Why Does The Zen Vision:M Rock?

I just finished pissing and moaning about my ZVM’s limitations. Now I’m gonna talk about why I like it.

This is a big step up from my Zen MicroPhoto (ZMP) in a few ways. The ZVM has a lot more storage capacity, a much larger and brighter screen, and the ability to play back video. It is also twice the size of the ZMP, if not more. The weight difference isn’t noticable though.

After spending a couple of frustrating hours with various issues, I came to a few conclusions:

1. In order to have all of the freedom the ZVM affords me, in terms of online music stores and video formats that it supports, I have to give up some of the simplicity that I mentioned in my last post about the iPod. This means that two- and three-click solutions do not exist, and I have to deal with it.
2. My hp Pavilion dv1512us does not have the power to convert videos quickly. Nadia’s beast of an hp Media Center does.
3. Being able to move recorded TV shows from Nad’s Media Center to the ZVM with a few simple (albeit long) steps is a worthwhile replacement for buying TV shows from iTMS (point 3 from my last post).
4. ZenCast sucks. For reasons that defy all logic, every single video podcast that Creative’s software points to is in an iPod-compatible format, which cannot be converted to any of the ZVM-friendly formats using their included software. Instead, I have to visit the website that hosts the video podcast and hope that they have a WMV, Divx, Xvid, or MPEG-4 version, which they sometimes do.

Basically, I can’t have my one-program-does-everything solution. I think I can deal with that, since I have my four-programs-that-really-should-be-one -but-there-isn’t-anything-I-can-do-about-it solution:

1. Window Media Player 11: Syncs my music.
2. ZenCast: Checks my podcast feeds and downloads them.
3. Sync Manager (Creative): Syncs podcasts to my player when they are downloaded.
4. Media Converter (Creative): When I come across a video file that the ZVM can’t play.

WMP11 is supposed to be able to do the job of Sync Manager, but I find it to be extremely unreliable.

Okay, that’s it on digital audio players for a while.