Looking at picking up the 16GB version from amazon for $155. How are the video capabilities of it? I used to have a Zen Vision M and I remember I could drag and drop tv-show episodes without having to downconvert them to the resolution of the player

1/18/2009 11:55:02 PM

I'm also (surprisingly) willing to consider the iPod touch. But what I honestly want is a great mp3 player that will play my videos (avi, mpg, mp4, 3gp) with the least amount of hassle.

1/19/2009 12:51:54 AM

If that's your main concern then I'd stay far away from the touch. I hate having to convert videos to watch them on my iPhone.

1/19/2009 1:02:44 AM

I have a 4GB Creative Zen, it works great. Don't know about the video capabilities though, since I just use it for music. In all likeliness the video performance hasn't changed much from the Zen Vision M, being from the same company and all

1/19/2009 2:36:04 AM

^^ there's a version of mplayer out for the iphone OS

1/19/2009 4:01:43 PM

You still have to convert them. I have a 4gb version, and its not worth buying the 16gb version, when you can buy the 4gb and buy a 32gb SD card for the same price or cheaper. The down side to the Zen is that you have to pause it when you get out of your car, whereas the iPod turns offs by itself, and the buttons don't light up so if you are driving at night you have to know the buttons. Other than that its a great music/video device.

[Edited on January 19, 2009 at 4:05 PM. Reason : /]

1/19/2009 4:04:12 PM

32GB cards are freakishly expensive! I ended up ordering a zen16+16GB card for $180, not sure how you can get a zen4+32GB card for cheaper than that

[Edited on January 19, 2009 at 7:22 PM. Reason : ]

1/19/2009 7:21:49 PM

Quote :

"there's a version of mplayer out for the iphone OS"

Which doesn't play mkv or divx based avi files. Which is 99.9% of the stuff I would want to watch on there anyway.

Obviously I know it will never be powerful enough to play mkv files, but it should be beefy enough to decode divx stuff.

1/19/2009 11:27:00 PM

^ are you sure it doesn't do divx? One site I read seemed to indicate it would.

and mkv is just a "wrapper", that generally wraps HD files. Obviously it won't do HD, but it should do any lower bit rate stuff in mkv.

1/20/2009 12:57:03 AM