Microsoft is releasing a major update to its Zune software and online service, and it couldn't have come soon enough.
Microsoft continues its tradition of delivering software updates to all Zune models.
(Credit: Microsoft)Most of the headlines will probably focus on Microsoft adding downloadable shows, such as "South Park" and "The Office," to the Zune Marketplace for $1.99--sorry, that's 160 Microsoft Points. (No, they're still not adopting conventional currency. Argh.)
And in my discussions with the Zune team, they seem to be most excited about the new social features. For instance, your friends' Zune cards will now appear on your Zune device, where you'll be able to see what they've been listening to recently and even play those songs if you have a Zune Pass subscription. Of course, the playlist feature's always been really buggy for me--as I write this, the playlist on the right side of my profile here is 13 days old, and I've listened to many songs since then and synced several times. But I suppose these social features could eventually give Microsoft a leg up against the iPod, if they can get them all working properly and keep adding ways to discover new music. For instance, I'm not a Zune Pass subscriber, but I'd still love to be able to sample songs on my friends' playlists directly on my Zune (Microsoft says the content owners put the kibosh on this idea) and then download them wirelessly from the Marketplace (wireless downloads aren't yet available).
TV and social improvements aside, I'm actually happiest about the basic fixes that Microsoft is making to the Zune PC software. As I've mentioned--and CNET's Molly Wood recently wrote about--one of the biggest problems with Zune has been the software. The first version, based on the Windows Media Player and released in 2006, was actually more useful than the client they wrote from scratch and released a year later. In other words, the upgrade was, in some respects, a downgrade.
I haven't had a chance to test it yet--the software update will flow automatically to my PC some time tonight--but Microsoft promises the following :
Metadata editing--it'll be much easier for users to change things like artists' names and genres from within the Zune software. (This was my biggest complaint about the 2007 software update--I actually had to download another app, MP3Tag, to get the job done.)
Automatic playlists--you'll be able to create playlists (like "all songs added since 1/1/2008) that update automatically as you add new songs--a feature iTunes has had forever, and that Microsoft removed in the 2007 update.
Sort by genre--another removed feature that's been restored.
Gapless playback on both the software (a longstanding iTunes standard) and the device itself (the latest iPods also have this, but the Shuffle and my 4th generation iPods don't).
Sync improvements--the software can now sync content to multiple Zunes simultaneously, and create separate sync lists for each device.
There are other improvements in the software as well, including better integration between the PC client and the online social community. As soon as I get the software, I'll post some hands-on impressions.
It's the law of entropy: as your digital music collection increases, you're bound to run into mislabeled songs, duplicate tracks in multiple file formats, and other problems. Apple's iTunes does a fine job of displaying song data and letting you edit it--as long as the song's in a format that iTunes supports (if you try to import a WMA file, for instance, iTunes will ask if you want to convert it first). Microsoft's Windows Media Player has an advanced tag editor, but it's buried a few menu options down, and it only lists songs in your My Music library. And as I've mentioned before, the new Zune software apparently wasn't designed to help you manage your library--it's hard, and in some cases impossible, to edit song data.
Reading through the Zune forums, I came across a very helpful post from user Khu entitled "10 ways to reduce your Zune-related stress." In that post, he suggests using a program called Mp3Tag to edit metadata (such as song order) before you fire up the Zune software (which does a nice job of auto-importing songs from My Music and any other folder you choose into your Zune library).
I downloaded and installed Mp3tag, and it's exceptionally helpful. As you can see in the screenshot, you can point it at any folder on your hard drive and it will list all music files in that folder. You can arrange them any way you like. Arranging them by album title me to see when I had duplicate WMA and AAC (.mp4) files for a particular album--a common occurrence for me, since I rip into WMA and then use iTunes to make the songs playable on my iPod. Since my Zune supports AAC files, and my iPod doesn't support WMA, I could delete the WMAs to save space. It also showed me where the file title didn't match the song title, where song order was missing, and any other flaws. Changing data is easy--use the upper left panel, type what you want, and hit save.
Kudos to Florian Heidenreich, the person behind the program and the site. He's offering it for free, but donations are welcome--if you download it, don't be cheap.
Mmm, metadata. Mp3tag shows it all (more than could fit into this screenshot) and makes it easy to edit.
(Credit: Screenshot)
I've posted plenty about the new Zunes, but I have to blow off a little more steam before leaving this topic behind for a while. It's surprising to me given Microsoft's long history as a desktop applications company, but once again, the weakest link in the Zune lineup is the PC software.
Every Sunday during NFL football season, I watch the Seahawks (often an exercise in frustration) and record LPs to WMA files using Microsoft's Digital Media Plus Pack for Windows XP (sadly, it's been discontinued, and so far there's no Vista equivalent). The Zune software automatically imports any file that's added to Windows' My Music folder, which is the default location for files ripped with the Plus Pack. That's nice--my LPs go straight into Zune once I rip them. But the first generation of the software often butchered the metadata (data about songs) I'd entered--for example, it couldn't recognize song order, and instead ordered them alphabetically. So I'd have to go in and edit it manually. An annoying process, and one I hoped they would fix.
The Zune 2.1 software does a slightly better job of importing metadata. Unfortunately, if you do have to make some edits, the Zune software makes it much harder do so. For example:
Album art. When you rip an LP (or take audio from another source--such as a bootlegged MP3 file), it doesn't come with album art. With the old Zune software, you could tell it to update the album information, and if it recognized enough information--such as album title, artist name, and song order--it usually got the album art right. (Although sometimes I had to re-edit the genres because it overwrote them as well.) If that didn't work, you could copy a .jpg file into your Web browser, then paste it immediately into the blank space in the Zune software. Not anymore--I have the Zune software set to automatically update album information, but so far it isn't working. And to paste art manually, you have to copy, save to your hard drive, then look up the location in the Zune software to paste it. It's an annoying and completely unnecessary extra step.
Editing song data. I've gone back and forth on this one--at first, I thought it was impossible to edit any song data, then I discovered how to edit data such as genre. But it only works for some data! For example, although it (somehow) keeps order consistent with the way I recorded it, the "song order" column still shows "0" for every song. This means if I wanted to use another program to play these files, it wouldn't know what order to list them in. And you can't add the right song order in the Zune software. Moreover, there's no batch editing--if you select more than one song and right click, the "edit" option doesn't appear. Crazy.
List view won't display your selection. As I mentioned in my last Zune post, the only way to edit the limited metadata that Microsoft will let you edit is through the list (not browse) view. But here's a strange design choice: if you select a song or album, then click "list," it won't show that song or album. Instead, it lists them in alphabetical order, forcing you to scroll until you find the song or album whose data you want to edit. Insane.
There are enough nice things about the new Zunes--wireless sync in particular, as it works flawlessly and provides a real benefit for me--that I can't dismiss them out of hand. But I don't understand why the team in charge of the Zune PC software made these changes. Are they targeting digital music newbies who won't notice the missing features? Did they run out of time? Was their testing insufficient? Whatever the reason, working with imported song data in Zune is such a hassle that I'll have to find another program to rip my LPs directly into iTunes, which makes it super-easy to edit metadata. The Zune software can just draw those AAC files from my iTunes folder, which lets me bypass it for all but the syncing process.
Unless they fix these issues in a software update. Please?
A correction to my Zune first impressions post: it is possible to arrange songs by genre in the new Zune software. ... Read more
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