RSSNew Creative Player Does iTunes Tracks
By Ed Oswald | Published August 28, 2007, 6:10 PM
Has Creative capitulated to Apple and iTunes? If its new player is any indication, that answer may be yes.
Creative's newest Zen player is the first from the company to support AAC music and iTunes Plus tracks from the iTunes Music Store, the company said. In addition, it includes a 2.5-inch color screen and support for SD memory cards to add additional memory.
The device comes in 4GB, 8GB and 16GB models priced at $149, $199, and $299. Creative said the device will be available in September online and through US retailers such as Circuit City, Fry's, and Wal-Mart.
Video formats supported include WMV9, MJPEG, MPEG4, as well as DivX 4 and 5 and XviD. Approximately 5 hours of video and 25 hours of music playback are possible through the device.
Other features include a personal organizer that syncs up with Microsoft Outlook's contacts, to-do lists, and calendar, and a built in FM radio and voice recorder.
Creative's conciliatory moves towards Apple are not all that surprising. After a protracted battle with Cupertino over patents regarding the user interface of the iPod, the two sides settled for $100 million in August 2006.
Part of that arrangement was where Creative announced it would join Apple's "Made for iPod" program. While that program only dealt with certifying the Singaporean electronics maker's audio accessories for use with the device, the partnership probably opened up other avenues where Creative could work with Apple.
I don't really care about iTunes music, but it looks like Creative is getting back into the game. This MP3 player looks pretty good. I'm kind of wanting to get a flash based MP3 player that supports SD cards too. I wonder if it supports SDHC cards too (which can get upto 32gb's).
I still think I like the Cowon D2 better though. It does support SDHC and it's also supports Flash lite so you can play games and add programs too. Someone already made a calculator specifically for it. The only thing though is currently the D2 has upto 4gb's. I don't think I could live with just 4gb's, coming from my current 60gb iAudio X5.
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|one used to be able to burn itunes music to cd. wonder what would happen if I rip itunes music from cd to say...mp3/m4? (don't know if you can still do that, no flaming plz lol)
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|You can convert between any of the formats, though there are recommendations for quality.
If you have an .m4a, you can burn that to an audio CD, just the same as if it were an .mp3 file.
Essentially, an .m4a is identical to .mp3 in the way it works, other than it has more quality. That's extremely simplified, but they're essentially the same, just .m4a sounds better every time.
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|It's probably still possbile (I don't use iTunes), but you do loose quality when you do that. When you encode to a lossy format it takes parts of the soung out that you nomally don't hear. But then when you re-encoded (or re-rip it from the burnt CD) and convert it to MP3 it takes out even more sounds resulting in even worse sound from the original, even if you do it at the same bitrate.
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|Nearly ANY device can already play iTunes Plus files. That's what was so 'Plus' about it.
Heck, even the PSP can.
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|Well actually not as many as you think. I think that's about it, the PSP and Creatives player.
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|That is a very sexy MP3 player. 8GB for $200 is a nice deal.
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|This is utter misinformation, and the continuing myth that AAC = Apple. It's NOT true. AAC is an acronym for Advanced Audio Codec. It's part of the MP4 specification, and it's probably the best codec for high quality audio per-bit available today. If you would read the Creative site, it does mention non-protected AAC files, which includes iTunes Plus. That's because iTunes Plus is SIMPLY a constant bit rate 256kbps AAC file. Since MP4 can do video and audio, Apple wisely decided to adjust the extension of audio files to .m4a, .m4b for audiobooks, and .m4v for video, and importantly, .m4p for PROTECTED AAC files. The Zen here cannot play .m4p; only an ipod can do that at this point.
Again, .m4p is the standard iTunes format, and that's a DRM-protected AAC 128kbps.
There doesn't have to be any "conciliatory" anything here. .m4a is a standard that has the best chance to replace .mp3 over the long haul. However, if you want to rip your audio into .m4a files, get the Nero .MP4 codec for free, and get Foobar2000. That's all you need -- and it has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with Apple.
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|Just a small nitpick. Creative is from Singapore, not Korea.
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|It's not a small nitpick... they made a story out of this, and it's not based in fact. I'm not surprised they didn't bother to check the country of origin.
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|noone is capitulating to Apple on this one. Reading the actual spec says that this Zen player supports non-drm AAC and iTunes Plus content (one and the same) It still canot play the majority of iTunes music.
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|The new ZEN has the highest resolution screen ever - 16.7 million collors.
Check out epizenter.net - the zen fan site.
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|This new Creative ZEN player is simply awesome. I was hoping for a flash version of the Vision:M, now it's there. In addition the price is great. The 8 GB is $200, for this price we could get only 4GB with Cowon D2 and iRiver Clix2 (which are also excellent players).
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