Zune Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

MaximumPC has done an interesting side by side comparison of the big three options out there for music organization on your home PC. To be honest, most people will have a hard time really making much of a selection based on the software and are far more likely to be choosing based on what their device of choice is. In the case of the iPod and Zune, we’re mostly tied to using the software designed for it.

But if you don’t like your options with your current software solution, it’s certainly not impossible to use a different program to manage your media and a different one to load your player. The three that MaximumPC looks at are iTunes (of course), Zune, and Songbird. Read more...

"Windows Home Server was a large part of CES this year. I was pleasantly embraced by all you fellow Windows Home Server users and I joyfully shared the new features sets that Power Pack 3 empowered your home server with. The beautiful thing about our booth is the ability to walk everyone step by step, on how to take advantage of these new features. For those of you who were not at CES, I'd like to take the time to share with you those steps that I shared with CES attendees. One of the key scenarios that got a lot of interest at the show was how a Zune music player can benefit from having a Windows Home Server around as well. This post goes into more detail about why and how it all works together."

When Microsoft released Power Pack 3 for Windows Home Server, there were a number of new features added that perhaps not everyone realised was included. This article from The Windows Home Server blog, explains how to make full use of one of those features if you have a Media Center PC, a Windows Home Server and a media player such as the Zune. The ability to access your music, videos and pictures on both your Media Center PC and your Zune is nice, but to be able to record your TV shows and automatically create a copy compressed especially for the Zune so you can watch them on the go is brilliant. No more having to encode the TV shows specifically for the Zune, just record your show on the Media Center as normal and one extra copy encoded correctly for the Zune or other media player of your choice will be made. If you didn't know about this, then take a read and see how easy it is.

"We know many of you are anxiously waiting for the Facebook for Zune HD app, and have been very patient. Thank you. However, we need to ask a small favor... just hold on a little longer. I know we said by the end of January, but we want to deliver the best app to you and it is going to take a little bit more time. Again thanks for understanding."

There's something kind of problematic about the Zune app story when it takes Microsoft months and months to release Twitter and Facebook apps for the Zune HD. They need to open up the Zune Marketplace to outside developers - Microsoft is neither fast nor agile when it comes to software development, and speed is what the Zune HD needs to start picking up if it's going to thrive. I really hope the Zune Facebook app is better on the Zune HD than it is on Windows Mobile - that's one sad app. I actually prefer using the Facebook mobile site designed for the iPod Touch rather than the Windows Mobile app because it's so much faster and functional. And when a Web interface is faster and more functional than a local app, you've really gone wrong with your app development...

"Taiwan's MSI, known mainly for its PCs, has released its latest portable media player, the MT-V660. The device is styled after Microsoft's Zune HD and uses a Rockchip RK2806 chipset along with a 3.2-inch display with a 480x320 resolution."

While Apple's iPod line has had a quadrillion copy cats, Microsoft's Zune has remained relatively unscathed until now. With the Zune HD getting rave reviews it was only a matter of time before similar looking products started showing up. If I were Microsoft, I would feel flattered! The fact that this one comes from MSI is a bit of a surprise, but it appears that the less euphoniously named MT-V660 appears to offer playback for a wealth of formats. Whether it will support the rest of the features a Zune HD offers, and have as slick an interface remains to be seen. One thing that is certain though, is that it will be sold beyond the US border.

"The topic du jour was all about TV, but this morning at NewTeeVee Live - an industry conference that explores the future of television - Xbox LIVE general manager Marc Whitten confirmed the next wave of social entertainment is coming to Xbox LIVE on November 17. Starting next week, Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm and instant on HD video from Zune will be available on Xbox 360 consoles, transforming Xbox LIVE into the largest social network connected to the TV with exclusive features custom-designed for the living room."

November 17th is the big day when Zune comes to the Xbox 360! Engadget has some great videos that they've disabled embedding on, so you'll have to go over to their site to see them. One of the interesting features is the ability to watch a movie in a shared virtual environment - meaning you can have a "movie party" and have several online friends watch the same movie at the same time, and you can emote certain things - and talk - while the movie is going on. I don't know how often I'd want to do that - probably never - but it's a neat use of technology to bridge distances between friends. The videos in the Zune video marketplace are 1080p, and support "instant on" streaming. Myself, I'm most curious to see what will happen to the selection of movies - it's always been pretty poor in Canada, and we've never had TV shows for download. If you want to get great online video in Canada, iTunes is pretty much the only game. I hope this Xbox update changes that!

"Microsoft is considering whether it should port the Zune software and services to other platforms, including Apple’s. There’s no guarantee that the Redmondians will end up doing this - or timetable as to when this could happen - but it’s one of many strategies under active consideration. That’s what I heard today from Jose Pinero, Director of Communications for Microsoft’s TV, Video and Music Business. I had a chance to chat with Pinero at Microsoft’s consumer open-house showcase in New York on October 6."

Going along with the news of a definite Microsoft commitment to putting the Zune platform on Windows phones, this article at ZDNet is even more interesting. Microsoft would be willing, going forward to support other platforms, including Apple. What exactly does that mean? Just Zune software on the Mac? Apparently not! Microsoft even is thinking in terms of direct iPod support. Now I don't know if that's realistic or not but its something they have on the table.

The bigger picture you get from this article is Microsoft's view of what the Zune platform is to their business. Zune has always been somewhat strange for Microsoft. They tend to build ecosystems for others to play in. Even the XBox follows that mold since a game system, by default, needs broad support from game publishers to survive and thrive. The Zune though has been Microsoft's closed platform. Microsoft controls the entire experience from end to end.

But that's not how they view the Zune platform internally, according to this article. Zune is viewed as their media platform for their entire product line. They're not talking about the players either. They're talking about the whole Zune experience. Could this mean Microsoft eventually licensing out the mobile platform? After Plays For Sure I'm not sure how many would jump on that.

It will be interesting to see where it goes. With the Zune set to make an appearance eventually on Windows phones, that will certainly give an instantly broader market and really that would be the first real challenge to iPod/iPhone dominance because that platform is widespread enough to compete already. Many people are happy to carry one device around and I could see that more than anything causing some erosion in the DMP market.

"Nearly two years after spending $46m to acquire the Musiwave mobile tunes service, Microsoft has informed wireless carriers they can no longer use the service once their contracts expire, according to a source familiar with the matter. This source, who requested anonymity because he feared reprisals from his employer, says Microsoft notified operators by letter on Wednesday, September 9. The Paris-based Musiwave underpins the music, video, and ringtone services operated by wireless carriers across the globe, driving more than 50 million downloads a year for the likes of T-Mobile, Vodafone, and Orange. It serves carriers in the UK, Europe, Africa, New Zealand, and Australia - though not the US."

I guess I should not be surprised, but I didn't realize that Microsoft controlled a big chunk of the download service for the major carriers. Like the article suggests, I'm betting their rebranding the service and possibly linking it in with the Zune marketplace in some way, but it still appears that the carriers are going to be left out in the cold. Any ideas what is going on here?

"We have slightly modified the wireless sync behavior for Zune HD. Instead of remaining connected once you establish the wireless connection, you will now automatically exit the connection once the player determines there is no content to sync. In the auto sync wireless scenario, the player will continue to attempt to reconnect every 10 minutes if wireless sync has been set-up, the player has AC power, no media is playing, and there is no user activity on the player."

If you are trying to unlock every bit of potential that your new Zune HD has, then you might want to head over to AnythingButIpod and check out their forum post detailing every little thing that you may not have known how to do but want to. Or how to do things that you didn't even think about. ABI has TONS of tips up in its forum so if you're a proud new owner of a Zune HD you should definitely follow the link and see what cool things are hidden!

There's not much to this post, but a few bits of info that I wanted to share:

• When it comes to apps, it's going to be Zune HD only. Moving forward all apps and games will be only for the Zune HD, not any previous models.
• Older devices will be able to play back rental movies from the Zune Marketplace, but not download-to-own movies. I'm not sure if this goes back all the way to the Zune 30 devices - I'll have to test that.
• Obviously, without the Tegra chip, older devices won't be able to play back HD content.
• The Quickplay UI will not be present on older devices

First, some background on this problem. Here's what I said in my analysis of the iPod announcements:

"iTunes is in 23 countries. The Zune Marketplace is in one. Microsoft's US-centric approach with the Zune is maddening...I thought there was some light at the end of the tunnel when they launched the Zune in Canada last year, but we never got the Zune Marketplace here, and now the devices being sold here are being killed off. "Disaster" is a good word for how well the Zune launch went in Canada. Between the Zune HD being US-only at launch, and all of the IP-based geographic blocking madness that the Zune software and Web site does, it's like the Zune team is doing everything they can to alienate everyone in the world outside the US."

In the resulting discussion from the post, the issue of this US-centric approach to the Zune was brought up several times, and I floated this theory:

"Apple was the first company to negotiate big, international music distribution deals, and way back then most of the music labels probably though Apple would fail, or at best only be mildly successful. So they said "Sure, 99 cents sounds fine as long as the bit rate sucks." Fast-forward, and iTunes is massively successful. We've watched as the record labels pressured Apple for variable pricing year after year, trying to re-assert control over their music. They finally got it. The labels don't like all the power that Apple has, so here's my theory: they're making it very hard, if not impossible, for the Zune guys to get the same sort of deal that Apple has. They're trying to exert control over the Zune deal in a way they wish they could have done with the Apple deal years ago.

Witness the $1 that Universal demanded Microsoft pay them for every Zune sold. We're talking POWER STRUGGLE here people. Maybe that's one reason why Microsoft can't accomplish now what Apple did years ago - the record labels are more aware of what they want to control.

Second reason? Maybe Microsoft feels that the Zune Pass is SO important that they can't/won't launch Zune Marketplace without it. It's quite integral to the Zune experience - many new Zune features rely on the customer having a Zune Pass - so maybe Microsoft isn't launching in new markets unless that market includes the Zune Pass. I think this is a bit silly - not everyone wants a Zune Pass - but maybe it's another reason? These are just my theories." Read more...

“A 32GB Microsoft Zune HD media player arrived at our doorstep today, and we had just enough time to take it out of its packaging and snap some first shots. Unfortunately, Microsoft didn't provide the Zune 4.0 software necessary to sync it up and actually use the unit, but we still were in awe of its spectacular 3.3-inch 16:9 OLED touchscreen. It's responsive, bright, sharp, and contrasty. Beautiful.”

DVICE has a quick first look at the Zune HD. They seem to like it even they weren’t really able to use it since they don’t have the software for it yet. Never-the-less, they are still impressed by the styling of the Zune HD and its size and performance! Microsoft really seems to have a hit on its hands here since all of the commentary on the HD really has been positive.

There’s nothing else new here since DVICE couldn’t actually use the Zune HD yet but if you want to check out a nice gallery of some Zune HD shots, check out their first look and admire what you can soon buy (or just pre-order now). Release day is almost here!

" 'After my post, I got an email from the developer of an iPhone Twitter client. He was contacted by Microsoft a few months ago, with an offer to port his app to the Zune in exchange for 'a bucket of money'. He turned them down, but assumes, as I do, that Microsoft reached out to the developers of multiple popular iPhone apps.' "

John Gruber over at Daring Fireball has made some interesting speculation about the likelihood of applications coming to the Zune HD. Personally, I'm not quite as convinced as John about what exactly this means. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft wanted to see some of these applications on the Windows Mobile OS as well.

Even if this does indicate that applications are coming to the Zune, I don't think this will mean all that much if they do it how they've done games so far. Some preloaded games and apps aren't really very impressive compared to the Apple App Store. I'm still not that convinced its even needed anyway but that's just my opinion!

This is news that will make some people happy: the Zune HD will have unicode support, meaning that it will display non Latin-based characters. This means that if you have a song/video/photo that has a file name, or metadata, in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc. it wil display the filename on those characters rather than showing you the "unknown block" characters. Not having any files like that myself, I'm unsure of exactly what languages are supported, or how the implementation will work. What would make people really happy of course would be if unicode support was rolled back to older Zune devices - because no one wants to buy a new device to get unicode support. Microsoft has thus far remained quiet about what sorts of software support they'll continue to provide for the older Zune devices. Let's face it, they've extended the feature-life of the Zune 30 further than anyone else has ever done with an MP3 player - so if they were to stop releasing firmware updates for it, it wouldn't be very surprising. I'd really like to see unicode suppot trickle down to the Zune 120/80/16/8/4 devices though - it would be a shame to see the devleopment stop on devices that are still being sold today.

This week brings a new Zune Marketplace freebie that you can download, play back, burn to a CD, and sync to your Zune device. You'll need a Zune account to download the free content. Clicking on the link(s) below will automatically launch the Zune software and take you to the artist's page, so please ensure that the software is installed on your PC.

• Title: Old School
• Artist: Hedley
• Genre: Rock
• Length: 3:42
• DRM-free MP3: Yes

Microsoft Announces the Expansion of the Zune Entertainment Service to New Platform and Markets; Confirms New Zune HD Portable Media Player

Premium Zune digital entertainment service to be available internationally on Xbox LIVE.

REDMOND, Wash. - May 26, 2009 - Microsoft Corp. today announced the evolution of Zune, the company's end-to-end music and entertainment service, to a new platform and new markets. Zune will extend its video service to Xbox LIVE internationally this fall. This marks an important development in the Zune strategy and brings the Zune brand to more than 17 million international Xbox LIVE subscribers. In addition, Microsoft confirmed the next generation of the Zune portable media player, Zune HD. Available in the U.S. this fall, Zune HD is the first portable media player that combines a built-in HD Radio receiver, high-definition (HD) video output capabilities, organic light-emitting diode (OLED) touch screen, Wi-Fi and an Internet browser. Read more...

Josh Sorenson from Cruleworld's Lifestream, hit me up on Twitter and let me know he'd done some caculations - the Zune team is being tight-lipped on the specifications of the Zune HD, but assuming that the photos are accurate, with a known screen size we can figure out the size of the device itself. The big deal would seem to be the thickness - a mere 0.35 inches. For comparison's sake, the iPod Touch is 0.33 inches thick, so essentially the same. And that's really thin.

See, I had this plan tonight. I was out at a meeting and was getting home a full 45 minutes before the press embargo on the Zune HD was up, so Zune Thoughts would be one of the first sites to bring you the awesome news about the Zune HD. Then a site in the UK broke their embargo and everyone was allowed to publish the news...and I didn't realize that until I got home and checked my email. So that's why Zune Thoughts is bringing you this news late - hopefully when it come to actual hands-on time with the Zune HD, we'll be able to deliver something unique and special. Without further ado, here is the Zune HD and what I'm allowed to say about it so far (yes, there are a few bits of info that I know but can't share yet).

The Zune HD is designed from the ground up to take on the iPod Touch head to head. The hardware design is completely different from previous Zunes - one look at the sleek thinness tells you that. Microsoft wanted to get some information out about the Zune HD, but they're not spilling all the details just yet. Here's what we know for sure. Read more...

This week brings a new Zune Marketplace freebie that you can download, play back, burn to a CD, and sync to your Zune device. You'll need a Zune account to download the free content. Clicking on the link(s) below will automatically launch the Zune software and take you to the artist's page, so please ensure that the software is installed on your PC.

• Title: Put the Phone Down
• Artist: Pilot Speed
• Genre: Rock
• Length: 3:54
• DRM-free MP3: No

"In the announcement of the impending release of Windows 7 RC (basically the final beta), Microsoft on Wednesday confirmed a rumor that I first saw reported by Zack Whitaker of ZDNet last month: a new feature called Remote Media Streaming will let you access the music library on your home PC from another computer over the Web. It's like Slingbox, only instead of accessing the cable box or DVR sitting in your home, you're accessing the music files stored on your home PC."

This would be an excellent feature to implement to the Zune. I mean, come on, the wi-fi is just asking for a killer application and this would be one of the few features that the iPod touch does not use its wi-fi for. Of course, this is probably a pipe dream since this is in WMP rather that the Zune's software.

This week brings a new Zune Marketplace freebie that you can download, play back, burn to a CD, and sync to your Zune device. You'll need a Zune account to download the free content. Clicking on the link(s) below will automatically launch the Zune software and take you to the artist's page, so please ensure that the software is installed on your PC.

• Title: Ballskin
• Artist: MF Doom
• Genre: Hip-Hop
• Length: 1:30
• DRM-free MP3: Yes