Need to replace Creative's media management SW due to it's horridness

May 1, 2008 6:15 PM

Need replacement for the Creative Media Explorer for my Creative Zen V+. It is simply the worst. Not fond of Windows Media Player either & ITunes doesn't work with my player. I love my wee little Zen, but oh how I dread creating playlists & using the SW that came with it to transfer files. Help a gal out!

Ok, I have been using ITunes to organize & listen to my music on my 'puter, but can't use it with my Zen V+. I love the smart playlists. I would like to replace it with something that integrates well with my Zen. The Creative Media software that came with my mp3 player is horrid. The playlist feature is torture to use & the overall interface makes simple tasks like transferring files into an ordeal. I have taken to simply dragging & dropping in Windows Explorer & doing without proper playlists. I miss playlists & hate that I can't use Itunes (damned proprietary Apple!!). I tried switching to Windows Media Player, but am not fond of it. Was wondering about Winamp or Media Monkey I never used Media Monkey & haven't used Winamp in years. Guess what I want is something like ITunes that I can use with my Zen.

posted by Empyrean_72 to Computers & Internet (11 answers total)

My Zen player (Zen Touch 20GB) and Winamp get along very well, and that's saying something, because several things I've tried in the past have balked at the somewhat odd Zen firmware. The best part with Winamp is that you can pretty much change anything you don't like about it, there are so many skins/addons/mods available. At its core, though, is a very lightweight and versatile player that has taken care of all of my Zen-related playlist needs for quite some time. I've never used iTunes, so I can't draw any comparisons for you that way, but at least anecdotally I'd say Winamp could very well be the way to go.
posted by Rallon at 6:37 PM on May 1, 2008

I've got a Zen as well, though the basic (non + version). I feel your pain. I'm on OS X, and I use iTunes. The best way I've found is to simply drag from iTunes and drop into my Zen using the Finder. I haven't messed with playlists, sorry.

The Windows software for the Zen is indeed lame, and there's not even a Mac version. Hopefully Creative will get on the ball soon to make it better, but for now drag-n-drop is probably your best option.
posted by zardoz at 6:55 PM on May 1, 2008

Are you running linux? I used Gnomad 2 with much success for my Creative Zen Vision M (RIP, it died last week and I was forced to buy an iPod). I loved Gnomad though. It worked well with the Zen.
posted by nursegracer at 7:12 PM on May 1, 2008

Nope, on Widows Vista
posted by Empyrean_72 at 7:17 PM on May 1, 2008

Media Monkey claims support for MTP devices, which would include your Zen. It's free, and gets recommended often on ask.me
posted by namewithoutwords at 7:34 PM on May 1, 2008

Not sure how it works with the ZEN, but I really like J. River's Media Center 12.
posted by Gerard Sorme at 7:51 PM on May 1, 2008

After gyrations with a few other things (AmaroK under linux, Windows Media Player under Vista), I'm very happy using MediaMonkey with my Creative Zen. It's good software at a reasonable price - a rare thing these days.
posted by jferg at 8:11 PM on May 1, 2008

Check out Notmad Explorer by Red Chair Software. I used to use that in place of the shitty software that came with my Creative Nomad 3. It supports a bunch of their other players too.
posted by autojack at 9:43 PM on May 1, 2008

Winamp's media library interface is much more iTunes-like than it used to be, with playlist support and a lot of other options. Give it a shot.
posted by caution live frogs at 5:51 AM on May 2, 2008

I use Media Monkey with a Zen V. It works pretty well, except for the sometimes questionable "random" selections that happen when I sync it. "What? I have ~200 on the Zen and ~2500 in my playlist and you're only deleting/replacing 17?" Just syncing it again usually gets better results.
posted by owtytrof at 7:37 AM on May 2, 2008

Thirding MediaMonkey. The only problem I have with it is inconsistent syncing of the star ratings, and that's not important to most people anyway. Works like a dream otherwise.

Tangent question: If anyone knows how to make that work for me, I'd really appreciate it.
posted by timepiece at 1:45 PM on May 7, 2008