Hello everyone.

I'm currently considering buying a multi-media player. I've set my eyes on the creative ZEN X-Fi. I'm still not sure as to whether or not i should buy it tough.

I'm very confused about codecs, video formats etc, so I'm hoping for some help here.

On creatives website, it says that the supported video formats of the player are:

WMV9, MPEG4, DivX, XviD.

WMV i know of, but I'm confused when it comes to Divx and Xvid. I've never seen a file extension called Divx or Xvid. The only file names I've seen containing the word Xvid or Divx, are AVI files.

For example:

[MovieNameHere].Xvid.AVI

or with the "Xvid" part of the file called Divx.

So my question: Will it be possible for me to view these (the ones with either Divx or Xvid in their file name) AVI's on the player?

If that is not the case, i would appreciate it very much if someone would tell me about a (preferably free) program that converts AVI's to WMV9's.

Thanks in advance, and please forgive my newbness

Can be confusing I know. DIVX, XVID are video compression formats derived from MPEG4 standard.
AVI like MKV are really just media containers with video and audio components.

Hence, so you can have a Windows AVI file with DIVX video compression and AC3 dolby audio. PLUS...other variants.
If you stick to standard certified DIVX profile, you should be OK. Use DIVx converter (DR DIVX) with bundle specified on DIVX.com website to be safe.
With DIVX6 and higher, you will come across proprietary extensions i.e. .divx, .DMF, Xsub etc.
In this case you may have to use the proprietary DIVX player and bundle to get advanced features.

*consult your device manual to find what formats it is compatible with.

Hope this helps.