Is Creative abandoning the Portable Media Center?
I’ve got a great toy – the Creative Zen Portable Media Center. It’s really cool – it plays WMA audio and WMV video which have been transcoded by Windows Media Player from MP3s songs and AVI and MPG videos. It shows me my JPG digital photos and it’s portable. Take it on a plane and the battery should last through 2 movies and more!
Imagine my surprise when I saw that Creative has released a new version of a portable video player, but it’s not actually a Portable Media Center (the software is different). The Creative Zen Vision is smaller, lighter, has a better screen, a 50% larger hard drive, plays more media types (MP3, Divx, Avi, etc) and more. The only thing that hasn’t improved is the battery life – it looks like they cut size and weight from my version of the Creative Zen PMC by cutting off half the battery.
So now I’m left wondering…has Creative abandoned Microsoft’s Portable Media Center operating system or are they waiting for the next version of PMC software to release a new version of their PMC hardware? \
— Matt Ranlett