Creative Zen V Plus 2GB
Page 7
ZENcast
We first covered ZENcast in our Zen Vision:M review.
There are two main components to ZENcast. The first is the ZENcast website, which is essentially a podcast directory. There are some cosmetic changes since the the website was first launched, and there is an automatically refreshing Channel Highlights, which will make it easier to find some random, popular podcast to subscribe to.
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The ZENcast website is not restricted to Creative players. Users without the ZENcast Organizer installed will still be able to download the podcast, and the RSS feed is provided that can be used with an RSS reader. Those with the ZENcast Organizer, however, will get a "Subscribe For Free" button which will add the podcast to the ZENcast Organizer.
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The ZENcast Organizer is where you will manage the subscribed podcasts, and syncing options.
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On the ZENcast website, it is stated that the Zen V Plus is only capable of audio podcasts. When we tried to sync the CNET video podcast, we received a transfer error. However, we found that it was still possible to watch video podcasts - we just had to convert the video manually using the Creative Video Converter.
The original podcast was in MPEG-4 format, was 3 minutes and 7 seconds long, 320x240 resolution, 25 frames per second, and 16.8MB in size. It took 2 minutes 15 seconds to convert the file, resulting in a 128x96 resolution, 15 frames per second video file that was a whopping 41.0MB.
The resulting video was still watchable despite the low resolution, although it was somewhat jerky due to the lower framerate. There were also some noticeable artifacts on random parts of the video.
These artifacts were not in the original video, and we did not encounter them when converting from WMV or XviD format.
Transfer Speeds
To measure the transfer speed of the Zen V, we chose 201MB of MP3s. Of note is the different transfer speeds using the different methods of transferring the music to the Zen V. Media Explorer transferred the music the fastest, taking just under 3 minutes, while using MediaSource and the Import Wizard took painfully long - more than 4 minutes. To put the timings in perspective, however, even at the fastest, the Zen V's transfer speed works out to be only about 1.2MB/s. At such a speed, it does not matter if you plug the Zen V into a USB1.1 or USB2.0 port - the transfer speed is limited by the Zen V's hardware.
| Transfer method | Time taken | Average write speed |
| Media Explorer | 2:54mins | ~1.2MB/s |
| Windows Media Player 10 | 3:44mins | ~0.9MB/s |
| MediaSource 5 | 4:19mins | ~0.8MB/s |
| Import Wizard | 4:29mins | ~0.7MB/s |
Benchmarks
The following graph shows the result of the benchmarks done using SimpliSoftware's HD Tach.
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The benchmark shows an average read speed of 3.2MB/s, and average write speed of 2.3MB/s.
Battery Life
Creative claims a playback time of 15 hours.
For audio tests, the Zen V was set to volume 19. For tests with EQ, we used the "Rock" EQ. Tracks are played by the album.
A 3.5mm-3.5mm audio cable was used to connect the players to the line-in of a computer, with software recording the audio input. The battery life is considered to be the time from which music starts playing till it stops (when the player switches off due to insufficient power).
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The good news is, we did manage to exceed the 15 hours - we squeezed 16 hours and 7 minutes from the player playing MP3s without EQ or Smart Volume on. WMA performed worse, managing 12 hours 12 minutes. This is somewhat to be expected, since from our previous tests, WMA has always resulted in less playback time. As we turn on EQ, and then Smart Volume, the timings progressively lower. At the worst case playing WMA with EQ and Smart Volume, the Zen V still manages a decent 8 hours 39 minutes. Using only the FM Tuner, the Zen V lasted 13 hours 50 minutes.