Animalor wrote:About the format question. Here's an interview with J. Allard from Endgadget.
http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/the- ... ice-presi/
For us this is not a format play, we're not trying to tell consumers what format they have to keep their media in. We're trying to embrace the most popular formats out there. We won't have every codec, we won't have an extensible codec architecture, instead we want to make it really, really simple, and we're prioritizing the media that's out there and the media our consumers have.
This is just about the best decision they could've made for the player. support for iTunes, MP3 and Windows Media Formats as well.
There's no specific mention of DivX or Xvid. One would hope that they incorporate those as well.
Hello Apple? The company that constantly pwns you is once again showing you right up front what you fail to do...open format support.
On the flip side, he says they won't have an extensible codec architecture. I take that to mean that if Xvid and Divx aren't supported, they never will be. He says "the most popular formats out there. I'd say Divx for sure, and Xvid a little less, are very popular formats and their competition, Creative Zen, supports them so that will be disappointing if it isn't supported which appears might be the case.
Edit:
Of course, Creative and their series of Zen players still are the best for formats:
Like other Zen devices before it, the Vision:W will support multiple codecs: in this case, MPEG-1, -2, and -4 SP, along with DivX 4 and 5, XviD, and on top of that, TiVoToGo for transfer and display of files downloaded via TiVo. The Zen isn't locked into a single DRM scheme, enabling it to display a variety of videos that aren't just Hollywood films and repurposed reruns.
As for the #2 punch, Creative made sure the new Zen is fully compatible with Amazon's Unbox video download service. Already, Unbox is making available content from Paramount, 20th Century-Fox, Universal, and Warner Bros., while iTunes today is limited to offerings from its Pixar-pal Disney, and Sony remains locked tight with its PlayStation Portable.
