question about Zen Vision: M

[iThinkYouBrokeIt]

I've been reading reviews about it, and they say it can accept avi(divx/xvid) files, including resolutions of 320x240 and 640x480. But I'm wondering...

would it also accept
480x360, 480x272
624x352, 640x360
320x180, etc

or will i get an error message for incompatible resolution?

One or two of the reviews said they got such an error message on some of his videos, and i'm just wondering if i would need to reconvert some of my stuff.
the whole divx/xvid compatibility would really be a selling point to me, because i have a few divx vids which would be nice to not have to convert.

[steveryan]

640x480 is the maximum resolution, i've not had any problems playing anything encoded at a smaller res. Have you seen the new Vision:W? Looks very nice

[iThinkYouBrokeIt]

Yes, I started looking at the Vision:W as well and
the widescreen display looks nice, but i'm also considering buying a ZenVision for a friend who is quite a noob when it comes to video, so i'm thinking a 4:3 screen should be fine. If i were to get one for myself, i'd probably go for the Vision:W, if the viewing angle problem of the original ZenVision were fixed. I'm still in the process of looking at reviews and gathering information on portable media players.
I'm still in the process of deciding, but the Zen Vision:M seems to be the one that I will most likely decide on, divx/xvid support is a major decision factor, so i'm hoping that my current collection of divx vids will be compatible with no problems.

EDIT: i forgot to mention, though i will be buying it as a gift, i will -most likely- open it and test it for myself for a few days before giving it. lol

[steveryan]

I'd definitely test it, the first one that I bought was DOA. It's a nice machine, I couldn't do without mine.

[laddy]

iThinkYouBrokeIt- I just got a Zen Vision M a few weeks ago and it's pretty good- the screen brightness and vivid colours are very impressive. I bought mine at a local store and it worked perfectly with no dead pixels. I haven't applied any firmware patches or anything and it already reads a lot of my existing videos. Any standard xvid or divx rips should work- so far i've only tried a few movies/tv shows but it seems like the Vision M is highly compatible. To give some examples, 704 x 384 xvid, 544 x 400 xvid, 512 x 272 xvid, 624 x 352 xvid, of which some were pal and some ntsc frame rates, and bitrates up to 966 kbps - all worked fine and ran smoothly without noticeable fps drops and with no conversion necessary! However, sometimes you will get random warnings for incompatible codecs- the wmv, for example is picky and has to be wmv9. As for the tv output- haven't tried it yet but i assume that it will play the same formats but downsize them to 640x480 instead of 320x240 and i hear it's much better than the ipod's video out.
Two things i've found really annoying though are the apple method of forcing you to buy all sorts of additional docks and accessories n stuff(unless you get them on ebay) and secondly the file system is hard to work with- i still dont know how to move files to different folders(unlike the ease of an external drive, like an archos) ..thogh it still organizes everything flawlessly with id3 tags just like an ipod would. Anyway, i think it's a great player- if you want a larger screen and prefer widescreen i would go with the vision w. (i just don't have the cash!) Hope this helps!

[iThinkYouBrokeIt]

steveryan - yeah, i'll definately want to test it, not only to make sure it works but also as a test phase in consideration of a purchase of such a product for myself.

laddy - Thanks alot for the info on codecs, i was curious about it's divx/xvid/wmv support. Only WMV9? What about anything below WMV9? And I thought it was up to WMV11 already, seems a bit out dated...

I've seen/read reviews on both the Vision:M and the Vision:W and they both look like great machines. The Vision:W looks like it's the one for me due to the higher resolution, larger, widescreen display

Yeah, i've read up on the -proprietary- accessories as well, and it kinda sucks but i'm willing to live with it.