First off, this page should be directed at techinhiding.com instead of the .blogspot domain. That's way cool. Expect a real website coming up soon, and all the links previously used will either autoforward to their new home or stay where they are.

In Creative news, they launched the new Zen Mozaic (yeah with the Z), which is their update to the V series. As with the X-Fi, it looks better in a hand than in a promo shot. Here's its product page.

Here's what I have planned for upcoming articles:

1. Zen X-Fi Unboxing, Hands On, and Review (I'm not selling this baby!)
2. Link dump for a few videos I've mixed for my brother's baseball team (who are state champs, congrats)
3. If I ever get around to it, my two cents over The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene. It's our summer reading, and I might as well post my thoughts on the book. My intellectual friend Josh already has his opinion over at his blog. Take a look.

Labels: Creative, Creative Zen, Creative Zen Mozaic, Creative Zen X-Fi, Power and the Glory, site

It's official! The Zen X-Fi has launched in Singapore! As suggested by this blog post earlier this week, the X-Fi has officially landed on the Creative site. CNET Asia had the whole scoop a few hours ago, but I'll sum it up here.
The 8GB, as rumored, will not support wireless. It will have every other feature of its bigger brothers though. Those brothers, in 16GB and 32GB variations, will be 2.5" TFT LCD screened, chrome backed players with an external speaker and SD/SDHC support. It weighs a mere 68 grams. All players will come with the premium EP-830 earbuds. The interface, as suggested, will be the same as the original Zen, but with a nine button keypad to back it up. Those nine buttons will allow the user to input text cellphone style. The wireless will support streaming as well as Yahoo! and MSN Messengers. The battery life is spotted at 36 hours audio, 5 for video (assuming X-Fi Off). Price: 8GB $150, 16GB $250, 32GB $300.
(Right picture: CNET Asia)
I got into the chat page using the serial on the CNET Asia site (heh) and the chat account aint much: Look to the right.

Official Page, Microsite
Hit up Kingone's blog for the first unboxing and pics. He's also got a VERY in-depth review posted. It's in the blog network box.

Labels: Creative Zen, Creative Zen X-Fi, Zen

Over at the nothingbutcreative blog, kingone has some interesting information: the new player will be announced next week. In the first post, he says

We do know by now that the ZEN X-fi comes in 3 capacity (8,16,32GB), Wi-fi and non-Wi-fi and there seems to be something more than what it seem to be at the back of the player. We will find out eventually when the player is released next week!

Those sentences may seem poorly assumed for a person who has been reading Engadget and the news posts at epizenter, but kingone is a regular poster on the forums at epizenter. He has very strong connections with the company, as he shared some information on the never-released Zen Share. He followed up with a post today discussing the price drops in Singapore, Creative's home country.

In anticipation of the release of the ZEN X-Fi next week, Creative have slashed the prices of the ZEN.

That's the first line of the second post, which he follows with discussion over the substantial discounts in Singapore. (32GB Zen is now $379 U.P. down $120 U.P.) Both those lines as well as the substantial price drop point to his imminent release.
Kingone's Blog

Labels: Creative, Creative Zen, Creative Zen X-Fi

Jenn Lee over at Pocketables.net has unveiled some more information about the device via the FCC website. The only thing confirmed spec wise is that there will be a 32GB model. The device has passed FCC testing, and the documents were available June 23rd. This points to a very imminent release, as the FCC is the last hurdle for wireless devices before they are allowed to hit the American market. For the full writeup, as well as some device images, hit the read link below.
Also while searching the interwebs for more information on the player, I came across an interesting point on ITPortalPro (Read) and The Tech Hearld (Read) talking about the IM. Both articles, while citing Epizenter as their source, discuss "TChatter" as the IM service. That would allow for Google Talk as well as previously mentioned Yahoo! and Windows Live Messengers. I have not seen any information about TChatter on the player, but a quick Google search revealed little. The only thing that points to TChatter as an IM service is the first result, which is a generic 'about instant messenging' page.
Also, while browsing the web, I came across another tidbit- the 8GB will not have Wi-Fi. I saw it yesterday, but I cannot remember what source it was from. The report cited no sources, but as with the TChatter info, some of these people seem to know more than they tell. Perhaps they are insiders at Creative? Take both of the TChatter and 8GB rumors as such- rumors.
Read
UPDATE: That 8GB no wireless rumor came from EnzoTen (aka Grahm Skee) at AnythingButiPod.

Labels: Creative, Creative Zen, Creative Zen X-Fi, FCC, Wi-Fi

• Audio: MP3, WMA, AAC (unprotected), WAV, and Audible
• Video: WMA, MPEG4-SP, Divx 4/5, Xvid, and MJPEG
• Built-in X-Fi technology with two effects (Crystallizer and Expand)
• Built-in Wi-Fi for instant messaging (Yahoo! and Windows Live!) and wireless streaming
• FM Tuner and Voice Recorder
• Built-in Speaker
• Premium quality earphones included (ep-830)
• Battery Life: 36 hours for Audio, 5 hours for Video

Still no screen size or storage specs, but his source says 8,16, and 32GB (flash only). Not too bad in my opinion, but what else does Creative have up its sleeve?
Read

Labels: Creative, Creative Zen, Creative Zen X-Fi, Wi-Fi

I can personally confirm that the new Creative player has the following features:
Video Playback
Wi-Fi
X-Fi
SD Card
Wireless streaming connection (like Windows Media Extender)
Speaker
Wireless chat
FM Radio
Microphone
Audible Support
Connect to Creative's own media server
Power switch is on the BACK.
Same UI as the Zen.
Works with Windows Live and Yahoo Messenger

Here's the app hosted on a private server.

Here's some screenshots!
Playing from Creative's new media servers.
Play music from your PC, much like the Zune. Except this has full media streaming. I haven't seen anything about wireless sync. Yet. But that would be an easy add-on with a firmware update.
Interesting About the Player shot.
Avatar system for wireless chat.
Yup, I found them first! Creative's new X-Fi DOES have wireless in it! It appears chat is one of those features. Nice. What else is beyond my knowledge.

But now I'm doubting that Zune. Seriously.

Labels: Creative, Creative Zen, Creative Zen X-Fi, Wi-Fi

Is this the new X-Fi player that Creative and DAP fans have been waiting for? Michael over at DAPreview (and Epizenter) seems to think this is likely the new effort by Creative. He has nothing yet on specs, but if this is a photoshop, someone went to a lot of effort. The shadows seem nearly perfect, the branding is in the place where Creative traditionally puts their logos, and the font for 'The Sound of Perfection' is typical Creative. I'm very enthusiastic if the product really does have X-Fi sound, but only if the battery doesn't suffer horribly. In this day and age, it seems almost necessary for Creative to include a bit of Wi-Fi in it as well. The whole article is here at Epizenter.

Labels: Creative, Creative Zen, Creative Zen X-Fi, MP3, Wi-Fi, X-Fi, Zen Vision:M

I've helped many on the EpiZENter.net forums, and the majority of them need some help on converting videos for the Creative Zen series. So, here I'll tell you how to convert pretty much any video for the Zen, Zen Vision:M and Vision:W using the totally free Any Video Converter. It can also download and convert YouTube/Google Video videos on the fly. Any Video Converter can be most easily found on Download.com. Install this program first.
All of the settings that you will mess with are on the right side of the program.

• First, change the settings for your type of player:

• These are the settings of which you will need to change for the Zen (any size):Change the profile to Customized AVI mode and change the settings to the following:

• For the Zen Vision:M and Vision:W, the only change is the Video Size. For the Vision:M, change to 640x480 if you plan to ever use it to output to TV, if not just leave at 320x240. The Vision:W is a tricky little bugger, since it's widescreen and the odds that the video you are converting is not is high, I would just advise that the video size be kept at "Original".

• The rest seems kinda duh, but here's some info just in case: You'll need to add your videos to the queue by clicking the Add Video button, then adding the files through Windows Explorer. To add a whole folder, go to File then Batch Add Video Files and navigate through the files.
• For YouTube, Any Video Converter is extremely easy. Click the "YouTube" button on the top bar, then copy and paste the URL (www.youtube.com/watch?v=something) into the converter. If you want to add a few videos at a time, then click the folder-looking image right above the URL insertation box. By adding these, it will automatically convert to the current settings. Once you click "OK" and the box is dismissed, the files should show up in red in the main window.
• If you're converting the videos that YouTube requires you to login (mature videos), you'll need to change the options. In the leftmost pane at the bottom, there should be a button for "Output Folder" and "Options". Click options, then navigate to the Online Video tab in that menu. There you'll need to verify your YouTube credentials. Also in that tab, keep both of the options (HTML to Name and System Internal Cache) checked.
  
• Once you've done this, all the files that you need are in the list and queued up and should be checked. Click encode, then wait for the program to convert.

The transfer to the player is simple: Copy and Paste. The trick is finding where the outputted files are. In that left pane aforementioned, click the "Output Folder" and the program will open up a Windows Explorer box with all the converted files inside. Once there, if you have used the CD to install the Zen software, then all you'll need to do is right click then Copy to Zen, then Media Library. If you haven't, either install it by downloading the CD using the link or by doing the hard way and Cut/Paste to the device in My Computer.
{Images hosted on Webshots}

Labels: Any Video Converter, Creative Zen, download.com, Zen, Zen Converter, Zen Vision:M, Zen Vision:M Converter, Zen Vision:W, Zen Vision:W Converter, ZVM, ZVW

This page has moved.

Labels: Creative Zen, Drivers, Micro, MicroPhoto, Recovery Mode, Vista, Vista Drivers, Zen, Zen Install, Zen Micro, Zen MicroPhoto

Updates
Courtesy of a ArsTechnica post that brought this to my attention, it appears as if the chip inside the new Creative Zen has support for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. According to the manufacturer's (SigmaTel) site, that's not all it can do.
I see some potential there, including what the company did with the Zen Stone, by adding a screen later. Hopefully that's what the dev team is doing now. We'll most likely see a new player released in December, according to rumor.
Here's some of the big points-

o Lyrics Support
o Audio playback: MP3,WMA,WAV (PCM,IMA-ADPCM, MS-ADPCM), AAC, Ogg Vorbis
o Audio record: MP3, WMA, WAV (PCM, IMA-ADPCM, MS-ADPCM)
o Images: JPEG, BMP
o Video playback:
+ MPEG4 SP/ASP @ QVGA, 30fps
+ VC1 SP/Main @ QVGA, 30fps
+ H.264 baseline @ QVGA, 30fps
o Support for third party audio post processing algorithms
o Audible™, SRS™ Support
o WiFi® and Bluetooth® support
o USB Mass Storage Class (MSC) or Windows Media Transfer Protocol (MTP)
o FAT32/16 file system formats with device formatting
o Host System Recovery and Firmware Update Utility
o Windows Media Player 11 and Windows Vista™ support
* Media Storage
o NAND flash
o MMC/SD card support
* Digital Rights Management
* FM Playback and Recording with Radio Data Service (RDS) Support

Labels: ArsTechnica, Creative Zen, SigmaTel, Wi-Fi, Zen

This page has moved.

Labels: CD, Creative Zen, disc, disk, Install, Vision:W, Zen, Zen Install, Zen Vision:M, Zen Vision:W, ZVW