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Zune HD to Get Updated Firmware with Xvid Support and Streaming Playlists

Ryan Whitwam — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:03:04 -0600

Microsoft seems to be pushing ahead with software updates to the Zune HD. In an upcoming spring firmware release, the player will get support for XviD encoded videos and streaming playlists. If you have a hard drive full of XviD files (that you may or may not have gotten via BitTorrent) this is certainly good news, as you won’t have to convert them whenever you want to view them on the Zune HD. Support for the similar, but proprietary, DivX codec is unlikely.

The streaming playlists will be an extension of the Smart DJ offering already in the Zune desktop software. This will allow the device to offer playlist suggestions much like the iTunes Genius feature. Smart DJ will pack a little extra surprise, though. When the player is in range of Wi-Fi, Smart DJ can stream songs right from the Zune Marketplace without the need for local storage. Does this make the Zune HD a more appealing device in your opinion?

First Twitter App Arrives on Zune HD in Family Friendly Form

Ryan Whitwam — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 20:00:11 -0600

When the Zune HD launched everyone was bothered by the lack of apps. It seemed like the perfect platform for it. Microsoft did eventually grace us with a few games and miscellaneous goodies. But as we all know, you can’t have an application platform without at least one Twitter client. Well, today the Zune HD got just that, a Twitter app.

The app can be found on the Marketplace right this second. It is first and foremost, a very attractive Twitter client. As it turns out, it’s also inexplicably laggy. The Zune HD packs the impressive Nvidia Tegra chip, but this app somehow obfuscates the power of the hardware. Just scrolling through and refreshing tweets seems to cause random crashes. Many are finding that touches aren’t being correctly interpreted either.

The truly confusing thing here is that the app actually censors tweets. As one astute reader tipped Engadget, any profanity is automatically replaced with asterisks. This is a move right out of Apple's App Store playbook, but worse because it is doing live censoring of content. Yes, the app is free, but keep in mind this device has a web browser capable of displaying all manner of online obscenity. Hopefully a software update will fix these problems. Hit the comments with any thoughts you have on this.

Reminder: Last Day of our Zune HD Giveaway Contest!

Norman Chan — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:15:00 -0600

Need a new portable media player? We're giving away a Zune HD 16GB (Black), courtesy of Nvidia. This kick-ass video and music player is powered by Nvidia's Tegra APX 2600 system-on-a-chip, a sports a vibrant 3.3" OLED screen. This Zune also comes with a custom engraving on the back. But enough of the technical babble. We're going to make it super easy for you to enter the contest, so hit the jump to get the full scoop on getting your name in the random drawing. In fact, you may already be entered!

To enter, all you have to do is become a fan of Maximum PC on our facebook page (www.facebook.com/maximumpc). That's it. No fancy essays, sob stories, or embarrassing photos required. And yes, even Canadians are elligible. So what are you waiting for? Read the rules below and join our facebook page today!

Fullspecs on the prize:

    * Brand Name: Zune
    * Model: EHD-00001
    * Digital Storage Capacity: 16 GB
    * Color: Black
    * Battery Average Life: 33 Hours
    * Hardware Platform: PC
    * Width: 2.1 inches
    * Depth: 0.4 inches
    * Weight: 2.6 Ounces
    * Radio Bands Supported: FM

MAXIMUM PC ZUNE HD CONTEST

OFFICIAL RULES

NO PURCHASE OR PAYMENT OF ANY KIND IS NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. A PURCHASE WILL NOT IMPROVE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING.

1. SPONSOR: This promotion (the “Contest”) is sponsored by Maximum PC magazine and Future US, Inc. (“Sponsors”), subject to the following terms and conditions.

2. ELIGIBILITY: Contest open to legal residents of the United States (excluding residents of Rhode Island and Puerto Rico) and legal residents of Canada, excluding residents of Quebec. Void where prohibited by law. Entrants must be at least 18 years of age. Employees of Sponsors, their respective parents, subsidiaries, affiliated companies, and agents, and foregoing employees’ household or immediate family members (defined as parent, spouse, child, sibling, or grandparent) are NOT eligible to enter Contest. By their submission of entry, participants warrant they are legally entitled and authorized to make such submission, either on their own behalf, or as to information submitted upon the express authorization of another on whose behalf the information is submitted.

3. TIMING: Contest begins at 12:01 a.m. PDT on November 2nd, 2009 and continues until 11:59 p.m. PDT on November 13th, 2009. Incomplete or late entries will not be accepted.

HOW TO ENTER: Email us at contests@maximumpc.com, putting “Zune HD Contest” in the subject line and including your complete name, address, daytime telephone number, city, state, and zip code in the body or join our Facebook page at http://facebook.com/maximumpc. There is a limit of one entry per eligible participant. Entries become the property of the Sponsors and will not be acknowledged or returned.

5. PRIZES AND ODDS: One Grand Prize will be awarded. The Grand Prize will be a Zune HD 16 GB Video MP3 Player (Black) and a total retail value of $219.99

Odds of winning shall be determined by the number of eligible entries received.

Prizes are nontransferable and must be accepted as awarded. Winner will be responsible for all taxes (federal, state, and local) and all expenses not listed herein related to acceptance and use of any prize. Prize will be awarded if properly claimed. Limit one prize per household.

6. DRAWING: Winners will be selected by random drawing from all valid eligible entries received. Drawing will be held on or about November 15th, 2009. Drawing will be conducted by Sponsors, whose decisions on all matters related to the Contest shall be final and binding and within their sole discretion. Canadian entrants selected in any drawing will be required to correctly answer, without assistance of any kind, whether mechanical or otherwise, a time-limited mathematical skill-testing question to be administered by mail or by telephone. Winning is contingent upon compliance with all terms and conditions set forth in these official rules; any entry drawn or any potential winner identified thereby found at any time to fail to comply with these official rules will be held invalid and ineligible for award.

NOTIFICATION: Winner will be notified by phone or email within one week following the random drawing. Winner so notified must within ten (10) days of notice of award, complete, execute and return the provided Affidavit, Waiver, Release and Indemnity Agreement including, where lawful, a Publicity Release (plus any additional documents required at the discretion of Sponsors). Failure to comply with the requirements of this paragraph (or the return of any prize or prize notification as non-deliverable) may result in disqualification and in the forfeiture of any right to a prize, in which case prize will be awarded to an alternate by random drawing. A list of winners will be available for six months after the award of prizes by sending a self addressed envelope with sufficient prepaid postage to:

MAXIMUM PC
ZUNE HD CONTEST
4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400
South San Francisco, CA 94080

Residents of the state of Vermont and Canada may omit return postage.
8. PRIVACY POLICY: Submissions are subject to standard privacy policy, the terms of which can be found at http://www.futureus.com/privacy.php, which terms and conditions entrants accept and agree to by submission of entries pursuant to these official rules.

9. RELEASE: by participating in the Contest and/or accepting a prize, a participant/winner agrees to defend, release and hold harmless the Sponsors and their respective parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, divisions, advertising and promotion agencies, and the foregoing companies’ officers, directors, shareholders, employees, representatives and agents (collectively “Releasees”) from and against any actions, claims and/or liability for injury, loss or damage of any kind, (including the violation or infringement of any proprietary or personal right of any individual or entity) resulting in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, from participation in the Contest, and/or the use, acceptance, or possession of a Contest prize, and/or participation in a Contest prize-related activity, including any action, claim or liability arising from the unauthorized submission of any information.

By participating in the Contest and/or accepting a prize, a participant/winner consents to and gives the Sponsors the right to use, publish, and display a winner’s (and where applicable a participant’s) name, city and state, and prize awarded, for the purpose of advertising, trade, publicity and promotional purposes in any media now known or hereafter discovered, worldwide, and on the Web, without review, notification or approval, all without additional consideration, unless prohibited by law.

10. CONDITIONS: Participants agree that by participating they release the Releasees from any liability in connection with: a) Entries that are ineligible as a result of being lost, late, illegible, damaged, incomplete, stolen, postage due, or misdirected: b) Any typographical or other human or technical errors in the offer or administration of the Contest, including but not limited to errors in advertising, these official rules, the selection and announcement of a winner(s), or the distribution/awarding of a prize(s); c) Any omission, interruption, deletion, defect, delay, misdirection, damage, injury, technical malfunctions or traffic congestion on the Internet/telephone network, or at any website, or any combination thereof.

Sponsors reserve the right to modify these rules for clarification purposes without materially affecting the term and conditions of the Contest. In the event that the Contest is infected by a computer virus/worm, or is not capable of running or being executed as planned (as a result of but not limited to an error, omission, defect, delay, misdirection, tampering, unauthorized intervention, fraud, action of entrants, or technical failure) or any other cause which in the sole opinion of Sponsors corrupts or affects the administration, security, fairness, integrity, or proper conduct of the Contest, Sponsors reserve the right in their sole discretion to disqualify any suspect entry or entrant and to cancel, terminate, modify or suspend the Contest. In the event of such cancellation, termination, modification or suspension, notice thereof will be posted at the entry website(s) mentioned above, and winner(s) will be determined solely by Sponsors in a random drawing from among all eligible non-suspect and/or non-disqualified entries. In such event, Releasees shall have no liability to any participant who is disqualified due to such an action. Failure to enforce any term of these official rules shall not constitute a waiver of that provision.

11. LAW: This Contest is governed by the laws of the United States and is subject to all federal, state, and local laws and regulations. Void where prohibited or restricted. All issues and questions concerning the construction, validity, interpretation, and enforceability of these Official Rules, or the rights and obligations of entrants or Sponsor in connection with any drawing or award, shall be governed by, and construed in accordance with the laws of, the State of California, without regard to conflict of law principles. Any cause of action by you with respect to the offer (and/or any information, products or services related thereto) must be instituted within one (1) year after the cause of action arose or be forever waived and barred. All actions shall be subject to the limitations set forth in above. The language in these official rules shall be interpreted as in accordance with its fair meaning and not strictly for or against either party. All legal proceedings arising out of or in connection with the offer of these official rules shall be brought solely in San Mateo County, California. You expressly submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of said courts and consent to extraterritorial service of process.

Zune HD Gets a Bevy of Free 3D Games

Pulkit Chandna — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:30:04 -0600

Microsoft enabled 3-D gaming on the Zune HD through a firmware refresh over the weekend. It hasn’t taken too long for the first batch of 3D games to arrive. The Zune Marketplace is now host to 6 new games for the device: PGR: Ferrari Edition, Lucky Lane Bowling, Vans Sk8: Pool Service, Piano, Checkers, and Audiosurf: Tilt.

All the games are available for free but Zune HD users will have to sit through a small ad before getting into the thick of the action. The game’s are designed to leverage much more than just the latest firmware update, namely the Zune HD’s accelerometer, multi-touch OLED screen and the NVIDIA Tegra chip.

Image Credit: HelloFromEurope

Zune HD v4.3 Firmware Update Brings Several New Improvements

Justin Kerr — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:03:12 -0600

Okay, so it’s not like Zune HDs were dropping dead right left and center, but more than a few users were irked that play count issues have plagued the device since day one, and many were wondering if it would ever get fixed. Specifically, the Zune HD wouldn’t register a song as “played” unless you skipped to another track manually after about 20 seconds or so. If you were one of the many who were annoyed by this bug, the end is nigh.

The just released v4.3 firmware update addresses not only this issue, but offers up a myriad of “minor improvements”, not the least of which is a snappier browser.

In addition to speed enhancements, it offers up “support for upcoming 3d games and applications, as well as an auto-suggest feature for better text input”. Its great to see Microsoft continuing to make improvements to the device, but who are we kidding, this thing pretty much kicked ass to begin with right?

Zune HD 4.3 firmware brings:

Support for the upcoming 3D games and applications.
Auto Suggest feature for text input.
Faster web browsing experience.
Landscape keyboard
Keyboard option has been added in the settings section.
New toggle between seek and presets under Radio.
Under the Internet in settings, you can now toggle to default mobile or desktop webpage layout.
Artists bios are updated; embedded links to other artists in text.
Other bug fixes.

Zune HD

Jason Cross — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:30:40 -0500

If at first you don't succeed...

Try as it might, Microsoft has never been able to put a dent in Apple's marketshare for portable media players. The previous Zune players were pretty good, and the Zune desktop software finally got there after a few revisions, but neither one had the "wow factor" necessary to pull the masses away from the iPod juggernaut. With the Zune HD (and accompanying Zune 4.0 software), Microsoft has finally delivered the kind of truly exciting device that should make even the most ardent iPod fan take notice. It's sleek, small, thin, and surprisingly light with the rare quality of looking as good as Apple's products without looking just like Apple's products. There are only three buttons: power/sleep on top, a home button beneath the screen on the front, and a "media button" on the upper left edge.

It's also the first product to hit the market with Nvidia's Tegra APX 2600 system-on-chip, which packs a pair of ARM11 cores with lots of individual processors for audio and video encoding and decoding, 2D graphics, 3D graphics (with OpenGL ES 2.0 support), etc. This is paired with an 3.3" OLED screen that conforms to the 16:9 ratio of HD movies with a resolution of 480x272 (the same as the PSP, only smaller). The multi-touch display is as accurate and responsive as any we've used, and downright gorgeous. Blacks are perfectly black, colors are bright and vibrant, and there's no smearing or ghosting effect. It's the first mainstream portable with support for HD radio, at a time when many other portable media players aren't even including an FM tuner. You can, as with previous Zunes, tag a radio song and put it in your cart, so you can download it later. With the HD AV dock (sold separately) it can output 720p video to your TV over HDMI, which looks pretty darn great. You can, of course, also play all your music, podcasts, and HD radio through the dock as well. If anything, we could complain that this slick little gizmo is actually too small. With a screen so pretty, you want to something a tad larger to watch movies and play games on.

This is an impressive and surprisingly energy-efficient hardware package. The specs say 33 hours of music or 8.5 hours of video, but like all battery specs, this is a pipe dream that don't reflect real usage scenarios. Our battery lasted for just over 10 hours of heavy and varied use with Wi-Fi enabled, which is better than most devices of this type.

If the modern gadget market has taught us anything, it's that the most amazing hardware in the world is useless without a great interface. Fortunately, the Zune developers have hit a home run with the Zune HD's touch UI. The home screen shows a simple list of categories (music, videos, pictures, radio, marketplace, social, podcasts, internet, apps, and settings). Drilling down into each of these is clear and intuitive, with left and right finger-swipes to swap to different categories, and vertical swipes to fly up and down the list of content. Long lists (artists and albums) have an alphabet jump-menu that can take you right to a specific letter. The real magic happens when you tap the left edge of the home screen, swipe to the right, or press the home button to "flip" it over to the Quickplay menu that shows your recent history, new stuff, and "pinned" content. You can pin anything there - apps, podcasts, albums, artists, songs, playlists, even web bookmarks - by holding down your finger on the item and choosing "pin to quickplay." It's a simple and elegant solution a big problem with mutli-funtion portable devices: getting to your most frequently used stuff quickly. There are a few niggling issues, like a slight inconsistency in the way one backs out of different screens. The "back" arrow present in some places should simply always be there, and always take you back one level.

The web browser is surprisingly good, too. It's not quite as fast as Safari on the iPhone or iPod Touch, and it doesn't support Flash, but it works great with even complex websites and all the expected zoom and pinch and drag gestures work. It's based on Internet Explorer, but you'd never know it, especially if you're used to the abomination that is IE for Windows Mobile. It's another reason why we find the device perhaps a touch too small; the on-screen keyboard works well, but is a bit cramped when you hold the 16:9 screen vertically. Text scaling could be a little bit smoother, and it would be easier to read some sites on a slightly larger screen.

If you're within range of Wi-Fi, the Zune HD gets a bit more useful. Browse any artist in your music collection and a little down arrow at the bottom of the screen will extend the page with a discography of that artist's work on the marketplace. You can stream or purchase tracks and albums right there on the device. Of course, you can browse the music and apps marketplace in the traditional manner, by choosing "marketplace" from the main menu. Interestingly, the "squirting" function of previous Zune models is now gone. You used to be able to send tracks to any other Zune in physical proximity over Wi-Fi, with the stipulation that they can only listen to it three times without buying it. It its place is perhaps a better feature. You can send what is effectively a link to any artist or album to any Zune Tag or email address you want, wherever they are. If they don't have Zune software or an account, they can listen to a 30-second clip on Zune.net. Still a feather in Zune's cap is Wi-Fi syncing - once you link your Zune to a PC on your home wireless network, you can sync it without cables.

The Zune desktop software gets a host of refinements and a few extra features in the 4.0 release, too. There's a new Quickplay intro screen that mirrors the functionality on the portable device with pinned content, new stuff, and your recent history. You can choose to go right to your collection, the marketplace, or the social upon launch, if you want. The software now supports Windows 7 features like jumplists and a mouseover taskbar player that has the little heart-rating added. The library and marketplace interfaces have been touched up, and are cleaner and better organized than iTunes 9. The best new feature is something Microsoft calls "Smart DJ." There's a new Smart DJ icon on every album and artist in your collection or the marketplace. Click this to get a custom playlist of that artist and similar ones. It's a bit like Pandora, only it generates a playlist about 30 items long instead of a continuous stream. Unlike iTunes 9's new Genius Mix feature, it includes both local content and streaming music from the marketplace (you can turn that off if you like). You can even save any Smart DJ mix as a playlist, and then adjust how long it should be (in songs or minutes) and how often (in days) it should be refreshed, if at all. You can then sync these Smart DJ playlists to your Zune device, and it'll be refreshed when you sync.

Features like these add tremendous value to the Zune Pass, Microsoft's $15 a month all-you-can-eat music subscription service. Smart DJ is a great way to discover and download new music. Zune Pass subscribers also get unlimited streaming of full songs, not just preview clips, from any web browser on any PC or Mac by going to Zune.net. Yeah, the Zune Pass content is laden with DRM (how else would it expire if you don't renew your subscription?), but they even give you 10 song credits a month you can use to download totally DRM-free MP3s that you'll own forever. The marketplace's tight integration between device, desktop, and web make the Zune Pass a seriously good deal for music fans.

If there's an Achilles' heel to the Zune HD, it's apps. There are only nine apps in the marketplace, all of them free and seven of them games. They're nothing special, really. You'd have paid a couple bucks for some of them when the iPhone App Store launched, but they pale in comparison to what you can get today. Others are coming this fall, including Project Gotham Racing: Ferrari Edition, Vans SK8: Pool Service, and Audiosurf Tilt in addition to Facebook and Twitter. That's good, but this is a device that desperately needs a real app marketplace. Perhaps it isn't too far away - Microsoft just updated the XNA development framework to version 3.1, adding support for the Zune HD's accelerometer and multi-touch screen.

So is the Zune HD better than the iPod Touch against which it competes? That all depends on what you're looking for. If you want a portable player primarily for media, the Zune HD trounces the iPod Touch. Music, video, and podcast offerings are similar, but the Zune has FM and HD radio, marginally better sound quality, 720p video output, the optional Zune Pass subscription service for music, and an honest-to-goodness superior interface. The software on both desktop and device is designed to be vastly better for discovering new music. If you want a pocket computer to run apps and play games, with music and video playing as a second-tier function, the incredibly robust App Store on the iPod Touch make it still the obvious choice.

Microsoft still has work to do, of course. With all that hi-def video and subscription music, we desperately need a 64GB model. The hardware and software service aren't available outside the U.S., and really needs to be expanded internationally. The required Zune software is Windows-only, which leaves Mac users out in the cold, or at the very least requires Boot Camp or virtualization of them. Most of all, a truly robust app marketplace needs to be built, and fast. For those looking to buy a portable media player for, you know, media, the Zune HD is a truly awesome little device. Microsoft has a product that has captured the enthusiasm of gadget geeks across the web, and it doesn't disappoint.

Free Zune Apps Contain Static and Video Advertisements

Ryan Whitwam — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:01:51 -0500

Microsoft has managed to get a few apps ready for the Zune HD at launch. The only downside to this is that the apps show both static and video ads while starting up. Additionally, the start ups are agonizingly slow, resulting in lots of time spent staring at the Kia Soul. The chess game takes about 30 seconds to load. In all fairness though, the platform is brand new and there could still be kinks to work out.

There are currently only nine apps available for download: calculator, weather, Texas hold 'em, Sudoku, Space Battle 3, Shell Game... Of the Future, Hexic, Goo Splat, and Chess. While the ads may be annoying, all the apps are free.

Currently the utility apps, like weather and calculator, haven’t been showing ads. By all reports, the apps look nice, and you can’t argue with the price. Still, would you be willing to put up with these sorts of ads on the Zune HD?

First Apps Now Available for Zune HD

Andy Salisbury — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:48:26 -0500

The Zune HD may only be a couple of days old, but the app store for the device is already up and running.

A “Marketplace” which offers nine free apps is already shelling out software to Zune HD users across the land. The apps, which include calculator, weather, Texas hold ‘em, Sudoku, Space Battle 3, Shell Game… Of the Future, Hexic, Goo Splat and Chess will appear in a new “Apps” menu on the main screen once they’re downloaded. Reportedly, the apps look and act pretty solid, but feature adverts during startup that cause the boot time to exceed 30 seconds in some cases.

Either way though, they’re free – so you get what you pay for.

Image Credit: Ars Technica