According to Microsoft's Bill Gates, video is the future for personal digital players — and he's cited the Creative Zen Portable Media Center as an example of that future. With that kind of endorsement, I was interested in trying out this harbinger of a brave, new visually-oriented world of portable entertainment.


The Zen Portable Media Center
The Zen Portable Media Center was one of the first portables to let you play MP3s and WMAs, store photos, and watch video. And not just a tiny bit of music, or a 30-second video clip, either; the Zen has a 20GB hard drive, which can store around 300 hours of music, or hold about 40,000 JPEGs — you get the picture.

Loading all that material onto your Zen is pretty straightforward: the player comes with the Microsoft® Windows® Mobile™ software for Portable Media Centers, which also upgrades your PC Windows Media Player program to Version 10. The program takes the files you want to load onto the player and converts them to the proper format, if necessary. Just make a USB connection from the Zen to your PC, and you?re all set.

Size and accessories
The Portable Media Player is larger and thicker than a 20GB MP3 player. Carrying it around was a lot like carrying around a James Michener paperback — I couldn't slip it readily into my pants pocket, but I could easily carry it in my gym bag, and it did fit nicely in my coat pocket.

Speaking of portability, Creative thoughtfully includes a sturdy travel case that really does its job. My Zen Portable Media Center rattled around in my gym bag, my van, and held court on several desks and tables. Without protection, the viewscreen would have been hopelessly marred with scratches and grit, significantly diminishing its effectiveness.

The carry case?s stiffened front flap had padding to protect the screen from harm. When opened fully, hidden magnets held the flap to the back of the case, turning it into an angled stand for the player. All of the inputs and outputs for the player were accessible through the case, with the exception of the USB dock on the bottom of the player. The only time I removed the Zen from the case was to sync it with my PC.

Included with the Zen were all the cables I needed to use. In addition to an AC charger and a USB docking cable, it also came with a 54" A/V cable that I could plug into the player's A/V line out. The cable's other end had stereo audio and video RCA connectors, so I could feed audio into a stereo system, or run video (via a composite connection) to a TV.

Although the Zen had a built-in speaker, I preferred using the provided earbuds (or my own headphones) for listening. The speaker was very small and (to my ears) had a sound quality on par with AM radio.

Getting around on the Zen
The Zen's controls rested comfortably under my thumbs as I held the player. The right-side buttons controlled playback functions and volume. The left buttons controlled menu navigation, with an extra "back" button, and a logoed Windows Media Center button that jumped me out of wherever I was back to the opening menu.

The menus were based on the design for the Windows Media program, and just as easy to use. As I dug down into the lists, I was shown not only detailed information about my current selection, but what files sat on either side of the selection I had made.

In the "My Music" section, for example, when I selected a tune, the screen displayed the artist and track information, along with the CD cover art. Across the top of the screen in larger letters was the song title, and on either side the songs alphabetically immediately before and after it in my playlist. By using the left and right navigation controls, I could quickly switch to either selection without having to back up a level.

With the exception of video, I could also work with the menus without completely backing out of what I was playing. While playing music, I could use the Windows Media Center button to go back to the main menu and adjust settings, while the song continued uninterrupted. The same was true with viewing still images. If I was watching video, though, the video would shut down once I left. (Too bad there was no picture-in-picture.) The Zen remembered where I dropped out, though, and when I returned to the "My Video" screen, it asked if I wanted to start over, or continue viewing where I left off.

Viewing video on the Zen
The biggest advantage of owning the Zen Portable Media Center over an MP3 player is that it plays full-motion video. Because video files can be enormous, the Windows Media program usually had to do some kind of file conversion to get them down to a size that would fit onto the Zen. The player could display Windows Media Video and Photo Story files, but only those with a bit rate of less than 800 kbps, and a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels. Not to worry, though — on the Zen?s compact 3-13/16" LCD screen, these images looked just fine.

Although the screen was smaller than that of a portable DVD player, the Zen?s longer battery life gave it an edge as a travel companion. Most portable DVD players can go for three to four hours between charges. The Zen Portable Media Center played video for around seven continuous hours, so I could watch two complete movies, or a good part of a TV sitcom?s season with one battery charge.

Using the player?s navigation buttons, I could fast-forward and rewind the video I was watching. The controls weren't as precise as those of a DVD player, so I couldn't, for instance, get exactly 13:51 into the video — but I could get to within 10 seconds of where I wanted to be. The Zen Portable Media Center may not be the best device to do a frame-by-frame analysis for that film class, but it was great for just watching movies straight through on a long plane flight.

Finding video for the Zen
There were many different sources for video I could load onto the Zen Portable Media Center — although my DVD movie collection wasn't one of them. In order to transfer files to the Zen, I first had to pull them into my PC?s Windows Media program for conversion. Being compliant with Digital Rights Management (DRM), the program simply wouldn?t let me transfer anything from a commercially released DVD to the Zen.

Even if I couldn?t load my DVD collection, I could transfer movies and TV shows I legally downloaded from the Internet. Microsoft's PlaysForSure.com website, which is a good resource for listing Windows Media-compatible download sites and portable players, recommended www.CinemaNow.com (the Zen came with a coupon good for two free CinemaNow downloads). The site had a good, if slightly limited, selection of movies and TV shows for me to choose from.

What's inside? Potentially, up to 40,000 pictures!

I could also load broadcast programs I'd digitally recorded from TV over to the Zen. Anything I recorded with a camcorder or digital camera was also fine, as well as most things on videocassette tape that I transferred over to a hard drive.

Photo albums in a handheld
Carrying the Zen Portable Media Center was like having a photo album in my pocket. The best way to begin was to load the pictures I wanted into the PC. I could then drag either entire folders or just individual pictures over to the Windows Media program, dropping them into the list of items to be loaded onto the Zen during docking. Using the Windows Media program, I could also access the Zen's directory and easily clean out unwanted images and other files from the player's hard-drive.

Viewing photos with the Zen
Pictures could be viewed either individually, or as part of a slide show, with a menu system similar to that used for music files on the Zen Portable Media Center. I could even set up a slideshow with music. I opened the image folder I wanted to use, and once the slideshow started, I went to the music menu and selected the song (or songs) I wanted to play. Although I didn't have a lot of fine control over the process, with the right music I could still mount some very effective slide presentations. With the provided A/V cable, I could even send it from the Zen to a TV monitor and entertain friends and family.

Don't forget about music!
The Zen Portable Media Center also readily served as a music player. The Zen accepted both MP3 and WMA files. If my music files had cover art attached to them, the Zen displayed them while the tracks played. For the files that didn't have accompanying graphics, the screen dimmed after a while, conserving battery life. I found that if I only played music, I could get a little over twenty straight hours of operation out of a single battery charge — longer than that of some regular MP3 players!

Why just listen to the music when you can also watch the video?

Although I normally organized the Zen's music files through the PC's Windows Media program, I could create a playlist "on the fly" using just the Zen's controls. So, for example, while waiting for a twice-rescheduled flight, I could put together a chill-out music program from songs stored on the Zen to help de-stress myself in the airport.

The future is here!
Although I was initially skeptical, I have to admit the Zen Portable Media Center delivered on its promise. It was, indeed, a complete personal entertainment package I could hold in my hands, and enjoy just about anywhere. It held a good-sized music collection, more pictures than I could ever carry in a photo album (let alone a wallet), some home movies, and even a few favorite TV shows (and occasionally a movie or two) thrown in for good measure.

For some people, a small MP3 player might be enough. For others, a DVD portable might be the only gadget they?ll need to take on trips. But if you like to keep your entertainment options open, and don't care to carry around an MP3 player and a portable DVD player and a case of DVDs and CDs — then you may agree with Bill Gates. The Zen Portable Media Center is an idea whose time has come!