FAQ: ZEN 2/4/8...GB Undocumented and little-known featu

Question

The documentation for the ZEN is basic, and there are several features which are hard to ascertain before you buy, and a few that many owners still won t have discovered.
Though important to those affected, I m not concerned here with white-screens and other misbehaviour probably caused by a fault. Nor problems with recovery mode or updating firmware, both covered in other threads.
Is it possible to make this thread sticky Catherina/Dale
Here s my list so far:
I m thinking of buying a ZEN but I read somewhere that there s no dedicated volume control, and you have to find it via the menus.
The Up/Down buttons do the volume, except when you re browsing the menus, photos etc. Only then, do you need to press the Menu button to change the volume.
How do I manually tune the FM radio
Press the Play/Pause button. Instead of selecting different presets, the Left/Right buttons now move up or down the band (wrapping round at each end). When you ve found the station you want, press the Menu button and Save as Preset. Having done so, you can press Menu again to Name the Preset.
When I want to name a preset (FM radio) or a playlist, a little on-screen keyboard appears. But it insists on capitalising the first letter with the rest lower case, and doesn t allow symbols or accented letters.
Press the Menu button, and you can choose upper/lower case, accented letters and symbols.
Why does it forget the position in the track after about an hour when I shut it down
Dunno. Complete mystery. But the answer is not to press Pause before shutting down. If you shut down while still playing, it does remember. But this doesn t work if you re playing from the SDCard.
I ve ripped all my CDs and put each in its own folder. So how can I browse my collection by folders rather than by album/artist/genre etc
Tough. You can't. Use any of the many programs that allow you to apply and manage ID3 tags on MP3 files. Set the Album tag on each track to the name of the CD, and make sure the Track Number tags are set to the track numbers on the CD.
Does the ZEN support MSC (Mass Storage Class)
Yes, in as much as you can see it as a USB dri've under Windows Explorer even if you don t install the Creative software. So you can upload your MP3 s into folders, but in order to play them, you can only browse by Album/Artist/Genre/etc tags. So basically, it'ss designed as an MTP (Media Transfer Protocol) device for use with a program such as Windows Explorer, Winamp or Creative Media Player.
How do I add album art to my tracks
You can add album art to MP3 files using Mp3tag (or doubtless any of a multitude of other programs), but if you drag'n'drop them onto your ZEN with Windows Explorer, it doesn't show. This may be a bug which might be fixed in a later version of firmware (current: .2.0). It seems this is because the ZEN associates album art with the album only, not with individual tracks, and represents it by a zero-length .alb file on the ZEN. It can only be set (as far as I can tell) using Creative Media Explorer. Either: drag'n'drop a whole folder of MP3's with (the same) album art in all the MP3 files onto your ZEN; or: if your album is already on your ZEN, drag'n'drop the album art jpg file onto the album or onto the album art placeholder under Creative Media Explorer. You can get album art for current albums from Amazon amongst others.
Help! I can't get videos to work!
Join the club. You'd expect that any video which Creative Video Converter happily converted would play on the ZEN. And you'd expect it to snow at Christmas. Now you know better. Windows Movie Maker doesn't always work either.
For starters, make sure your resolution is 320x240 and your frame rate is 25 or 30f
ps.
One program that converts most things is SUPER (www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html). For the output, choose "avi (for PocketPC)".
How can I read/write the SDCard through the USB interface
Go to Memory Card and select Removable Disk.
How can I with the SDCard
Sorry, but you can't. Start another thread on the forum, and there s an infinitesimal chance Creative will eventually provide this feature. And you ll feel better for getting it off your chest.
The best use for the SDCard slot is probably for storing postage stam
ps.
But you ll also need somewhere to store the fine tweezers required to get them out again. You can't use it for making toast for your hamster, either.
Other things you can't do:
Amalgamate tracks on an SDCard into the main library, except by importing them into the internal memory.
Browse tracks by album/artist/genre etc.
Use it simply as an extension to the internal memory.
Remember which track you re on or the position in the track when you shut down.
I've got this charger - will it blow up my ZEN if I try and use it's
There are moves in the industry to standardise all those different chargers you get with mobile phones, sat navs, media players, etc etc. So if you have one with a mini-USB plug on the end, it should say 5v on it and should deli'ver at least 500mA. In which case it'll do just fine. But if you paid a lot of money for the latest 32GB ZEN, you might prefer to avoid a cheap charger of unknown origin as there is an outside chance it might not be very well regulated and could do serious damage.
Message Edited by pleriche on 03-09-2008 :06 AM
Message Edited by pleriche on 03-09-2008 :08 AMMessage Edited by pleriche on 03-22-2008 03:2 PMMessage Edited by pleriche on 03-28-2008 04:24 PM

Answer 1

I explored everywhere with the Menu key when I got my Zen this weekend and found several tidbits, such as adding the 'submenus' to the top level menu, rearranging the menus, neat things like "Look up Artist" to view other albums by the same artist, etc..
I haven't looked on the CD but so far I've found really no documentation on the operation of the player, so maybe these things are covered in a manual I haven't seen.
Must say, coming from a Zen Xtra, this player has a lot of neat little features.