Hats Off to Creative MuVo2

Snufkin · Jun 2, 2004

(preface: I use the microdrive in the MuVo² when I'm away from the computer for a few weeks, otherwise I use a CF card. Better battery life).

Um, I think people would object if GM made life difficult for home repair type jobs. At least with cars (as I understand it) there are different warranties for different parts. So someone can change the engine without effecting the bodywork rust warranty. Plus I would imagine that the value of saleable parts (bits that people would actually want to buy) in a new car would actually be less than the cost of the car, otherwise there would be people who made a living buying new cars for parts.

To extend your analogy:

Suppose someone came up with a way to easily swap engines in a car, such that you had one engine efficient at town driving, and another at motorway driving. If GM then made this impossible then people would get upset.

My analogy is broken because what's actually happening is that GM are making sure that their engine can only be used in the car it came in. So no more 'Scrapheap Challenge' fun of taking a random engine and putting it in a random chasis. But I think my point is that people who like playing with their posessions get upset when manufacturers make it difficult to play.

Anyway, yes, you are right that it is up to Creative how they run their business. The fuss (fairly understandable) seems to be because people have had a source of cheap hardware cut off. I'm guessing that it's not Creative who are responsible, but Hitachi. Who also have the right to do as they will with their products. People just get upset when it's made too obvious that sale price and design/manufacturing costs are unrelated.

Cheers,

Paul.

cwmartin said:
My point is that Creative has every right to see to it that their
products are used as designed and not used as "parts bins". Do you
think people would give GM and Ford such a hard time if people
bought new cars just to strip them for parts and GM/Ford took steps
to curb that. After all it is a lot cheaper to buy a whole car that
buy all the parts that make up one. So why wouldn't enterprising
people buy a new car to get a major part they need and then sell of
the remainder as parts and save money that way.

pete · Jun 2, 2004

cwmartin said:
I know that this will not be popular with the people here, but I am
so very happy that Creative Labs has taken action to stop people
from pulling Microdrives from their MP3 device and using them in a
camera. The way people are reacting to the news that Creative has
made a change, you would think that Creative has taken away a
"birthright" to get a device at below market value and destroying
the reputation of a good company.

I feel that Creative has every right to protect the integrity of
their company name by making it unworkable to modify their product.
Just imagine you are the person at Creative whom is responsible for
customer service. All of a sudden you start getting all sorts of
support calls from people who bought MuVo2s on eBay or elsewhere,
that either no longer has the factory installed microdrive or now
has a small CF card in them. These “customers” now want Creative to
provide support on how to install a replacement card or make the
one that was already inserted work with firmware that was designed
to operate with a 4gb microdrive. If Creative doesn’t respond, they
get a bad name for not supporting their product, even though
someone else modified it. Regardless the entire MuVo2 line is
degraded because people think of it as only protective packaging
for a 4 GB Microdrive they want to extract.

Now also imagine being Hitachi. You suddenly have had your entire
retail market channel for a product blown away by the fact people
are backdooring your product by stripping it out of one of your
customer’s products. You have every right to try to protect your
retail dealer market by getting an OEM customer to stop allowing
the product to be gotten this way.

My hats off to Creative and Hitachi for finally taking action.

while i will agree with most of what you said, unless hitachi is the one that made the change, creative labs just shot themselves in the chest. they should not care what the customer will do after they bought the product. as far as the warranty is concerned, once the seal is broken, all bets are off. how simple can it be ...

peter

Srf_Cast · Jun 2, 2004

I’d love to get in touch. I can give you a really good deal on the Brooklyn Bridge. You seem like a great and almost ideal customer. You will be able to use it any time you want, but to protect our reputation and integrity you can not disassemble or modify it in any way.

pete · Jun 2, 2004

Srf_Cast said:
I’d love to get in touch. I can give you a really good deal on the
Brooklyn Bridge. You seem like a great and almost ideal customer.
You will be able to use it any time you want, but to protect our
reputation and integrity you can not disassemble or modify it in
any way.

if i buy it, you cannot even touch it. i can do anything and you do not have any reputation at all because it is not yours. it is mine!!!!!hahaha

peter

technicsplayer · Jun 3, 2004

precisely, I've had a 1G microdrive in my removeable cf mp3 player for years, way before anyone else had 1G mp3 players. I bought the microdrive for the cameras, but ended up with a cf collection instead over time as prices came down. An ideal solution for an mp3 player.

As for the 4G - Htachi saw retail sales affected by the cheaper Muvo. I doubt whether large business users cared, they would just stump up the $500 and get a warantee, but normal comsumers aren't going to stump up 500 smackaroos with an alternative availble for 200 if they are in the know...

For a normal consumer to applaud the removal of a great money saving trick is just weird in the exteme.

Snufkin said:
Secondly:
http://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/shop/product_info.php?products_id=220
Looks like Creative may have missed the 'upgradeable mp3 player'
boat already.
I was wondering about hacking the MuVo to make the drive removable,
but it would involve attaching a longer drive cable and cutting a
hole in the casing. Any suggestions for a good forum to discuss
something like this (it being slightly off-topic for a digital
camera storage forum)?

Cheers,

Paul.

jandu said:

To me a better way for creative is to re-engineer the drive so the
4 gig drive can easily be swapped.

If I were Creative, I would make the drive in such a way that I can
swap the CF drive/card easily. I'll sell the drive +the 4 gig drive
for another $50. That way, people can use it for camera, MP3 or
whatever. Or they can swap a 512 card in there if needed be.

I can bet you that, it will sell even better than before. Not the
way they're heading now.

This way, it takes care of the consumer, Creative, and Hitachi. A
more popular product, in my opinion, is better for all involved.

Click to expand...

asadowsk · Jun 3, 2004

Amazon is not misleading, it the dam people who list it as NEW, just like eBay, people say NEW NEW NEW, but look closely and you will see that things have been witched out, another tell tell sign is the price, a NEW muvo2 4gb going for 50 bucks I dont think so.

One listing on eBay caught my eye, NEW muvo2 4gb for 130 bucks, but in samll off to the side print, it then notes that the microdrive will be replaced with another cf card.

AMAZON (its tricky but they have a new listing, its just the search on the web site leads you back to the old, but keep digging) has a NEW VERSION 2.0 MuVo2 4gb for preorder... Amazon has purposefully labeled it as (v2.0) for obvious reason.

Creative just shot themselves in the foot, they will not sell, Amazon wont reorder this unless you preorder cause they dont want to be stuck with unsellable product!

cwmartin said:
So let me ask, are you the same people who haven't figured out that
sometimes it is cheaper to buy a whole new inkjet printer
(especially on model closeout) than buy replacement ink cartridges
for one? Is it right to throw a new printer into a landfill just to
save a few bucks on replacement ink?

Calvin Chann said:

Either way, I can't see any losers. Creative get a best seller,
although for reasons not exaclty like they planned. Hitachi sell
many more drives that they would have anyway and we get the storage
at a reasonable price.

Those people buying dud MuVo2 online should take it up with ebay or
whoever. Surely it is a problem with the seller not describing it
properly or their not doing their homework properly. Those who try
to get Creative to fix it are just plain stupid, but then again, I
have noticed that in North America, the returns policy is a lot
looser than it is in Europe. When you buy something, isn't it
inherent on you to know what you are buying?

tcombox said:

So you believe Creative have every right to try to protect own
market what in relation to us buyers, you don’t feel just rip-off
by them.
The product that they sell for $199 is poor designed and unfriendly
to operate if creative will not use 4GB Microdrive. I will not pay
for that $20 if you see on the package they tell you that it hold
2100 songs sure it will, if you load 1.9 MB song. The average good
quality song is 4MB - 5.5MB you can do the math your self how many
songs it can truly holds. You can’t operate the player if you don’t
take it out from the holder than you have to press the control
buttons back and forth a 100 times before you fined what you need.
What abut Hitachi if they sell OEM to Creative and both make money
on $199 why they sell just the Microdrive for $499 I saw also on
the Canadian sites for $699 CAN this price is ridicules.
The way I see it now a lot of people will loose the job at Creative
and Hitachi, because the market for Muvo2 will be dead, and Hitachi
will have to lower the price to sell anything

Do we in fact need 4GB Macrodrive? For this price I don’t assume we
do, for amateur 1 GB CF it will be better choice, for sure speed
and longer live will be beneficial, and if somebody need more, then
external storage devices are perfect compare to 4GB. More space 20
GB to 120GB) and the price just above the ground not over the sky
as a Microdrive. Don’t forget the old days when you have 24-36
shots on the film, and then few days to know the effect of your work
1GB give you 50-60 shots best quality then transfer them to PC or
external storage and start all over again.
Let’s talk about the service maybe will be a perfect idea to
designed this product right at first place then nobody will need
call the service, don’t forget this is mechanical drive, and how
many times you will drop it on the ground when you jogging

Let’s say Creative and Hitachi sacks and I hope that, over this
issue there will be some people falling down from the top chairs
rather people from the assembly lines.

Sorry if I make this hard to read English is not my first language

Click to expand...

--
I don't mean to offend, but if you are offended, then maybe you're
too sensitive or I've overdone it.

Click to expand...

nanook s · Jun 3, 2004

Muvo2 sales will nosedive as soon as the news is out and the preorder queue is cleared. Wouldn't surprise me if their June shipment becomes Negative number as people returning pre-ordered Muvo2 in disgust outnumbering new orders. Hitachi will lose one of their biggest microdrive customers just as their recently spent $400million dollars building new production capacity, partly on those MP3 player orders. Muvo2 price will probably reach $100 before year-end unless the drive issue is reversed. Hitachi's own 4G microdrive will probably reach $175-250 by year-end. As for myself, I'm happily living with close to 8Gig worth of CF cards; contemplated trying out Muvo2 but rumored vunerability to squeezing and high power consumption deterred me. Glad I did not place a pre-order even just for trying out.

Vernon Long · Jun 3, 2004

Sales just went from 10K a week to 10 a week. I guess this will make them real happy. Everone that wants a jukebox will just buy the mini Ipod. It is 10X better.

VL

SirSeth · Jun 3, 2004

Yep, I purchased my Frontier Labs Nex2e MP3 player for the express reason that I'm getting more into digital photography and would swap CF cards between the two. The Frontier Labs devices are the ultimate CF music device for the photographyer. I very often take pictures with tunes on.

Movover Creative

--
What if the hokey pokey really is what it's all about?

Calvin Chann · Jun 4, 2004

Vernon Long said:
Sales just went from 10K a week to 10 a week. I guess this will
make them real happy. Everone that wants a jukebox will just buy
the mini Ipod. It is 10X better.

VL

--

I don't mean to offend, but if you are offended, then maybe you're too sensitive or I've overdone it.

Chinpokomon · Jun 4, 2004

gwprovost said:
Steve Densmore said:

...this has to be the dumbest thing I have ever seen a consumer post

Click to expand...

Exactly my sentiments. If it's true that the drives can no longer
be cannibalized, then Creative will sell a lot fewer of their
crappy MP3 players and Hitachi still won't sell any more $500
drives. So who's the winner?

If I bought it, I own it and can do what I want with it. What's
next, Creative tells you what kind of music you're allowed to play
in their machine? Ridiculous.

I happen to agree with the original poster.. not that I want to turn this thread into some sort of religious war. Creative can do what they want to their product. If they don't want you taking their MP3 players apart just to take the drive out, then they have the right to make that change to their later generations. This will either be a good move for them, or a bad move, and that remains to be seen. In the meantime, if you have an older generation Muvo, take it apart if you want to.

You cannot however tell Creative they are wrong to make these changes. If you aren't happy with the change, don't buy the new version.

--
P.S. this is what part of the alphabet would look like without Q and R.

gwprovost · Jun 4, 2004

Chinpokomon said:
I happen to agree with the original poster.. not that I want to
turn this thread into some sort of religious war. Creative can do
what they want to their product. If they don't want you taking
their MP3 players apart just to take the drive out, then they have
the right to make that change to their later generations. This
will either be a good move for them, or a bad move, and that
remains to be seen. In the meantime, if you have an older
generation Muvo, take it apart if you want to.

You cannot however tell Creative they are wrong to make these
changes. If you aren't happy with the change, don't buy the new
version.

I won't, and neither will most of what might have been their market. That's what makes the decision goofy. But, as you say, it's their company to do with as they please.

Thanks for the input.

Markep · Jun 4, 2004

I have a question -

Creative and Hitachi created a product and they were selling it very well. Isn't that what they should have been trying to do ?

Why, if the product were selling so well, would they be upset with how things were going after the sale ?

Sheesh, this reminds me of airline pricing policy - for example a R/T ticket on USAIR from EWR to CHS costs $250, with a stop in CLT. A R/T to CLT costs $350.

In general, I am peeved by economic actors not doing the most efficient thing. Shame on you Creative/Hitachi, as well as those of you who support their irrational acts.

cwmartin said:
I know that this will not be popular with the people here, but I am
so very happy that Creative Labs has taken action to stop people
from pulling Microdrives from their MP3 device and using them in a
camera. The way people are reacting to the news that Creative has
made a change, you would think that Creative has taken away a
"birthright" to get a device at below market value and destroying
the reputation of a good company.

I feel that Creative has every right to protect the integrity of
their company name by making it unworkable to modify their product.
Just imagine you are the person at Creative whom is responsible for
customer service. All of a sudden you start getting all sorts of
support calls from people who bought MuVo2s on eBay or elsewhere,
that either no longer has the factory installed microdrive or now
has a small CF card in them. These “customers” now want Creative to
provide support on how to install a replacement card or make the
one that was already inserted work with firmware that was designed
to operate with a 4gb microdrive. If Creative doesn’t respond, they
get a bad name for not supporting their product, even though
someone else modified it. Regardless the entire MuVo2 line is
degraded because people think of it as only protective packaging
for a 4 GB Microdrive they want to extract.

Now also imagine being Hitachi. You suddenly have had your entire
retail market channel for a product blown away by the fact people
are backdooring your product by stripping it out of one of your
customer’s products. You have every right to try to protect your
retail dealer market by getting an OEM customer to stop allowing
the product to be gotten this way.

My hats off to Creative and Hitachi for finally taking action.

James Riley · Jun 5, 2004

Did Creative stop this? Or did someone else make them?

I say, THANK YOU Creative, for the run.

BTW, I had the same problem trying to get it to start doing 4GB on my D100 and XP machine. But once I try to format it in my s602, it failed, but it also "destroyed" the 2GB partition (and ultimately it does not work in the s602), thereby allowing XP to format as 4GB, and works wonderfully in my D100.

--
JR

Mytmoss · Jun 5, 2004

Ummm, do we really think that Creative stopped using the older drives for any other reason then Hitachi wanted them to stop? The change wasn't due to a product failure, it was due to the fact that Hitachi wants $500 for a drive that they sold to Creative for far less. It just goes to show what sort of profit margin Hitachi is getting for the drives, they can sell it to Creative for under $200 and yet they can't sell it to the public for the same price.

Mike

cwmartin · Jun 5, 2004

Mike:

You are one of many people who are making the claim that Creative was forced to change their product by Hitachi. Do you have any hard evidence of this? Or is it just your idea that Hitachi forced a change?

Have you ever given thought that maybe Creative wants to reduce sales of this product, which is priced way too low, to spur sales of their other MP3 products? Maybe Hitachi didn't FORCE a change, but instead offered a better price on the new version drive than on the old one?

There are many different reasons that we can dream up to justify what Creative has done. Without a direct comment from the company or someone leaking "inside" documents showing the real reason, we can only guess. I just find it unfair for people to put out so much venomous talk about Creative for making a business decision. People weren't this cruel when Coca-cola made that dumb business decision to bring out "New Coke".

In any case, I have to applaud Creative for taking the bold step to make a change to a product that was a 'sell-out' for all the wrong reasons. It is Creative's right to change their product specs. It is our right to either purchase the product or not. It is the best of the free enterprise system at work.

Clifford

Mytmoss said:
Ummm, do we really think that Creative stopped using the older
drives for any other reason then Hitachi wanted them to stop? The
change wasn't due to a product failure, it was due to the fact that
Hitachi wants $500 for a drive that they sold to Creative for far
less. It just goes to show what sort of profit margin Hitachi is
getting for the drives, they can sell it to Creative for under $200
and yet they can't sell it to the public for the same price.

Mike

nanook s · Jun 5, 2004

cwmartin said:
There are many different reasons that we can dream up to justify
what Creative has done.

If the change was not a due to Hitachi, many of those different reasons will have to be dreamed up quickly for the the next Creative shareholder meeting ;-)

powercntrl · Jun 5, 2004

What I have a problem with is the market economics that make a 4GB microdrive cheaper included with an MP3 player than packaged as a bare retail drive.

That said, I own an unmodified original MuVo2 to use for its intended purpose - as an MP3 player. Compared to the iPod mini, it has better sound quality, plays WMAs and has far superior battery life. It's really not a bad compromise if you want to save $50 over the mini, or you want a WMA player that is a similar formfactor to the iPod mini. If you wanted a 4GB microdrive in MP3 player's clothing, however, the new version is a rotten deal.

While the new version is probably good news for those hoping to get their hands on a MuVo2 for its intended purpose, it's probably bad news for Creative. I'm willing to bet the majority of their sales were from eBay hawks and people gutting the player for the microdrive. Creative didn't seem like they cared anyway, they even ran official Creative Labs eBay auctions for "market value adjusted" MuVo2s and mentioned the 4GB microdrive in the title. Creative doesn't care whether you listen to your MuVo2 or run it over with your car after you paid for it. I'm pretty sure it was Hitachi that said "no more".

cwmartin · Jun 5, 2004

nanook s said:
nanook s said:

There are many different reasons that we can dream up to justify
what Creative has done.

Click to expand...

If the change was not a due to Hitachi, many of those different
reasons will have to be dreamed up quickly for the the next
Creative shareholder meeting ;-)

For a company the size of Creative, the sales of a minor product, such as the MuVo2, won't even make a small blip on the financials. The only way that this "change" will be noted at the next shareholder meeting is if some digital camera buff attends the meeting and makes a fool of themselves by saying something publicly about not being able to strip a product for it's parts any more.

Instead of being so upset over this, why aren't you more upset about the increases in the price of gasoline?

Mytmoss · Jun 6, 2004

Of course Creative and Hitachi can do anything they want for any reasons they want. Seeing that they have put a very similar MD drive into their new Muvos. It seems apparant that they havent modified it drastically and it doesnt seem like that it was was for performance issues.That being said if Creative wants to sell less Muvos, its fine with me. I have no stock in the company. And if Hitachi thinks they will be selling more microdrives at $500, thats their decision.

It just seems odd that a company can sell a product for less than $200

to one company and make a profit, and the same product to the consumer is $500. I guess their marketing costs to us consumers is very expensive.

I did see that someone thinks we should be concerned about gas prices too. I am concerned, I can multitask.

Mike

cwmartin said:
You are one of many people who are making the claim that Creative
was forced to change their product by Hitachi. Do you have any hard
evidence of this? Or is it just your idea that Hitachi forced a
change?

Have you ever given thought that maybe Creative wants to reduce
sales of this product, which is priced way too low, to spur sales
of their other MP3 products? Maybe Hitachi didn't FORCE a change,
but instead offered a better price on the new version drive than on
the old one?

There are many different reasons that we can dream up to justify
what Creative has done. Without a direct comment from the company
or someone leaking "inside" documents showing the real reason, we
can only guess. I just find it unfair for people to put out so much
venomous talk about Creative for making a business decision. People
weren't this cruel when Coca-cola made that dumb business decision
to bring out "New Coke".

In any case, I have to applaud Creative for taking the bold step to
make a change to a product that was a 'sell-out' for all the wrong
reasons. It is Creative's right to change their product specs. It
is our right to either purchase the product or not. It is the best
of the free enterprise system at work.

Clifford

Mytmoss said:

Ummm, do we really think that Creative stopped using the older
drives for any other reason then Hitachi wanted them to stop? The
change wasn't due to a product failure, it was due to the fact that
Hitachi wants $500 for a drive that they sold to Creative for far
less. It just goes to show what sort of profit margin Hitachi is
getting for the drives, they can sell it to Creative for under $200
and yet they can't sell it to the public for the same price.

Mike

Click to expand...

--
Michael Moss

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