Display Expertise: Reel Playback

Creative Labs'' Zen Vision PMP provides an impressive 13 hours of audio or 4.5 hours of continuous video playback on a single charge.

Isn't it great that now, instead of whipping out the pictures of your kids or that restored ‘67 Mustang you have in your wallet, you can pull out your reel? Personal media players (PMP) are ready, willing, and able to display your commercials, short subjects, and other video exploits in the palm of your hand — no matter where you are. Yes, we have Apple to thank for the PMP revolution, but your choices are wider than the white or black iPod.

Don't get me wrong; the iPod is great — and perhaps the first choice as a PMP — but you might want a bigger screen when you show the trailer for the independent feature you're trying to fund. Below are three of the more able PMPs on the market and only a small sample of the dozens of players coming out of Korea, Japan, and the United States.

The Tavi 020 PMP has a clamshell design that looks suspiciously like the Gameboy Advance SP. It's elegant — in an Apple sort of way — and it has a 320×240 LCD screen and simple navigation tools on deck. The Tavi 020 is based on a 20GB hard drive, but Tavi now has a black 30GB unit as well. The player supports DivX 3.11, 4, and 5; XviD; and MPEG-1, -2, and -4 on the video side — as well as MP3. Windows Media Video (WMV) is missing, but you can load 720×560 files at 30Mbps, so you can easily show your commercial reel without downconverting, provided you are connected to an SD or greater monitor. This is fairly typical of most PMPs today, but Tavi can also be connected to a TV and playback 1920i HD, which is not typical. You'll need the cradle (sold separately) to use S-VHS, otherwise you can still play PAL and NTSC video with the component cord that ships with the unit.

You can play video and music, display photos, record audio through a built-in mic, and record music to the hard drive from the built-in FM tuner. Of course, you can also record music directly from a laptop, CD player, or turntable, which is recorded in MP3 format at 128Kbps. I'd prefer higher bit rates for audio, but I can live with the 128 considering I'm using the PMP to show my reel or photos, which can eat up space. The battery charge time is about four hours, and when fully charged, it gives you 10 hours of music play (with the LCD off) and six hours of video at 320×240 30fps.

The Tavi 020 can be connected to a laptop running Windows 98SE, 2000, ME, and XP via a USB 2.0 connector, but it also supports OS X and Linux. Firmware for the Tavi OS is available online, but the MyTavi software for managing music and video files only works with Windows. You can, however, still download files from a Mac using the USB connector.

When you plug the USB connector into a Mac G4, the Tavi 020 shows up as an external drive. Open it, and you'll find folders for playlist, audio, video, and several other options within Tavi's interface. MP3s and JPEG images at 720×586 can be accessed immediately in the music interface.

Pros: The Tavi 020 is handsomely designed, and can record from a built-in FM tuner. It has built-in stereo speakers, lots of options for customizing the software, and PC software for managing files and transcoding video.

Cons: It does not support WMV files or DRM, so it can't play iTunes and other copy-protected downloads.

The Apex E2go MP-2000 has the largest digital screen of the three units reviewed here — and that's certainly a plus for anyone showing their reel. While the unit lacks the style of the Tavi or Creative Labs' Zen Vision, it is easier to get up and running due to its pre-computer approach to electronic instrumentation. By this, I mean that instead of icons on the buttons and ports, everything is spelled out. This is less hip, but it's easier to understand.

The MP-2000 does not have an FM receiver, but it does have outputs to analog TV and LCDs with a component connector cord supplied with the unit. The E2go MP-2000 has a 20GB hard drive, which may seem small, but it's certainly enough to carry your reel, a portfolio of images, and a few thousand songs.

You connect the MP-2000 to your PC (but not a Mac) with a USB cable and the device pops up as an external drive with folders for music, video, photo, and AV record. The record function can record voice with its built-in mic, or you can record audio and video from a TV or VCR/DVD player. There are four video-quality settings that downsample to 320×240 video at various bit rates. Supported video formats are MPEG-4; DivX 3, 4, and 5; Motion JPEG; and WMV-9.

Unlike the Tavi, which comes with MyTavi software to encode video files to a compatible format, the MP-2000's manual offers only very basic instructions, so you'll have to encode files by trial and error. Another limitation is that only MP3 audio is supported in video files, narrowing your encoding options. Making video work on any of the players reviewed here is not as easy as transferring audio files, which is fairly straightforward. Like the Tavi, there is no support for any DRM licensing, which means you can only rip files from your CDs and not from legal download services on the Web.

The initial battery charge is about four hours, and a full charge provides 3.5 hours of video playback/record, 7.5 (max) hours of music playback (with the LCD screen turned off), and 3.5 hours of photo viewing. Overall, the MP-2000 is simpler to use than the Tavi 020, with fewer screens and more options, but this is not always an advantage. While the screen brightness of the Tavi automatically compensates for a dark room, you control the brightness manually in MP-2000's interface. It also lacks built-in speakers.

This is a hefty unit that does the job, but, based on the unit's design, it's not going to wow anyone at Sundance or the creative directors at an agency. Like the Tavi, it has an alarm clock, and there are lots of options for slide shows, making music play lists, and managing files. However, I could not find a way to play music under a slide show, which is something that is possible with the Tavi.

Pros: The E2go MP-2000 has a bigger screen than iPod or Tavi, with straightforward operation and controls.

Cons: It has a shorter-than-average playtime on one battery charge and a dated 1980s-styled case. No PC-based software for managing files or transcoding video is available for the unit.

Here's a PMP from the folks that helped pioneer the device, only to watch the iPod (which came out later) steal their thunder. The Zen Vision I looked at is a mature, well thought-out device with accompanying Creative MediaSource software. There is also support for subscription and pay-per-download music services such as Napster To Go and Yahoo! Music Unlimited.

Zen Vision has a 3.7in. LCD screen in a sleek black case that is a solid second place to the Tavi's iPod-inspired look. Battery life is impressive: 13 hours of audio or 4.5 hours of continuous video playback on a single charge. There is also an optional extended-life battery pack, which doubles the playtime.

From the first moment I turned on the Zen Vision, I liked the interface. There is a back/forward navigation button separate from the four-position switch used to navigate menus and make selections. Personally, I prefer this to navigation systems that load too much functionality on one control. The buttons light up so you can see what you're doing in the dark, and there's a three-button video play, forward, and reverse control below the four-way selector. The volume controls are on the top of the unit, alongside the power switch. This was the most intelligent control layout of the three players I review here.

Like the Tavi, the Zen Vision has an FM receiver with up to 32 presets, as well as a Compact-Flash port to load photos directly into the hard drive. Finally, there is a single speaker on the front panel. While this is not up to the standards of Tavi's stereo speakers, it is a convenient monitor.

The image quality of the Zen Vision is very good, but the screen is highly directional. In fact, it seemed to look best when viewed at a slight angle. In any case, like the Apex MP-2000, the image size (larger than the iPod) of the Zen Visionis the smallest size I'd want to watch video or show a reel among the PMPs presented here. Because none of the units I looked at have 16:9 screens, widescreen video has to be letterboxed.

Zen Vision has a clock, calendar, and an address book. While I have my laptop and other devices for this, it turns out that, for me, having relevant contacts in a second location is not a bad idea — and it's relatively easy to set up. Zen Vision is no replacement for your Palm Treo, but there are times when you don't want to lug around three devices — even if they are all pocket-size.

The MediaSource software is similar to MyTavi, and generally it's easy to use for converting audio and video files, but you'll still need to experiment to find the best compression settings for video. The fact is that the player and format wars are still going strong, and WMV, QuickTime, DivX, and RealPlayer — in their various versions — fragment the marketplace. One reason why iPod works so well is that QuickTime has been around a lot longer than its competitors, and it was a standard format for video from the earliest days of digital production. The PC environment is even more fragmented, despite Microsoft's efforts to be the sole solution.

Pros: The Zen Vision has a nice design with a very clear interface and illuminated navigation controls. Supports several music download services.

Cons: It's a PC-only PMP with only a mono built-in speaker.

While the iPod rules the roost, it is not the only game in town for showing your reel, and filmmakers may be better off with a larger screen. I connected each of the PMPs to a TV, and while the quality was impressive, they all fell short of DVD quality. New Media Life claims that the company will support HD, but so far the cable it promised to provide for the Tavi 020 has never become available.

Recommendations are easy. While I like the design and Mac support from the New Media Life Tavi 020, the handsome interface and instrumentation was a convoluted — there are several buttons on the side of the unit that are very, very small and hard to operate. However, the stereo speakers, navigation controls, and interface are all very good. The Tavi is an ambitious device. It feels as though the design team really wanted to take on the iPod and hit a home run — and perhaps overreached. The design seems to have avoided simplicity in the pursuit of being hip, but they got many things right.

The Apex E2go MP-2000 is a “me too” player. It makes no effort to be elegant — it's a list of features in a sturdy case. It lacks media software to help you transcode and manage files, so you may have a harder time creating video files that play properly. Playtime is shorter than the Zen Vision, but it's also a less expensive unit. But with so many other options on the market, Apex needs to try a little harder.

Creative Labs Zen Vision is probably the best all-around unit — handsome, highly usable, and well thought-out. This was the only unit I looked at that supports legit media download services. I could live with either the Tavi 020 or the Zen Vision — after all, I really want to have a portable screening room to show my reel, so having a PMP reel is somewhere between a stunt and a real presentation. What I'd really like to see is a 5in., 16:9 screen and a 60GB drive that supports playout in HD. In the meantime, there are at least two good solutions here that let me show my work anywhere, anytime.

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