Creative Might End Up Paying For Capacity Exaggeration
Most people who have ever had a MP3 player have come across the 1000 vs 1024 problem. Basically, manufacturers of MP3 players, hard drives etc tend to use 1000 byte as the standard for 1 KB, 1000 KB per MB etc. The computer uses 1024, and so you get less capacity than you actually thought because 1000x1000x1000/1024/1024/1024 = 0.93. That means 1 GB on a MP3 player using the 1000 system is really only 0.93 GB. It's the use of the 1000 system to "fool" consumers that is now coming back to haunt Creative.
If the settlement becomes reality, anyone who bought a Creative mp3 player after May 5 2001 may be entitled to a payback bonus from Creative. Update: For some reason this only applies to HDD players while as far as I know the same thing applies for flash memory. Anyone who apply for the payback will get either a 50% discount on a 1GB MP3 player or 20% discount on any Creative product from their online store - if court rule against Creative. Not too bad and most people have owned a Creative player at least once, so the potential economic consequences for Creative aren't small. It can still go both ways, but personally I hope Creative do lose so there will be better info about what they mean by a gigabyte in the future. With capacities getting as high as they are you will definitely notice that you're getting 7% less storage capacity than you bargained for. On a 32GB Zen, 7% is more than 2GB.
Comments
zedicus on May 1, 2008 5:35 PM
But why pick on just creative, from what I have seen every mp3 manufacturer uses the 1000 vs 1024 system.
JQuilty on May 1, 2008 6:05 PM
Note that this only applies to hard drive players, or at least says the email.
Anyways, this is a really stupid case since everyone does it and they never made it a secret.
That said, I won't mind using a 20% from my Zen Vision: M on a Zen X-Fi when it comes out, or if it's a dud, maybe some new speakers.
mv on May 1, 2008 6:18 PM
This is not apply just to mp3 players, usb drives and hard drives has the same "problem".
ipk2638 on May 1, 2008 6:24 PM
That's totally stupid... This kind of stuff is always the same when it comes to storage. My Seagate external hard drive is a 500GB FreeAgent... no wait it actually has 465GB of storage. Can I get my money Seagate ?
Lawrence on May 1, 2008 9:53 PM
I applied yesterday for the 20% =)
Wilson on May 2, 2008 12:49 AM
ipk2638: Of course it's stupid but what's priceless is that Creative wants to give people 20% off any one item in their online store. (Does anyone even want a 1GB player?) If you cut out the wholesaler and retailer, 20% of retail still means Creative rakes in a good chunk of cash that will probably pay off the lawsuit and then some. "Not only did we screw you before, we're going to make you pay for that privilege."
kugel on May 2, 2008 7:22 AM
It's not Creative which fools you, it's Windows.
Using Giga, Kilo etc for 1024 is simply wrong, they have ever been used for 10^3(n) (n being a number) and are officially defined as those. Using them for 2^10(n) is again, simply wrong, especially in higher regions, since the difference between 1000 and 1024 grows with higher powers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix#IEC_standard_prefixes
By the way, Ubuntu allready uses this system, windows keeps fooling you.
JDGAFFLIN on May 2, 2008 1:09 PM
"but personally I hope Creative do lose so there will be better info about what they mean by a gigabyte in the future"
That is just plain silly. The results of this lawsuit will spur further suits against other companies, including your beloved Cowon. Everyone with the slightest interest in gadgets knows the stated capacity is less due to the binary math. Hell, even Apple can get slapped with this.
So yeah, hope they lose. All's that will do is cost Creative money, and limit competition in this market.
Martin Sägmüller on May 2, 2008 3:24 PM
Hi Jesse, good to see you're still alive... ;)
Andreas Ødegård on May 3, 2008 5:07 PM
Kugel:
Official definitions can be used to fool people in real life, thats why cases like this is strucken down on. Gigabyte in normal population is what the most common OS - windows - says it is. Imagine what the world would be if everythign could be taken literally:
-MP3 players would only play MP3
-people saying "i didnt do nothing" to cops wouldnt be treated as having confessed
-cellphones could be sold with bluetooth and include an actual tooth colored blue
-etc
I do agree with you, it's not that - i believe in people being smart rather than society adapting to stupid people, but unfortunately thats not how it works :/
Nick on May 5, 2008 2:05 PM
I'm wondering if anyone knows if there's any recourse for Canadian owners?
I think it's unfair that we're excluded, if not. I went through the same process, own the same thing. Grr, if so.
Roy on May 5, 2008 3:32 PM
Is this just the US? I bought my (mulptiple) Creative MP3 Players here in the UK so I guess I can't get this... shame.
Volvagia on May 8, 2008 3:05 PM
This is an extremely frivolous lawsuit. The complaining party is just out looking for money. Creative has given accurate data on the ZENs on their site, people just don't want to take responsibility for doing research and making informed decisions. I have a ZEN Vision M but I will have no part in this crap.