Games - Creative Zen

Home > Listing Index > Games > Creative Zen

	Games - Creative Zen

The Creative Zen is a line of digital audio players produced by Creative Technology and a branch off the earlier Creative NOMAD brand (the other branch being the MuVo series). Some models feature a touch-pad interface similar to that of the Apple iPod, but using a vertical strip rather than a circle. They are capable of playing WMA, MP3 and WAV audio files, and with the exception of the Zen Nano and the Zen Nano Plus, the players are based on miniature hard disk drives rather than flash memory.

The Zen range is very popular in Asia, particularly in Creative's home nation of Singapore. Microsoft supports Zen players by including built-in compatibility with Windows Media Player 10 by utilizing the Media Transfer Protocol and giving it the Microsoft PlaysForSure certification. The Zen is also compatable with Microsoft Outlook for day planning and calendar features. The device also supports Yahoo Music Engine. Later versions also exclusively support Janus DRM.

The Zen stores files and metadata in an internal database, as opposed to a file system as used by most other MP3 players. For this reason, older models of the Zens used a tailored USB interface and a custom protocol called PDE (Portable Digital Entertainment) to transfer tracks, meaning they required special host software. The more recent devices are gradually supplied with firmware upgrades that convert them from PDE devices to MTP (Media Transfer Protocol) devices. The older devices will however only support the PDE protocol. Some newer devices (like the Neeon) use the USB mass storage device class, accessible from any operating system.

The Creative Zens sometimes support one or other derivative of Creative's environmental audio extensions (EAX). Some versions does not have much of it, whereas others can have a host of (little-used) effects available.

Hardware

The Zen devices use a single digital signal processor as its CPU with a few peripheral circuits. The DSP/CPU directly takes care of all MP3 and WMA decoding without any specialized accelerator chips, making the design cheaper. All current models are based on the Texas Instruments TMS320 processor. The touchpads on the newer units are controlled by Synaptics touch pad controllers.

Players

Currently, there are nine main models of Zen: Zen Touch, Zen Micro, Creative Zen, Zen Neeon, Zen MicroPhoto, Zen Vision, Zen Vision M, Zen Sleek, and Zen Sleek Photo. The Zen Nano Plus is a flash memory based player and is in fact a rebranded MuVo Micro N200.

Creative also made a portable video-playing device named the Zen Portable Media Center. Another portable video-playing device called Zen Vision has been introduced and made available to the public in August 2005.

Nomad Jukebox Zen

(This model is no longer in production) The Nomad Jukebox Zen, introduced in 2002, was the first generation of Creative's Zen hard-drive-based digital audioplayers. The Jukebox Zen had an anodized aluminum case and a backlit LCD for file navigation. Early models had a 20 GB internal 2.5" hard drive and used USB 1.1 or FireWire for file transfers. Later models, such as the Zen USB 2.0, featured up to 60 GB of storage and USB 2.0 connectivity. The Zen and Zen USB 2.0 featured up to 12 and 14 hours of continuous playback, respectively, with an irremovable, rechargeable battery. An optional wired remote adds FM radio and recording functions. This model is no longer in production.

Nomad Jukebox Zen NX

(This model is no longer in production.) The Nomad Jukebox Zen NX, or simply the Zen NX, was released in 2003 was the second generation of Zen MP3 players. It featured an internal 2.5" 30 GB hard disk and the release of new music management software called Creative MediaSource. The Zen NX also had slightly smaller dimensions than its predecessor. In addition, the rechargeable battery was removable. This model is no longer in production.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Creative Zen ]

Games - Creative Zen

Hardware

Players

Nomad Jukebox Zen

Nomad Jukebox Zen NX

Searches on eBay

Related searches on eBay