Previously, I had described some of the experiences I have had with my new Creative Zen [creative.com] portable media player (PMP). This is part 4. [Go to part 1, part 2, part 3, part 5, part 6, part 7.]
I've had a few chances to watch some videos on the Zen. The screen is just large enough to be able to watch a movie and read the captioning, holding it at about the same distance you would normally hold a book. Unfortunately, the process converting videos could be better. Bundled with the Creative Zen is a program that can be used to convert videos from one format to one that can be played on the Zen. It is pretty self-explanatory -- the program asks you to select a bunch of files, and after you do, you will see the following screen while all of the files are converted:
Click for larger version.
The unfortunate thing about this program is that (in my experience) it takes forever to convert a group of files, and it frequently fails to convert them properly (reporting errors).
So, I have switched to using eRightSoft's SUPER [erightsoft.com] to convert videos for my Zen (scroll to the bottom of the link for the download section). Use the following settings in the screenshot below to correctly convert videos for the Zen:
Click for larger version.
When you drag and drop movie files onto it, they will be added to the queue. Once you hit the "Encode (Active Files)" button, you will be prompted for optimizer settings, in which you should choose the DIVX option (like in the below screenshot).
SUPER converts videos much faster (although I haven't actually measured times), and I have yet to have it report an error.
[Go to part 1, part 2, part 3, part 5, part 6, part 7.]
Labels: electronics, review
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