from the selected music list)
remove all ( clear the list and stop the music)
save as playlist ( saves the now playing list as permanant playlist)

are these options available on the vision:m?

Next question:
Does it handle Mpeg2 video playback?
how good is the screen in bright light, ie outdoors in the summer during daylight?

There isn't even a release date for the thinner Zen in the US. So possibly 2008. Collapse, change order are on not the Zen M. The rest I believe. But I personally don;t normally use play lists. In bright sunlight you'd have difficulty watching any video playback. It's bad enough when bright sunlight hits a TV screen let alone a 2.5" screen. In normal daylight it's pretty good, as long as you get the angle right.

You don't exactly have to look hard to find the answer to that one ...

http://www.creative.com/products/pro...ct=14331&nav=1

Yes.

And I'll agree with HV on the screen in bright sunlight. Theres not a portable out there thats easily viewable in bright outdoor sunlight.
Last edited by sancheeez : 24-03-2007 at 11:58

Thanx for the help, guys!
To take the questions in order (most of this has been answered correctly, but anyway...)

As Havelock said, no release date for the slimmer 60 GB version --- I believe on this side of the pond we just recently got the 60 gig in the first place (a few months after I bought my 30 gig --- grrr!)

You can add a track to the now playlist list alright (just select the playlist/now playing/go back to the track you want/push add to selected/back to now playing and it'll be added), but if you want to keep it in the playlist for future you have to Save As Playlist. To my knowledge there's no option for changing the order of the tracks.

Play Now: well, if you highlight a track and hit the PLAY key, it will begin playing immediately

PLAY MODE is available through the player options. Offers Normal, Shuffle, Shuffle Repeat, Repeat Track, Repeat All, Track Once


COLLAPSE No I don't believe this is available, however you can select VIEW DETAILS while the track is playing to get all the relevant details, such as album, year, genre, duration, number in playlist etc, or LOOKUP ARTIST which will give you a listing of all albums by this artist on your player, from which you can then select if you wish

CHANGE ORDER Other than the above PLAY MODES, no

TRACK DETAILS Yes, through VIEW DETAILS

REMOVE Yes, this is available. You can either remove one track from the playlist, or all tracks. In fact, when in NOW PLAYING mode, if you want to make a new playlist, you HAVE to remove all, otherwise your new playlist just gets appended to the one playing.

REMOVE ALL Yes, as above

(It should be noted that REMOVE TRACK or REMOVE ALL do NOT remove the track from your player, just the current playlist)

SAVE AS PLAYLIST Yes, the ZVM gives you an alphanumerica input keyboard with which you can name your playlist anything you want. If the name is longer than can be displayed, it will scroll when you select it.

Finally, MPEG2 playback, as the guys have told you, is supported. One thing about the ZVM is that some videos have to be converted before they can be used with the player, but Creative bundle a video converter with the software.
Screen outside is not too visible: even when I'm walking to work and want to see how far a track has got, I have to shade it with my hand in bright sunlight to see it, but overall the screen of the ZVM has been acknowledged generally as one of the best, if not THE best, around. Video playback is normally crisp and uninterrupted (of course, that does depend on the video...)

Hope that helps!
TH

Oh one thing Richard if you alter a tracks details and then move the track off the details are NOT saved to what they were altered too. To do that on a permament status you'd need to use a proper re-tagging program suite like tag&rename or mediamonkey. I knwo this to my own cost. it took me a week to alter some 10+GB worth of tracks

I have a Creative Zen Vision M. IT RULES!

Hi, I'm thinking about buying the ZVM and just wondered if you bought any insurance as well? I'm thinking of buying from Amazon but they don't offer insurance. I really don't want to buy it and then it break down a couple of months later with no insurance!

Thanks

Louise,
I would expect that the guarantee you get with the player should cover you against malfunctions, as long as you dont do something silly like jump on it, put it in your microwave, feed it to your cat etc.
I'm not aware of any insurance available, anyway.
But to answer your question, no, I didn't buy or look for insurance when I bought mine.
TH

You should have a standard years guarantee from the retailer you bought it from.

Same with mine. Didn't want insurance or look for it. Most of them are worthless anyway. They cost too much and balance it out over the life of the player. By the time the insurance has run out and the player died the next generation of player will be around.

Thanks, I was only thinking of getting the insurance because my friend has a Zen and it broke within 2 weeks of getting it! He wasn't very careful though. I'm going to get the screen protector and skin to protect it anyway.

I just remembered something else I was going to ask, what do you use to put DVDs onto it? I have dvd shrink and nero, will one of those work?

Louise
The ZVM plays AVI files and MPEG, so yes, DVD Shrink should work though Nero won't (that I know of), as you'll need to rip the DVD into files the ZVM will recognise and understand.
You may have to play with it a little, but it should work.

Some audio tracks on my zen vision m do not have teh amount of minutes left in that track when its playing, and that stops me from forwarding the song. how do you fix that?

If it doesn't have the minutes left, then there is something wrong with the file. As all songs should display minutes played and minutes left. Try reripping the track. If they are illegally downloaded tracks (I'm not suggesting they are but in case) it could be they corrupt.

I sometimes get this error when playing a long DJ-mix (over 1 hour). The green track progress bar is totally full the whole time, and it doesnt show minutes left. Not sure why it happens on some tracks and not others.

I have several Mike Oldfield & Jean-Michel Jarre albums that are one track, and I never have a problem with the minutes not showing.

I have to say, I've never had this problem, nor have I heard of anyone who has (until now). I'd take Havelock's advice and re-rip the track, try it again.
Does the likes of WMP/Winamp etc show remaining/elapsed time when you play it through them?

In my case, it doesnt make a difference. I can still bookmark, and the track plays fine.

Does anyone know up to what bitrate?

Most DVDs are up to 9.8Mbit/s, but MPEG2 program streams recorded from digital tv can be up to 15Mbit/s.

I dunno but when watching videos the batteries don't last long i do know that!

If anyone's willing to try playing an mpeg-2 stream & letting me know if it plays properly, I've uploaded one here - http://rapidshare.com/files/33290476/dvbtest.mpg.html - scroll down & click the 'free' button (it's a 22MB file, 40 seconds long, just an advert for eastenders). BBC1 has the highest bitrate on freeview, so if it can play this file, it can play any channel's.

Thanks.

I attempted to transfer it to my ZVM but it refused and displayed the 'Transfer Failed, This file Exceeds Playback Capacity....., Please Use The Video Conversion Tool' . Sorry

Many thanks for trying, much appreciated.