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Zune: 23 Months Later

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Posts

  • AyulinAyulin Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    LeCaustic wrote: »
    ie: my kill bill soundtrack isn't one album, but 15 albums because there more than one artist:roll:

    A sort of workaround for this seems to be to change the Album Artist to "Various" or something of your fancy, while keeping the Artist as the same, using either something like MP3Tag or just editing it under the Properties menu in Windows.

    Ayulin on
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  • squirlysquirly Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    So, there's finally an Australian online store which has the new Zunes (Well, the 8GB ones, the 80GB ones will be in on 30/3, sigh) so I'm thinking of buying one but unfortunately they don't stock any accessories yet (All I'd get is some sort of case and possibly an FM transmitter).

    But now, for some reason I'm actually considering an iPod instead, but chances are I'll get a Zune.

    squirly on
    Diablo2 [US West; Ladder]: *DorianGraph [New/Main] *outsidewhale [Old]
  • KungFuKungFu Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    Ayulin wrote: »
    LeCaustic wrote: »
    ie: my kill bill soundtrack isn't one album, but 15 albums because there more than one artist:roll:

    A sort of workaround for this seems to be to change the Album Artist to "Various" or something of your fancy, while keeping the Artist as the same, using either something like MP3Tag or just editing it under the Properties menu in Windows.

    I use iTunes to change these as in itunes you can select multiple songs at once and edit them all at the same time (like give them all the same Album title/artist title/ablum artist/etc in one go).

    KungFu on
    Theft 4 Bread
  • ThatOneYoYoGuyThatOneYoYoGuy Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    What worked for me was loading the songs under MP3Tag, and adding a "Band" tag with the text "Various Artists". That way, you keep the Artists' names and you keep them together.

    ThatOneYoYoGuy on
  • FaceballMcDougalFaceballMcDougal Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    so games on Zune soon... cool

    FaceballMcDougal on
    xbl/psn/steam: jabbertrack
  • jonxpjonxp [E] PC Security Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    so games on Zune soon... cool

    Not just any games, but XNA games. I wonder if that means real homebrew, or only "approved" stuff.

    jonxp on
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  • squirlysquirly Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    For the Zune I'm pretty sure you can put anything onto your Zune.

    squirly on
    Diablo2 [US West; Ladder]: *DorianGraph [New/Main] *outsidewhale [Old]
  • meatflowermeatflower Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    What worked for me was loading the songs under MP3Tag, and adding a "Band" tag with the text "Various Artists". That way, you keep the Artists' names and you keep them together.

    MP3Tag is a god send for this sort of thing since I refuse to install iTunes on any computer that isn't a Mac. There's just so many better choices for a media player (The Zune's program *not* being one of them, just a necessary evil).

    meatflower on
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  • MorskittarMorskittar Lord Warlock Engineer SeattleRegistered User regular
    edited February 2008
    I've gotten the FM transmitter to perform quite well by stretching the cord across the car, with my Zune in the backseat. A bit awkward, but it cuts out almost all static, other than going through a tunnel or over a giant metal bridge.

    Morskittar on
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  • SirToastySirToasty Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    I still want a Zune. My Zen is much too small in capacity and gives me too much trouble with software and stuff. Maybe I can get one for my birthday. They still make the old design in 30GB right? I really don't like the new ones.

    SirToasty on
  • SushisourceSushisource Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    jonxp wrote: »
    so games on Zune soon... cool

    Not just any games, but XNA games. I wonder if that means real homebrew, or only "approved" stuff.

    If they let us develop our own games then I am so excited. Imagine the possibilities! They don't even have to be games! You could make coverflow for the zune in like, two hours, tops. There's all sorts of awesome shit I really want to do when they release the SDK.

    Sushisource on
    Some drugee on Kavinsky's 1986
    kavinskysig.gif
  • jonxpjonxp [E] PC Security Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    SirToasty wrote: »
    I still want a Zune. My Zen is much too small in capacity and gives me too much trouble with software and stuff. Maybe I can get one for my birthday. They still make the old design in 30GB right? I really don't like the new ones.

    If you mean the hardware, no, but it's still simple to find.

    If you mean the old firmware, yes the old ones have it, but you can't use the new software or any of the cool new features (like wireless sync) unless you update.
    jonxp wrote: »
    so games on Zune soon... cool

    Not just any games, but XNA games. I wonder if that means real homebrew, or only "approved" stuff.

    If they let us develop our own games then I am so excited. Imagine the possibilities! They don't even have to be games! You could make coverflow for the zune in like, two hours, tops. There's all sorts of awesome shit I really want to do when they release the SDK.


    Heck yeah. All kinds of possibilities, really.

    Sidenote: I *hate* coverflow as a navigation system though. It only works reasonably well if all of your music is easily organized by album. Not so much if you mostly own single tracks from all over.

    jonxp on
    Every time you write parallel fifths, Bach kills a kitten.
    3DS Friend Code: 2707-1614-5576
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  • SushisourceSushisource Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    Toast: The old ones can use the new firmware, which you'll want.

    Jon: Yes, coverflow is megastupid. It was just an example. I imagine rythm games would be fun to make, assuming they don't restrict access to the filesystem for some reason. Heck, audiosurf could be ported without much difficulty. Not to mention all the great applications, or user made interfaces that could be designed with it.

    Imagine making something as simple but awesome as ncmpc for the zune. Custom interfaces would rule!

    Sushisource on
    Some drugee on Kavinsky's 1986
    kavinskysig.gif
  • squirlysquirly Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    jonxp wrote: »
    so games on Zune soon... cool

    Not just any games, but XNA games. I wonder if that means real homebrew, or only "approved" stuff.

    If they let us develop our own games then I am so excited. Imagine the possibilities! They don't even have to be games! You could make coverflow for the zune in like, two hours, tops. There's all sorts of awesome shit I really want to do when they release the SDK.
    The 'SDK' is just XNA which is out already, but I think 3.0 is the version which has support, or simply better support for the Zune and will be out in a few months or less. I think 3.0 also includes upgrades in regards to the announcements of community games on the 360.

    And yes, anyone can make a game and put it on their Zune and you can have up to 8 Zune's in a single game playing via wireless.. but everyone needs to have a copy of the game them self as initially sending games via wireless won't be supported (The rename to an image thing may work but probably not).


    Video of an XNA game running on a Zune


    I think this settles it, I'm ordering a Zune but 30/3 is so far away. :(

    squirly on
    Diablo2 [US West; Ladder]: *DorianGraph [New/Main] *outsidewhale [Old]
  • fogeymanfogeyman Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    That video looks awesome, but I won't be getting any games on my Zune 30, will I? It's one of those older ones without the touchpad thing.

    fogeyman on
  • jonxpjonxp [E] PC Security Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    fogeyman wrote: »
    That video looks awesome, but I won't be getting any games on my Zune 30, will I? It's one of those older ones without the touchpad thing.

    According to reports, it's not ruled out, but you won't be able to use games that require the touch pad controls.

    jonxp on
    Every time you write parallel fifths, Bach kills a kitten.
    3DS Friend Code: 2707-1614-5576
    PAX Prime 2014 Buttoneering!
  • SirToastySirToasty Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    Toast: The old ones can use the new firmware, which you'll want.

    Jon: Yes, coverflow is megastupid. It was just an example. I imagine rythm games would be fun to make, assuming they don't restrict access to the filesystem for some reason. Heck, audiosurf could be ported without much difficulty. Not to mention all the great applications, or user made interfaces that could be designed with it.

    Imagine making something as simple but awesome as ncmpc for the zune. Custom interfaces would rule!
    This is good.

    SirToasty on
  • squirlysquirly Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    Guys, how is battery life on the Zune 80? I keep on hearing different things ranging from 15hours to 30hours..

    squirly on
    Diablo2 [US West; Ladder]: *DorianGraph [New/Main] *outsidewhale [Old]
  • SolSol Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    squirly wrote: »
    Guys, how is battery life on the Zune 80? I keep on hearing different things ranging from 15hours to 30hours..



    Ehhhhh for me it's about 15 hours, it usually lasts more if you don't have it on shuffle.

    Also can't wait to make some games for my Zune!!

    Sol on
  • Local H JayLocal H Jay Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    If your car has a tape deck, get a tape line-in.
    It's like a cassette you put in the stereo, which has a long headphone jack hanging off.
    Turns your essentially useless tape player into an AUX IN.
    Looka like dis:
    200696200415.jpg

    Local H Jay on
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    PS - Local_H_Jay
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    And Twitch
  • SushisourceSushisource Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    I knew that the SDK was XNA. I just meant I can't wait for them to release the Zune libraries.

    Sushisource on
    Some drugee on Kavinsky's 1986
    kavinskysig.gif
  • squirlysquirly Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    Sol wrote: »
    squirly wrote: »
    Guys, how is battery life on the Zune 80? I keep on hearing different things ranging from 15hours to 30hours..



    Ehhhhh for me it's about 15 hours, it usually lasts more if you don't have it on shuffle.

    Also can't wait to make some games for my Zune!!
    Ah, that's kind of worrying. Any other takers? :s

    squirly on
    Diablo2 [US West; Ladder]: *DorianGraph [New/Main] *outsidewhale [Old]
  • UncleChetUncleChet N00b Lancaster, PARegistered User regular
    edited February 2008
    So, is there a way to play all songs from all albums in order without it stopping? I don't mean shuffle, that works great. I'd like it to just continuously play all of the albums on my zune, in order. Do I have to add them all to a quick list or something? I'm trying to do this by genre btw.

    Thanks

    UncleChet on
    I'm sometimes grumpy and random, feel free to overlook the strange man in the corner.
  • FaceballMcDougalFaceballMcDougal Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    Quicklist seems like the only option. There isn't a way to do multiple sorts which is what you're asking when you say you want to play genre albums in order.

    FaceballMcDougal on
    xbl/psn/steam: jabbertrack
  • Captain VashCaptain Vash Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    I am looking for a Zune FM tuner w/ remote and AC charger, but I don't want to pay the 100+ dollars Microsoft would demand for these things, do I have any options?

    Captain Vash on
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  • KungFuKungFu Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    I am looking for a Zune FM tuner w/ remote and AC charger, but I don't want to pay the 100+ dollars Microsoft would demand for these things, do I have any options?

    I bought mine for $20 (used) /w shipping from some bargain website.

    KungFu on
    Theft 4 Bread
  • CrayonCrayon Sleeps in the wrong bed. TejasRegistered User regular
    edited March 2008
    I had an original 30g Zune and I just decided to upgrade to the 2.0 80g. I'm really liking the changes...like a lot. I honestly liked the original Zune, but I'm liking this even more. Others might not think it, but I think this thing trumps the Ipod (especially on the Itunes vs Marketplace front) in all the categories that matter (to me).

    Crayon on
  • TharghorTharghor Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    I just got my 80 gb zune. Living in Europe it wasn't quite easy. So far I like it a lot, just wish there was better audiobook support.

    Tharghor on
  • UncleChetUncleChet N00b Lancaster, PARegistered User regular
    edited March 2008
    So, podcasts. I've started listening to the D&D podcast and have it subscribed in my zune software. Is there a way to have the zune play a new episode of a podcast, or any other episode of a podcast after the current one is finished? Kind of like sequential play on an album, but with podcasts. I'd even settle for it being on shuffle. Is this possible?

    UncleChet on
    I'm sometimes grumpy and random, feel free to overlook the strange man in the corner.
  • FaceballMcDougalFaceballMcDougal Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    I don't see that being possible unless you change the meta-data on the files themselves to trick Zune into thinking they are music tracks.

    FaceballMcDougal on
    xbl/psn/steam: jabbertrack
  • UncleChetUncleChet N00b Lancaster, PARegistered User regular
    edited March 2008
    That sucks. Thanks for trying though.

    UncleChet on
    I'm sometimes grumpy and random, feel free to overlook the strange man in the corner.
  • Medium DaveMedium Dave Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Ok, maybe some of y'all can help me out. I just got a new computer with Vista and transferred all my stuff over to it, including all my mp3s. Zune software is installed and updated and everything is sync'd up nice. However. I don't like making playlists in Zune. I use winamp and haven't had a problem until now. Now, when I make a playlist, it'll add it to the playlists in Zune, but all the tracks will be unrecognized with that little yellow ! next to them and I have no idea why. Songs that are in folders being watched by Zune have the little ! and it's pissing me the fuck off. Zune wants me to change the way I sort my music (individual folders for artists and albums? My ass I'll do that.) and I really don't want to because of my spastic listening habits. So, anyone have any clue? A different playlist maker perhaps? Or am boned and am going to have to use the Z software to make my playlists?

    Medium Dave on
  • FaceballMcDougalFaceballMcDougal Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Look at the playlist files themselves in a text editor, somehow winamp is building them in a format Zune can't read.

    Playlists in Zune are very much retarded right now... I manually edited a few playlist files to get this sort of thing to work but in the end it was too much effort.

    I'm just resigned to the fact that it sucks, and some day smart playlists etc will come back

    FaceballMcDougal on
    xbl/psn/steam: jabbertrack
  • Local H JayLocal H Jay Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    So, my Zune program has two really bad issues:
    1) When I put soundtracks on it, instead of creating ONE album and containing all the various artists under it, it creates MULTIPLE albums titled the same thing, one for each different artist. You can see why this is FUCKING RETARDED.
    2) It also assigns the wrong Album Art to alot of my music.

    A third, less as bad issue: I have a decent amount of Japanese music that my 360 cannot detect from my computer. It's no big deal, just wanted to fix it.

    ANY HELP APPRECIATED. ALL CAPS.

    Local H Jay on
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    Sub me on Youtube
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  • meatflowermeatflower Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    So, my Zune program has two really bad issues:
    1) When I put soundtracks on it, instead of creating ONE album and containing all the various artists under it, it creates MULTIPLE albums titled the same thing, one for each different artist. You can see why this is FUCKING RETARDED.
    2) It also assigns the wrong Album Art to alot of my music.

    A third, less as bad issue: I have a decent amount of Japanese music that my 360 cannot detect from my computer. It's no big deal, just wanted to fix it.

    ANY HELP APPRECIATED. ALL CAPS.

    To your #1 and 2 issues your answer is Mp3Tag. Freeware ID3 tag editor that has integrated freedb and Amazon.com database support. This means that you can select the files for an album, pick your database, and after confirming it's guess, it will properly fill in all the tag data. This means when they're added to your Zune's collection they will work right and the Zune software won't fuck with em. You may need to move the files to another directory, fix the tags, and then put them back in your Zune's designated music folder.

    It's odd that the 360 can't read the Japanese files. If the file names are in Japanese (not Romaji) that means they're in Unicode, the 360 may or may not be able to read them. You may want to try retagging them with MP3Tag in English.

    meatflower on
    archer_sig-2.jpg
  • TharghorTharghor Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    meatflower wrote: »
    So, my Zune program has two really bad issues:
    1) When I put soundtracks on it, instead of creating ONE album and containing all the various artists under it, it creates MULTIPLE albums titled the same thing, one for each different artist. You can see why this is FUCKING RETARDED.
    2) It also assigns the wrong Album Art to alot of my music.

    A third, less as bad issue: I have a decent amount of Japanese music that my 360 cannot detect from my computer. It's no big deal, just wanted to fix it.

    ANY HELP APPRECIATED. ALL CAPS.

    To your #1 and 2 issues your answer is Mp3Tag. Freeware ID3 tag editor that has integrated freedb and Amazon.com database support. This means that you can select the files for an album, pick your database, and after confirming it's guess, it will properly fill in all the tag data. This means when they're added to your Zune's collection they will work right and the Zune software won't fuck with em. You may need to move the files to another directory, fix the tags, and then put them back in your Zune's designated music folder.

    It's odd that the 360 can't read the Japanese files. If the file names are in Japanese (not Romaji) that means they're in Unicode, the 360 may or may not be able to read them. You may want to try retagging them with MP3Tag in English.

    I had the same problem as Meatflower and used MP3tag. All my music is now correctly tagged and 90% of my music is in an /artist/album folder. After I had tagged all my music and began syncing, the software "didn't transfer" a lot of the music that had been retagged. Some did sync over. I then formatted the zune and tried syncing again, but the problem with the bad tags, redundant albums and wrong album art persists. Do you think I need to format the zune again and reinstall the software?

    Tharghor on
  • GiantRoboGiantRobo Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    So I reinstalled Windows XP MCE, and now I can't install my software. I get error code 0x80070643 which tells me to download a package, which I did. I still can't install it. This is really gay since I want to chnge a lot of my music up.

    Does anybody have an idea of what to do?

    D:

    Edit: I tried installing WMP11 for the hell of it to see what would happen, and now it tells me I need to have Window MCE 2005 or later.

    D:D:

    GiantRobo on
  • Gorilla SaladGorilla Salad Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Hey, so...my zune keeps randomly shutting itself completely off and rebooting. Anybody think they know why?

    Gorilla Salad on
  • TharghorTharghor Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Hey, so...my zune keeps randomly shutting itself completely off and rebooting. Anybody think they know why?

    Is the battery running low? Is it during playback? My zune shuts itself off if I pause it for a while. Maybe some wire is creating a short circuit

    Tharghor on
  • Medium DaveMedium Dave Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    The Zune HATES static electricity. So, it could be that. I work in a TV station, a place filled with static electricity and it resets about 5 times a day.

    Medium Dave on
This discussion has been closed.