Zune Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

"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!

"When the US [Gizmodo edition] reviewed the beta [of Zune Video on Xbox Live] yesterday, they were a bit harsh on the Zune marketplace. They said: “Not a whole lot to write home about yet besides 1080p streams”. But they come from a country where VOD is commonplace and easy to get — Netflix, Hulu, Roku, Amazon, TiVo… all let you watch your entertainment whenever you want. Here in Australia, we have iTunes, we have TiVo and we have Foxtel, but the truth is that the Zune Video Marketplace is a much easier and superior experience to both of those."

With all of the competition here in US, it's often easy to forget that even parts of the Western world don't have access to a wide range of quality VOD services. As compared to their brothers in the US edition, who found nothing particularly interesting in the Zune video-on-demand offering for Xbox Live, Gizmodo Australia was excited to report that the Smooth Streaming technology worked as advertised, and moreover that the service was easy to use. It seems like Zune Video is definitely a viable solution for those readers who are overseas and don't have access to maybe a Hulu or Amazon service. Hopefully we'll start to see some strong advances for those of us in the US too.

There were some rumblings about this last week, but today at E3 Microsoft has confirmed the details: Xbox owners will be able to access all the video content on the Zune Marketplace. Playback is enhanced by what Microsoft is calling "Smooth Streaming" - video playback starts very quickly at a low bit-rate, then ramps up in bit-rate for maximum quality. This means that, assuming you have a decently fast Internet connection, there shouldn't be much in the way of "Please Wait: Buffering" messages. The video pushed down the pipe are glorious 1080p, and will have 5.1 surround sound. I haven't ordered many movies off the Xbox Marketplace, but aren't they all in 720p? If so, this is a big jump in quality - nice! There's also going to be enhanced search functionality to make finding things easier - that's a good thing, because the Xbox Marketplace was a very manual affair, and now that the Zune Marketplace is going to be offering scads more content, being able to find it easily is important. Read more...

"As for entertainment and television, Ballmer said there was a "real opportunity" for Microsoft to have or to provide software for a device that sits next to or in every television set. Specifically, he said that the company's Zune music software, which is already available on the PC and on the company's Zune music players, would be coming to the phone as well as the television."

It's a shame that no one bothered to ask Steve Ballmer exactly what he meant by this statement - we've heard rumours about the Zune software interface coming to Windows Mobile, but coming to television? That's the first I've heard of it. My guess, based on nothing more than a gut feeling, is that this is in reference to an Xbox 360 interface - a version of the Zune desktop software that's optimized for use on the Xbox. And I think it will be a welcome addition if they create it, because the "directory dump" method of displaying music that the Xbox 360 uses today is certainly quite simplistic.

"Hope everyone had a great weekend. Me? Good. For those of you who went and got the Home A/V Pack or the Zune Wireless Remote and have an Xbox 360, here's a back door tip/trick. I actually learned this the other day from two of my buddies from the Zune team: Damon and Jeremy (what's up guys!). Check the video I made - thanks Jeremy for the camera work."



The video says it all - I don't think this is something I'd use personally, but it's fantastic to see that Microsoft made sure that their hardware worked well together.

Since launching this site and diving deep into everything about the Zune, I've noticed a repeating pattern over and over: Zune bloggers, and even Microsoft Zune staffers themselves, have touted the ability to upgrade the Zune as being some sort of amazing ability that other digital media players lack. I'm not sure where this comes from, but even Robert Scoble has fallen into the trap of thinking that this is somehow special. It's not. Every digital media player going back five years or more, has had the ability to be upgraded with new firmware. New firmware usually offers bug fixes, new features, or sometimes removes features (like Creative did with the new Zen Vision:M firmware update that removes FM radio recording).

I believe that confusion comes from people thinking that because the Zune has WiFi built in, that somehow the device will be able to perform stand-alone upgrades without needing to be connected to a PC. Nothing I've read to date indicates that will be possible out of the box - when there's a new firmware update available, you'll get it installed by connecting your Zune to your PC and downloading it with the Zune desktop client software. That's the way it works with the iPod, and that's the way it should work with other players as well, except most have such horrific desktop software clients that no one wants to install them. At best, the Zune has parity with the iPod in this regard: you'll connect your Zune to your PC, and the software will (presumably) inform you there's a new update for your Zune.



Now here's why I'm still excited about the Zune: for all of the frustration I feel about the massively limited WiFi capabilities, I believe firmly that the Zune will evolve more rapidly than any other digital media player on the market. Here's why: since the release of the Xbox 360 about a year ago, there have been three major updates. Read more...