New Zune HD Details...

Yeah, the Giz article thinks the browser's excellent. Ars didn't get down on their knees for mobile IE 6 as can be seen in their much more honest review. They also picked up on the annoyance that comes from a missing volume rocker.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2009/09/zune-hd-review.ars

My favorite part of the review:

"In an apparent dig at iTunes, the new tagline for the desktop software is "Browse music, not spreadsheets," and indeed the Zune software is highly visual, lacking a comprehensive grid-based list view." :D

EDIT: GIz didn't delete them, had a senior moment.
 
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I still see some of your comments on the comments section of the Giz article Jodiuh.
 
Yeah? Which one? I didn't see them.

EDIT: Yup, I see em. NM then. I guess the comments take a moment to go up...

EDIT2: Hey, I found a link to encode hd, which apparently transcodes for Zune HD's. Anyone have experience w/ this? Also, I'm using Badaboom again on a DVD copy of Pursuit of Happyness. It turned out pretty dang good. At least as good as the Ironman encodes you guys sent me the other day. Actually, it looks sharper. :D
 
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Some of the design choices mentioned in the Ars article (and even the Gizmodo article) seem as boneheaded as whatever failures the browser suffers from, at 'least to me... There's a reason Apple went back and added a volume rocker to the touch with the 2nd version, having to press a button then fuss with the screen just to adjust the volume seems like a complete fail. With the iPod you can also keep it in your pocket and control playback (play/pause, skip, and repeat at 'least) thru an inline mic button if you really want to.

I dunno, even if the screen is gorgeous (albeit very reflective), and even if it sounds somewhat better than the iPod touch... I still can't see any redeeming feature that would make me wanna buy it instead of a touch (let alone switch over to it from the touch I already own). Here's to hoping they release an SDK at some point and MS provides updates in a more timely fashion than Apple (which is not hard to do, at all). If the browser was improved I'd consider it in the future, just to avoid Apple's vice-grip upon the device...

At 'least 3rd parties are getting quicker at side-stepping Apple's shenanigans, only took MediaMonkey two days to restore iPod touch sync compatibility after a firmware update this time! :p

Edit: There's a couple things I like, but many of those things are tied to the ZunePass which I have no interest in. If a company really wants people to take notice they'd stop trying to one-up Apple at what Apple does best and they'd include a removable battery, or an SDHC slot, or FLAC/DiVX support, or other tangible features that will really attract certain buyers imo (i.e. the enthusiast, 'cuz let's face it, joe blow is still gonna buy an iPod).
 
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Wait, what? Can the 3G touch can sync w/ media monkey? I've never used it, but I HATE using iTunes to manage music. It's a terrible, terrible piece of software that's completely gimped. It has no watch folder (that can be chosen), minimal control over changing your view, organizes by album, not album artist, and it's just flat out ugly. The Zune software was a much more enjoyable experience. I could have seen that replacing winamp for me.

Oh and that encode HD program's going to take about 2.6 hrs to encode a flic on my poor netbook. :(
 
Yes, the iPod touch (and iPhone) have been been able to sync with MediaMonkey for a long time... As well as a few other apps. Tho none of 'em are anywhere near as polished or as well supported as MM imo, some of them do tend to restore compatibility after a new OS update quicker than MM/Ventis does. OTOH when they do, MM usually gets it right, no slow-ass or half working syncs.

You still have to use iTunes to transfer videos, or sync photos, or backup the device, or sync apps; but I haven't used iTunes to manage the music on my touch since I bought it a year and a half ago. MediaMonkey is soooo much better in every regard that I don't even mind it that Apple keeps changing the encryption in their database w/every OS update... I can always wait it out if it doesn't look like MM will get it working ASAP. I only updated to 3.0 for the BT support to be honest, search and the landscape kb are nice tho (tho I already had an app to write e-mails w/a landscape kb).

MM is just a dream to use tho, highly recommended... In every way, as far as sync'ing with the iPod and as a music library manager. Zune/WMP/iTunes and the other jukebox-type programs I've tried in the past have nothing on it... It's very simple to use and configure (unlike say, foobar), but very flexible.

Edit: Sending ya a PM w/some stuff about MM, not pertinent to this thread. :p
 
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Jodiuh said:
EDIT2: Hey, I found a link to encode hd, which apparently transcodes for Zune HD's. Anyone have experience w/ this? Also, I'm using Badaboom again on a DVD copy of Pursuit of Happyness. It turned out pretty dang good. At least as good as the Ironman encodes you guys sent me the other day. Actually, it looks sharper. :D
Click to expand...

Is it in HD? (edit: nvm you just said DVD) The one I did was at 1280x528, so if you want to get that rip-off dock, you can see it in full quality :D. And of course, the Zune HD can't display all that detail! Play both files (the 73 MB ironman one and the badaboom one) on your main rig's monitor and compare the two.

I should also do some test encodes at the native resolution of the Zune HD too.
 
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Missed that edit... How do you like Badaboom btw? I'd been considering buying it, if it does encode stuff significantly faster than my C2Q (for the iPod). Not terribly concerned w/quality since I probably wouldn't notice the difference on that small a screen, tho if it can encode stuff reasonably well so I can also use it to convert rips and MPEG2 files (from my TiVo) to transfer to my netbook, that'd be a plus.
 
"We have confirmed with Microsoft that apps will be free, will all be written or overseen by Microsoft, and will include Twitter, Facebook, weather, a calculator, and 3D games."

So this new Project Gotham Racing and Audiosurf Tilt are going to be free? If that's the case I'm going to order one of these bad boys right now.

Is there a link to Microsoft confirming this, or should I just take Ars' word for it?
 
Jodiuh said:
Yeah? Which one? I didn't see them.

EDIT: Yup, I see em. NM then. I guess the comments take a moment to go up...

EDIT2: Hey, I found a link to encode hd, which apparently transcodes for Zune HD's. Anyone have experience w/ this? Also, I'm using Badaboom again on a DVD copy of Pursuit of Happyness. It turned out pretty dang good. At least as good as the Ironman encodes you guys sent me the other day. Actually, it looks sharper. :D
Click to expand...

I tried this program to transcode a file (wasn't HD quality) and the zune software said the container was unknown or something to that effect.

On the other hand, Handbrake or whatever it is called worked fine with some settings I found on anythingbutipod.com
 
question for any zune HD owners/experts.....

can you wirelessly stream music from your collection on you computer through the zune?

what i want to do is this, if i got a zune i would put my music collection on it, but my wife wants to use it in our baby's room in a speaker dock to play lullabys and stuff. Can i stream those songs from my PC through the zune without having to store the songs on the zune and taking up space?

thanks
 
Anyone have any hints on how to go Blu-ray --> Zune compatible H264 file? Is there a preset in handbrake that will work?

Thanks,

Y2J
 
Jodiuh said:
Wait, what? Can the 3G touch can sync w/ media monkey? I've never used it, but I HATE using iTunes to manage music. It's a terrible, terrible piece of software that's completely gimped. It has no watch folder (that can be chosen), minimal control over changing your view, organizes by album, not album artist, and it's just flat out ugly. The Zune software was a much more enjoyable experience. I could have seen that replacing winamp for me.

Oh and that encode HD program's going to take about 2.6 hrs to encode a flic on my poor netbook. :(
Click to expand...

Why did you return your Zune HD? :(
 
my only real complain right now has to do with the browser. so far, it only lets you do a Bing search for data (unless you've bookmarked a page). it won't let you specify and open a URL directly.
 
svet-am said:
my only real complain right now has to do with the browser. so far, it only lets you do a Bing search for data (unless you've bookmarked a page). it won't let you specify and open a URL directly.
Click to expand...

That's not true.. hit the "..." and you can type in a URL.
 
Anyone tried the Zune HD FM radio on your car stereo using the auxilary jack? I tried it but doesn't work. I got scrambling signal when I plug in the auxilary plug. If I unplug it, it work fine. Do you have to get the car pack to get it to work?
 
duckymcse said:
Anyone tried the Zune HD FM radio on your car stereo using the auxilary jack? I tried it but doesn't work. I got scrambling signal when I plug in the auxilary plug. If I unplug it, it work fine. Do you have to get the car pack to get it to work?
Click to expand...

So let me get this straight - your using the headphone jack to hook up to your car stereo? Not an FM transmitter gadget right? And the HD radio isn't working?
 
I have a headphone plug from my car stereo and plug it into the headphone jack on the Zune HD. This doesn't seem to work at all. I wonder if the car pack will help. I went to 3 Best Buy to looks for the car pack and none of them carry it yet :(
Anyone try the car pack yet?

Bohica69 said:
So let me get this straight - your using the headphone jack to hook up to your car stereo? Not an FM transmitter gadget right? And the HD radio isn't working?
Click to expand...
 
duckymcse said:
Anyone tried the Zune HD FM radio on your car stereo using the auxilary jack? I tried it but doesn't work. I got scrambling signal when I plug in the auxilary plug. If I unplug it, it work fine. Do you have to get the car pack to get it to work?
Click to expand...

Works fine here.
 
duckymcse said:
Anyone tried the Zune HD FM radio on your car stereo using the auxilary jack? I tried it but doesn't work. I got scrambling signal when I plug in the auxilary plug. If I unplug it, it work fine. Do you have to get the car pack to get it to work?
Click to expand...

In my understanding Zune HD uses headphone cable as anntenna. If your aux cable is too short it may not be able to get signal.
 
Maybe this explain it why it didn't work. When I plug in the included headphone FM/HD radio work fine. When I plug in my speakers using the auxilary jack to Zune HD, I can't get any signal.

ashmelev75 said:
In my understanding Zune HD uses headphone cable as anntenna. If your aux cable is too short it may not be able to get signal.
Click to expand...
 
Impulse said:
Edit: Sending ya a PM w/some stuff about MM, not pertinent to this thread. :p
Click to expand...
Thanks, reading now.

Yoshiyuki Blade said:
Is it in HD? I should also do some test encodes at the native resolution of the Zune HD too.
Click to expand...
Nope, standard DVD, but the encodes I got from you guys had jaggies that were a little jarring. The encode from DVD to MP4 via Badaboom has perfectly smooth edges. It's not in HD, but it just looks better. Well, aside from the completely missing blacks on this device since the iPod thinks gray is black. :D I think it really could be from res mismatch.

Impulse said:
How do you like Badaboom btw?
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I love it. Got $10 off from EVGA when I ordered it. It's very simple, great GUI, encodes look fine to me, and it's fast. Although, I'm not sure if it'll read DIVX/XVID. I use it mainly for DVD's.

riot8ap said:
I tried this program to transcode a file (wasn't HD quality) and the zune software said the container was unknown or something to that effect.

On the other hand, Handbrake or whatever it is called worked fine with some settings I found on anythingbutipod.com
Click to expand...
Same here. It wound up taking nearly 5 hours to transcode on my netbook and in the end, didn't work on my iPod touch. I guess I'll go back to the incredibly ugly and overly complex Handbrake. :( Do you have a link to that guide?

TheSandman2236 said:
Why did you return your Zune HD? :(
Click to expand...

The browsing experience is weak. It's no better than a phone IMO. The screen size is too small, the keyboard's too small, the txt appears too small, and it's just too slow. That was the main reason, however now that I've had the touch for a day, I can clearly see many, many other reasons. Here...

1. No hard volume or easy media controls - this is such a tremendous fail, I would simply choose to deal or tolerate w/ the current volume or track because those simple functions are anything but on the new Zune
2. GUI artsy, but not functional - flipping an album around to see a numbered list of tracks proves MUCH easier than searching for a series of 5mm high breadcrumbs
3. No apps (the crap goo game does not count when the outstanding Alive4Ever for .99 exists)
4. No speaker - the touch speaker's admittedly weak, but it allows for a certain amount of freedom I really enjoy, especially for gaming and browsing
5. No dedicated email - I really didn't even know I wanted this until I found out how awesome it really is
6. iTunes store really is king (more media, faster streaming of previews), I spent no time on the Zune marketplace because I couldn't even get there. :D

In short, the touch allows me to do much more and do so easily. It never feels like a struggle to do anything on that device. Everything's right there where you need it. And it's FAST. And now that I've found a way to keep the media organized on iTunes via the itunes library updater, even the desktop software has become less sucky. Albeit, still a FAR cry from the excellent Zune desktop software. It just seems like MS cannot do mobile software well, but they excel in desktop software. The opposite is true for Apple, as I find even the itunes store much more manageable on the device than iTunes.

In the end, I see only a few reasons to go w/ Zune HD over the new touch. And really only 2 of them stand out, the OLED screen and the sound quality. But even then, the screen is smaller and the newer 3G touch sounds better than the 2G. It's not that much further behind the Zune HD IMO. Good luck to you guys and wish you all many happy Zuning!!

Edit: I'm glad to see that engadget feels exactly the same as I do about the browser and sound quality. They did a much better job reviewing this unit than Giz.
 
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Jodiuh said:
Nope, standard DVD, but the encodes I got from you guys had jaggies that were a little jarring. The encode from DVD to MP4 via Badaboom has perfectly smooth edges. It's not in HD, but it just looks better. Well, aside from the completely missing blacks on this device since the iPod thinks gray is black. :D I think it really could be from res mismatch.
Click to expand...

That is most definitely an issue with the Zune HD's scaling then :eek:. Ahhh... so you don't have the device anymore?
 
Jodiuh said:
Nope. I'm all zuned out. :D
Click to expand...

Sorry to hear that. The ZHD is such a wonderful media player that I can't help but love it. The browser really isn't that bad for such a tiny screen but I can understand that and the app situation though that's only going to get with the Zune when WinMo 7 comes out and Zune Marketplace ends up on WinMo Phones.

But as far as browsing goes even an iPod touch isn't what it used to be. I just can't tell you how awesome the HTC Touch Pro 2 is for browsing. The Opera browser is VERY good. And the IE browser in it should be a bit better than the one in the ZHD. How the iPhone/iTouch are smoother in operation and a bit faster, but the kicker for the TP2 is a screen just a tad bigger physically, with 2.5 times the resolution! It just makes reading SO much nicer and its easier to pick up smaller text and you can just get a bit more on the screen.

I'm sure that some people might be a bit put off by the control of Opera on the TP2, its just not quite as smooth as the iPhone/iPod Touch but the screen resolution and quality make up for it and then a bit. Hell even a media player you can take the TP2, slide out the keyboard, tilt the screen and you have a little video player. And the speaker is so good that you can actually hear most stuff CLEARLY! It's just nothing that you can do on any phone out there right now. And I'm still on 6.1. 6.5 will be a BIG GUI update and runs smoother from what I hear.

Just my thoughts. After using this phone I really think some people who just wanted a phone that could play media and not a bunch of other apps would be VERY happy to switch to this phone. I wouldn't expect it much, WinMo is going to be plague until 7.0 comes out.

Good luck with the iPod touch!
 
Its really unfortunate people have these negative feelings for the zune hd. I had an iphone and now have a pre and I agree the browsing experience could be much better. I always thought apps were cool, but they are not a deal breaker for me right now, I had em on my iphone, and I used the internet more then anything.

But the music experience on the zune hd is AMAZING! I think this is mainly because of the zune pass, but man, its soooo nice, it spanks my iphone in this regard. when you view your albums you see what you have, what you can instantly download or stream. I know it can be considered stupid to sum by paying for music. And others a subscription, but the experience you get, and the freedom of choices to instantly try new music, is unmatched. even on the played, I can be in class downloading all kinds of new albums. And as far as operating the music side of the player, its really fast. The screen is really nice, I love the deep blacks. The bio and pictures of the artist, how good the zune software is at loading up album art, matching artists. The experience is really just amazing imo.

I cant really explain how wonderful it is.

if you dont own a phone currently that has a great web browser or something that plays good games, then sure I could understand wanting to get an ipod touch and would probably get one, but from a music player pov, I would def. get a zune.

man I love this thing
 
Im loving my zune HD. Does everything I want it to do:

*Seamless Mp3 transfers even over wireless
*Internet browsing out of pocket in my apartment...I don't have to fire up my netbook or wait for my painfully crap blackberry browser to load to look up some mundane argument winner with friends and or how to install "X" in my jeep write up while in the garage
*My entire Mp3 library at hand whenever I want it, in my pocket, for 33 hours, vs 7 for my phone (BB storm)
*Beautiful WMV playback

Cons:
*It doesn't do Xvid (Come ON! whats a hundred K to make your customers satisfied? Sony did it with the PS3...probably free)
*Apps library is borked and just doesn't work even with titles already listed (growing pains?)
*Earbuds are lacking (covers fall off easily...lost one quickly)
*Horrible transfer/encode of video...what the heck is going on? I cant transcode anything...once again, look at Sony and the PS3/WMP/transcode/codecs integration here
 
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dravisar said:
Cons:
*It doesn't do Xvid (Come ON! whats a hundred K to make your customers satisfied? Sony did it with the PS3...probably free)
Click to expand...

It *might* still support XviD and the old DivX if you remux the files to .m4v since .avi is ancient and needs to die already :D. Those two fall under MPEG-4 Part 2, which the Zune HD can do. Also, I think the times have moved on to H.264 content these days.
 
I purchased the zune hd on monday and i have to say my experience with it has been awesome.

I agree with what user WRXDrunkie said. This player is incredible as a media player. The integration with zune desktop software and the software on the player is awesome. The key points for myself are the zune pass and the sound quality. Yeah, 15 a month is a lot of money considering you only keep 10 tracks a month, but I have already downloaded around 10 albums and 6 of them I would have never downloaded. I think its quite amazing that I load up smartdj, find an artist simular to what I like, then download their whole album, and then listen to tracks that would never be singles or popular.

Also, it allows me to have all sorts of different music on my zune, so when i play random, i get to listen to all sorts of crazy stuff. If i just have itunes, its only gonna be things i purchase, and im not gonna waste $10 on an album i might not like.

I think just like what WRXdrunkie said, if you dont have a iphone or nice phone with web browser, this product might not be for you. but if you have an iphone, like i do, then its a really great device. I do all my web browsing on my laptop and iphone. My zune hd is strictly a media player for music and some vids.
 
wrxdrunkie said:
...how good the zune software is at loading up album art, matching artists...if you dont own a phone currently that has a great web browser or something that plays good games, then sure I could understand wanting to get an ipod touch and would probably get one, but from a music player pov, I would def. get a zune.
Click to expand...
I couldn't agree more. The Zune Desktop software makes music management a MUCH more pleasant experience than iTunes. I usually have to do my artwork by hand and even need a program to manage watch folders. To make matters worse, you can't sort by Album Artist in the main column, something the Zune software does automatically. No question about that, Zune software > iTunes for music.

I have to use Verizon out here in AZ because ATT's got some pretty terrible coverage. And I do not have a PSP/DS either. It's really convenient to have so much stuff to do on one little device.

dravisar said:
*Earbuds are lacking (covers fall off easily...lost one quickly)
Click to expand...
You're doing it wrong. Let me demonstrate the proper placement for (most) pack in earbuds...

dotherightthing.jpg
 
duckymcse said:
Maybe this explain it why it didn't work. When I plug in the included headphone FM/HD radio work fine. When I plug in my speakers using the auxilary jack to Zune HD, I can't get any signal.
Click to expand...

It is the exact reason.
I tried to use my real headphones with 2+ meter cable and comparing to original earbuds Zune managed to pick a lot of extra radio stations, including few HD ones. With earbuds I'm lucky if it picks 3 main stations in my area.
 
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