Zune Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

I'd like to suggest that the Zune Marketplace team add a new feature to track the demand for MP3 files. Why? Today I discovered a new band I'm really digging (Superchick) by listening to the song samples, and I want to pick up a few of their albums. 800 points works out to a bit over $12 CAD, so that's not a bad price for a whole album. It's a lot less expensive than the $22.99 CAD that Amazon.ca wants to charge me for their newest album on CD. What's the problem then? The Zune Marketplace only offers up poisoned DRM tracks for their 2006 album, and there's no way to say "Hey, I want this in MP3 instead!". If they had a little button near the "Buy" button that a person could click to indicate they'd buy it if it was in MP3 format, I think that would give the Zune team valuable leverage to go back to the record labels and say "Look, you guys could have sold an extra 1000 copies of this album if you had it in MP3 format."

I consider myself hugely lucky that of their five albums in the Zune Marketplace, four of them are available in MP3 format. But the 2006 album sounds great, and it sucks that I can't get it in MP3 format. I'm going to buy the four albums...as soon as a friend goes into a US store and buys me some Xbox Live points. That's right, because the Zune Marketplace isn't launched in Canada, I can't use my Xbox Live points to buy anything.

If you're into buying TV shows for watching on your Zune, this is great news: they've added a huge amount of new content. Myself, I'm leery of investing in much video when the purchased content has DRM on it. The full press release is below with all the details.

"Zune announced today that it will expand the selection in its recently opened Zune Marketplace video store by 50 percent by adding more than 400 new episodes of popular television shows. In addition to adding more programs from COMEDY CENTRAL, NBC Universal and the SCI FI Channel, Zune will start offering shows from USA Network. 19 new programs will be available on Zune Marketplace within the next two weeks, including COMEDY CENTRAL’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “Colbert Report,” NBC’s “Friday Night Lights” and “Saturday Night Live”, USA Network’s “Monk” and “The Starter Wife,” and many more. New shows from Bravo will also be available in the coming months.

Zune makes it easy for consumers to download popular TV shows to their computer or Zune portable media player to enjoy anytime, anywhere. Earlier this month, Zune launched its video store with download-to-own hit shows from COMEDY CENTRAL, FUNimation® Entertainment, MTV, NBC Universal, Nickelodeon, Starz Media (including Manga Entertainment), Turner Broadcasting, Ultimate Fighting Championship® (UFC) and VH1. Each show is 160 Microsoft Points per episode (approximately $1.99)." Read more...

I don't own that many Zune Marketplace tracks, perhaps a dozen in total, because I loathe DRM. I really, really dislike it and I'll do almost anything to avoid having to deal with the hassle of authorization because there's always something that goes wrong. As I was browsing through the Zune Marketplace the other way, looking up an artist so I could add her CD to my Amazon.ca wish list, it occurred to me that the Zune Marketplace could add a feature for people like me: an MP3 filter. Meaning, a software toggle that would filter out all the DRM'd music, showing me only the tracks in the Zune Marketplace that are in DRM-free MP3 format. Sure, the catalog would be incredibly small at first, but I'd really enjoy browsing the marketplace and only see music offered that I don't have to think twice about buying. Right now when I see a song I want, and it's not tagged with the little "MP3" icon shown above, I always have a little internal struggle as to how badly I really want the song - and it's never about the cost in points, it's always about the hassles of the DRM.