"Apple challenged the patent and lost. This was headline news a month or two ago" -- thoughton

The patent that Creative is talking about has not been resolved and not action has been taken to stop Apple from shipping product, etc. You are thinking of some other patent dispute.

The Zen patent is still pending. No action has been taken yet to stop iPod or Apple. Apple has lost nothing in regards to the Zen patent.

You are likely thinking of a Microsoft patent that overlapped with iTunes interface. That one Apple lost but MS and Apple appear to have cross licesed or will be. In fact this other patent may help Apple defend against this patent.

What content is legally available for this product? I also notice that it isn't DivX approved or licensed. Creative are sailing into litigious waters that have nothing to do with Apple. Content control is the issue, not petty patents covering hardware or UI issues! Just look at NBC's recent stance in relation to TIVO.

I'd rather have an iPod.

I know it's fashionable to bash Creative in this forum, but there is one major advantage here over the Video iPod and that is that video conversion is not required.

It would have been nice if the Video iPod had supported something other than Quicktime, requiring that people who want to convert their own content have to learn a new toolchain to get video onto the system.

With this, at least you can just copy your AVI/MPEG/etc. files unchanged. I'm happy with my 4G iPod, but if I wanted something to watch video on, I'd probably think very hard about a player that supported the formats I actually have.

I just wonder how well this "do it all" device really works. How many bugs it has.

When I have a device, I like it to do what it does well, and that's what Apple does.

Converting a file is no big deal. A friend of mine has the whole Batman movie on his iPod. I am going to put my home videos and hobby related stuff on mine, not to mention my photo collection.

Not to mention, I might download Video from iTunes.

Now if they could just add Nova specials to the download list and some other educational programs...

We love the iPod because we love the iTunes music store. It's the ease of use and the fair prices.

I agree with several previous posts. Creative is a very sore looser. Even Dell admits it's a day late an a dollar short. All creative is doing is spending more money on a product that will fizzle. Not a good way to run a company.

If Apple did anything wrong, it was in not patenting their technology well enough. They are allowing others to copy their ideas and they need to sharpen up a bit in that regard.

I'm kind of intrigued by the fact that it won't be shipping until JUST after christmas. That's either: Very Bad for Creative (That's a bad thing to miss) or they're trying some tricksy "return your ipod Video" vibe. :)

As far as the device itself goes; It looks neat, better battery, various formats...all good. Of course, it's still not shipping, so we'll have to wait and see how it handles all those various DiVX formats that people have been using. But seriously, I think this is good. Competition. Good. :)

HOWever, they should really think about handling the MPEG4 that the iPod handles, if it doesn't already. I already have over 100 hours of TV/Movies converted from my ReplayTV DVR (only 500 hours to go! :)), people have already converted a lot of video, just because of the iPod/PSP.

Now we need a bigger hard drive, my 60GB iPod Video is full already! :)

I'm kind of intrigued by the fact that it won't be shipping until JUST after christmas. That's either: Very Bad for Creative (That's a bad thing to miss) or they're trying some tricksy "return your ipod Video" vibe. :)

As far as the device itself goes; It looks neat, better battery, various formats...all good. Of course, it's still not shipping, so we'll have to wait and see how it handles all those various DiVX formats that people have been using. But seriously, I think this is good. Competition. Good. :)

HOWever, they should really think about handling the MPEG4 that the iPod handles, if it doesn't already. I already have over 100 hours of TV/Movies converted from my ReplayTV DVR (only 500 hours to go! :)), people have already converted a lot of video, just because of the iPod/PSP.

Now we need a bigger hard drive, my 60GB iPod Video is full already! :)

may not be a big deal as far as difficulty but it is time intensive. If i don't have to convert video to get it to play on creatives player and the thing works reasonably well i may look at it seriously. i agree with mr. blanton though, 60GB is definitely too small now-a-days.

They have dock connector in the bottom. Creative is a very ironic name for such a company.

cweyative, the only company gaining popularity through obscurity (a self-limiting market) has come out with the 'ipod-with-video' for all those people who won't buy an ipod because their 'friends have them'. The new clone device is just a done of the ipod: a teeny bit more battery life, a different (and less popular music DRM). Oh but wait...they did what Apple just keeps lagging and lagging on..throw in the buck 50 fm tuner and integrated voice recorder ok. Ah well you can't have everything...

This market is aimed at people who would buy a yugo, not because it was cheap or cool, purely because all their friends owned BMWs. Ok...that's just being different for the sake of being different and purely stupid.

Can we have the real video ipod now? huh? please please?

The player is ugly and more expensive than the iPod, so I have no doubt it will be a flop. What Creative is obviously doing here, however, is nearly exactly copying iPod's interface, because they think they have the protection of the patent. It's sort of a blatant f***-you to Steve; looks like we may see this come to court.

I want to see Judge Judy handle this one. I can't wait :)

Creative dropped out of the game, to come back with this? It's like the Corvair -- a feeble attempt to capitalize on the Volkswagen's super-economic bandwagon of the 60s and 70s! This won't last.

Would creative ever get airtime on the BBC for any of its lame knockoffs. You should just view this for what it is, a cheap gimmick to get some free publicity, in that sense it's already worked for them, they have free air time and blog spots riding on the iPod. Don't discuss this no more, its not worth it, Jobs'll sue their a** anyway.....

Well, competition is good. Maybe Apple will open up the iPod to more formats and finally, finally, include an FM tuner, recorder, etc.

What do you mean you have to convert video for the iPod? You have to convert video for the Creative too. It doesn't play DVD files as is, (they have to be shrunk anyway). And if you are making your own video, just choose the iPod playable formats when you create it.

There are a few sites offering iPod formatted video now too.

But most video you find on the internet, as well as what most people already have, are in standard formats (MPG, AVI, WMV, etc, etc, etc). Why do you think all the people whined when the viPod came out about the long conversion times. Because their content wasn't in that format.

Or, all the people saying that it supports multiple formats is a good thing are just a bunch of whiners who won't spend the time or effort to make sure all their content, by default, is in the iPod specific and format then something they've used for years...

I feel sorry for the kids that get this for christmas instead of an iPod. They will get picked on just liek kids of my day that got knock offs instead of nike air jordans.

... but is [url=http://monsternet.org/imgview/zenvisionmpreview/zenvisionm_appleipod3.jpg]nearly [b]twice[/b] as thick[/url]!

no bb code? denied.

anyway here's a pic showing the thickness of this thing compared to the 5G iPod:

http://monsternet.org/imgview/zenvisionmpreview/zenvisionm_appleipod3.jpg

Yes, competition is good. But intentionally trying to trick consumers into buying your product because they think they are getting an iPod is potentially grounds for legal action by Apple (there's precedent with the iMac being copied by some knock-off company in Asia). The dimensions of the think, the marking images showing the grid of photo thumbs, the specs, are all close enough to cause confusion to consumers. Image the grandparents who think they are getting their granddaughter an iPod only to find out they got the wrong device!

Ok, so I just looked all over their product web site. Nowhere does it mention the resolution of the screen. They list the number of colors and that it has a "sharp" screen, but no pixel dimensions. Anyone want to bet it's a lower resolution than the 5G iPod? Probably on par with the old photo iPod.

Very clever, Creative, using a white background and some Photoshopping to hide the true dimensions of this thing. It really is cumbersome looking if you go to their site and see it in 3D. Nothing like the latest versions of the iPod, let alone the nano.

I thought they might have something here, but I'll bet this looks pretty bad on display. And I guess I've come to expect misleading statements from this company; now I'm seeing misleading photos as well.

No one buying this could be confused they're buying an iPod. First, the iPod does NOT come in colors. Second, the iPod's most noticable feature is the wheel. There's no wheel. Third, its not like its called the zPod or something.

Oh, and for the concern about the poor kids who get this vs. the iPod, that comment alone shows why no kids should get an iPod. Yeah, let's make sure every kid gets an iPod so they don't get beat up. Great marketing or PR.

What if Creative launched a "product" and no one noticed? Would they make a sound?

I wouldn't use it if someone gave it to me. Creative players are trash. I guess i could use it to clean my toilet but i still use a Zen for that.

They are too late in the season to impact holiday sales much, if any. It seems that since they are copying Apple's product they should also learn something about market timing. Though I doubt it would have made much difference.

When a company BLATANTLY copies it is the ultimate sign of weakness. Why? well, there's no creativity of original ideas and they are building on the foundations of another company which only means they will crumble in time.