December 09, 2004
Creative Zen Portable Media Center...the saga continues
Part 2:
DVD ripping to the Zen: not really. I used a piece of software called DVDDecrypter that ripped the first "The Apprentice: Season One" DVD with no problems. Then I tried another piece of software called Win2AVI or something that compressed the video into a WMV file. Woohoo!
While I'm starting to really like the little Zen PMC, it's still too much of a hassle for me to enjoy the DVDs that I own. I'm not going to go through and rip all of my DVDs manually (who has that much hard drive space?) and then feed each file to the compression tool. Yikes! I know, I know...I can probably script something to do this, but I'm definitely not in the mood these days (with the trip to China coming up in a day or two). Plus one of the developers at MSN TV is a Linux fiend and he has some sort of setup at home that he uses to automate this process. I'm going to have to bug him about this so I can make a little Linux converter box. Maybe I'll hack the AMD Geode thing (assuming I can get my hands on one) and have it spit out the files to a gigantic file server (that has yet to be built).
Not to go off on a tangent, but I've always dreamed of having a gigantic file server filled with all of my media. I mean ALL of it. I would rip the hundred or...
so DVDs that I own, the few thousand songs that I own, all of my photos, and other random videos that I find. I figure I'd need about 2 or 3 terabytes for the first 5 years this thing is in operation. Hmmm...mental note: investigate homegrown disk arrays. Then all of my PCs and MSN TV 2s and whatever else I can stick ethernet or wireless onto would be uber connected to this one content source. Oh yeah, it'd be nice if it were a DVR too...then I can stream this stuff to all of my PCs/devices. Oh yeah (#2), would be great if I could have secure access to it from the Internet, so I can enjoy all of my media files where ever there is Internet connectivity (like Borders at Santana Row). We hang out there so much that I decided to spring for their wireless service...it's great, but now if I could build this thing. What would I call it? Hmm...LifeServer? Hehehe...sounds like "LifeSavers" candy. How about the Burma Superstar (man I love the food there)?
Anyway back to the Zen PMC. I decided what the heck...let's take the plunge. I loaded up Windows Media Player with all of my music and photos as well as the stuff I've collected off the web. I also put the home videos from our trip to Thailand last year on there. The process was pretty lengthy as WMP had to transcode (fancy word for translate) everything to smaller files. Part way through, I started fiddling with the settings and found that I could specify the quality level of the videos and songs. I put both quite high but that didn't change the time. Their copying and transcoding algorithm is pretty good...WMP will transcode what it needs and in the background transfer whatever doesn't need to be transcoded. Neat. Anyway after a couple hours of leaving WMP and the Zen to their tango (while I worked on my Test Specs for the next MSN TV 2 software update), the process completed and there it was...like my iPods except black (not white) and fat (not skinny). It was fully loaded with all of photos from the past year and Thailand trip. If I have time, I'll load all previous year photos tonight. It also had pretty high quality versions of my home videos and funny clips from around the Internet.
I guess the real test is taking it on the road with me (which is what I intend to do). I have a feeling that while this version of the Zen may not be right for me, I think a future, slimmer, larger-screen-endowed future model will be something that I will have to pick up (especially if I build Burma Superstar with Windows Media Center 2005 or 2006).
