Zune - an alternative to iTunes

Corky_O

Join Date 04/2004

Zune - an alternative to iTunes

Now available at retail stores

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For those who do not want to be locked into Apple's proprietary hardware, 'Zune' devices have now been released to retail stores.

These look like very nice devices for music, pictures, and video. They are also reported to play nice with both Microsoft and Apple files.

I feel like I may regret purchasing an iPod, now that my freedom has been shown to be limited - but that is a personal issue.

You can read more by clicking the link below.

"Let music fill the air" - Grateful Dead.

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I have a Samsung MP3 player, and I'm perfectly happy with it. Easy to use, and smaller than either the ipod or the zune...

same

ps u can use ipods with winamp

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Leo the Lion

Join Date 05/2003

+100

Like many of you I have been watching the developement of Zune in anticipation of making a purchase as I didn't have an iPod or MP3. Slowly info came out about the Zune and over the past week or so I decided that this was one to put on the 'back burner' until all the hype and initial interest had died down so I have just purchased a Philips GoGear WMA/MP3 Player - a bargain from Wal-Mart and I am very pleased with it.

As far as desktop media players are concerned I have been a long time user and admirer of WINAMP. Several years ago I found it a far better alternative to WMP so I was a little sceptical to see that my new purchase was to be used with WMP 10. I'm not a great lover of WMP.....But hey, I thought give WMP a chance. I was pleased to find WMP does the job well of 'managing' the task of getting the songs, ripping them and syncing them into the player so I thought lets have another look at it as a standalone 'desktop player'also. I can now see why I like WINAMP so much. The one thing that I found several years ago was that the sound quality on music playback produced by WINAMP is far superior to that of WMP. The gap between the two seems to have got even greater. No matter what tweaks and plug-ins I tried the WMP just would not come up to the quality of the little WINAMP. Bless her.

Zune looks a great step in certain directions but I think a lot of people will hang off buying one until the dust settles

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Corky_O

Join Date 04/2004

I misunderstood the inclusion of AAC for the iPod, as I thought this was the selected format by Apple for the device along with mp3.

I believe my point - other than pointing out that there was another alternative available - is that I did 'not' want to have to install another media player on a computer to use the iPod. I still do not see an alternative without installing yet another media player. Perhaps I am missing something here.

I do not have a beef with iTunes, in fact I believe it is one of the better media players, yet it still seems rather redundant to install additional players.

Blue-tooth would obviously need an attachment. The Wi-Fi - according to one review at 'Gizmodo' as follows:

"Microsoft's put in WiFi on the Zune, which even though it doesn't seem to be a big draw to consumers now. The hardware paves the road for them to do various other "scenarios" with the Zune. In the future, via software update, the Zune should be able to possibly do stuff like share songs over the internet, wirelessly sync with the computer, stream music/video to other devices, and much more. The hardware is there, but it just needs to be activated by software. Microsoft's decided to focus (wisely) on making the Zune simple to use and intuitive for people to pick up. Something that we think they've achieved."

Thank you for the debate. Obviously, the newer products (especially from Microsoft) will not have an easy time of it.

For my closing, I would like to state that I still believe the 'Zune' to be a nice little device with a lot of potential.

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I absolutely LOVE how people are pointing fingers at Microsoft for the DRM issue. Do they point that same finger at Apple?
Are you so blind that you can't see who is really to blame for all that DRM junk? Do you think Apple and Microsoft would want to introduce that junk to their players when it would have been easier for them not to?

Its the RIAA at fault for all this DRM stuff that is overtaking the DAP (Digital Audio Player) World. Seriously, grow up, look around and really know who is calling the shots that is giving us, the consumer, headaches.

As for conversion and format issues, that is just being plain silly. AAC 'Advanced Audio Coding' is heavily patented, not to mention mp3 and wma are too. Notice both companies avoid Ogg Vorbis, because with Ogg Vorbis and its Open Source Licensing they can't DRM it (refer to RIAA). Plus if you are really hard up for a conversion software to encode your lossless files into lossy grab foobar2000. It can convert and play pretty much any format under our sun.

The only DAPs that do not require software are ones with Universal Mass Storage Device enabled. iPod does not have it, I know because I have a 2nd Gen. Nano and I use iTunes just so I have no headaches with it, but I use foobar2000 to convert my audio files into Lame 3.97 Final Mp3s (-S --noreplaygain -V 3 --vbr-new). The reason I don't use iTunes AAC or iTunes Mp3 is because it only accepts WMA, WAV, AIFF as input, but seeing as foobar2000 does them all and converts with tags preserved to mp3 I use it to convert instead.

To think people still can't use google to find alternatives to Windows Media Player or iTunes to see that they can do something as simple as this as well in this day and age is disheartening. It makes me think that humanity is still taking that proverbial step backwards instead of forwards.

I may know more about converting to all sorts of formats (musepack, flac, monkey's audio, wavpack, etc.) and I don't expect you all to know all that but simple stuff should be easy...or as a silly TV advert says: "If you know iTunes..." well you should know how to use Google, Ask.com, Lycos, Webcrawler, Yahoo, Mamma, Scroogle.org, so and so forth to learn this stuff for yourself.

After all, computers are what you make of them.

Another funny point...Microsoft's First Gen. DAP is being openly compared to a 5th Gen. Apple DAP...is that sad or happy?

I do love how you can change the background of your display in the Zune and how they went with some other design instead of just listing text on a solid background (Apple). Maybe this entrance by Microsoft will make Apple get off its pompous arse and do something more innovative in the next iPod than just adding gapless playback and fixing the bugs.

Rant Finished...for now.

- X-Man

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Corky_O, well I guess your posts were unclear to me then because you complained about having to use iTunes instead of WMP and were positioning Zune as a better alternative in the same breath - another player that needs it's own software instead of WMP. Didn't make any sense to me... So what you're really saying is that neither the iPod or the Zune are what you really want.

---

Xiosan, I think everyone here knows WHY DRM exists. The simple fact is that Apple's FairPlay has been less restrictive (and is even less restrictive now than when it was first used) compared to most of the WMA "PlaysForSure" providers. I've never run into one of the limitations when working with my iTMS purchases but, for example, a friend who uses Napster had to pay $1 when he wanted to burn tracks to a CD, can only burn them once, etc...

As far as file formats go, I'm not preferential for the most part but it's incredibly easy to convert from one format to another. I just use one that works easily on all the OS platforms I regularly operate. WMA doesn't cut the mustard there.

What's 'sad' is that MS felt it had to revamp someone else's player and dump on it's own original DRM initiatives (thereby cutting it's partner's throats) to stay in the game.

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The only DAPs that do not require software are ones with Universal Mass Storage Device enabled.

its about time someone realized that...that is why there is no way in hell im planning to replace my samsung mp3 player with a ipod or zune anytime soon...

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DRM... compatability... bah!

I look at the Zune and all I see is another device designed for right-handed people. AS USUAL, southpaws get the shaft. Race, creed, color, gender, sexual preference, ...no problem. What's that? You're left-handed? Ah, you, sir, ...may DIE!

BLATANT DISCRIMINATION!

2500 left-handed people die each year using devices designed for right-handers....

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i am left handed so i am obligated to say...

THE SOUTHPAWS WILL RULE THE EARTH...JUST WATCH

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Save the Southpaws, save the world! ...or, err, something like that.

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I recently had a chance to check out the Zune at Target and I am not impressed. I realize it's new and firmware updates may improve it down the road. To really hit everyone the Zune needs to be easier on the pocketbook for me to consider it as a competitive upgrade over my Creative Zen 30GB. To be honest iPod's and Creative Zen's are the best overall for your money!

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1. Vista will support Zune when it's officially released. Microsoft stated that.

2. Video: the Zune software converts H.264 and MPEG-4 into WMV automatically. But, yes, the Zune will only play WMV

3. Music: the Zune can play UNPROTECTED WMA and AAC as well as it's own DRM WMA9.1 and MP3. The Zune software will automatically rip CDs in lossless WMA, WMA-DRM 9.1, or MP3 (so all you guys out there who are considering a Zune can burn their uncompatible music to CDs then rip them - kind of a hassle, but worth it I think)

I for one, will always use unprotected formats since the only major company who plays nice is Creative. I want choice in my media players - mp3 is the way to go.

4. the Zune is almost infinitely firmware upgradable. Microsoft already has one planned for late December or early January. Their adding features through firmware in the spring. So you can have the latest features without having to buy a new player (unless you just want to of course). They're already looking to expand the wifi to wirelessly sync to your PC and buy tracks and all that good stuff.

5. Microsoft did not intend for the Zune to be an "iPod killer". That's a moniker that some people have attached to it. MS is just starting something new. They don't intend to "beat" Apple at the media player game, just offer a different player with different features. Again, MS has stated that.

6. I don't think any one player is better than another (eventhough there are not so great ones out there). I like the Zune. It's comfortable to hold, no fingerprints, looks good, excellent UI, FM radio, better audio quality, and future releases (this is only gen 1). It fits me better than the iPod (the click-wheel's uncomfortable, just okay audio quality, the UI's not as smooth and easy, and the material isn't as durable as the Zune).

Every individual has their own features about a player that's important to them. The Zune will fit some people, the iPod others, and still others will fit other brands. They all have pros and cons (none of them are perfect, that's for sure!). My point is, look for a player that fits you, not one that fits a bunch of other people. You're the one that has to use it.

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Got a few points to do on the different comments.

On the iPod:
- The default firmware has always played and plays the following formats: MP3, Apple Lossless, MP4 (AAC), protected AAC from iTunes.
- Some devices also supports WAV playback and AIFF playback (with the exception of the shuffle if I remember well)
- The modern firmware plays Audible audiobooks.
- All iPods I know support files up to 48KHz 16 bits Stereo. Hence, a 192KHz 32bit float 5.1 file will not work.
- You can convert from Shorten or FLAC to Apple Lossless in one step with some software, or in two steps if you convert your Monkey Audio file to a WAV (or AIFF) and then back to Apple Lossless. That way, you preserve the perfect quality, and you have your files. Anyways, you can transcode as much as you want, it's lossless

- iPod doesn't have "another software" like the Zune. iPod uses and has always used iTunes for its contents management needs. All the songs were always managed by iTunes since version 1. What has changed in the latest version is the firmware upgrade and formatting of the iPod is now done directly onto iTunes, instead of being done through another piece of software. But in no way you need a special software to manage your songs in your iPod. That is in direct opposition with the Zune, that doesn't use the WMP'S library to handle its own needs, but uses another software.
- The audio quality for the iPod is quite irreprochable. Not only are there a lot of audiophile device that came out for the device, they also got featured in Stereophile for the sound quality, stating they are usually as good as very expensive pieces of equipment. What will hinder the quality is of course the MP3 first. Then, you can get a headphone amplifier, like the HeadRoom Cosmic if you have the dough, you will get an improvement. All these are doing is further amplifying the iPod's signal. That's it. To tell "it's better than the iPod" is possible, but then, you'd have to be a serious audiophile to see a better quality sound than that.

On the Zune, I'm absolutely no fan of the device itself. Bulky, less battery, some good things in the user interface but not as elegant as the iPod. Will not convert anyone using iTunes due to the songs already acquired that are not played by the Zune. Will not convert anyone using PlaysForSure due to the songs already acquired that are not played by the Zune. And until they have the critical mass, who will you Wi-Fi your songs to? Yourself? Even there, by not being even in the top 50 of Amazon's top sellers, you can tell it's not doing a dent in anyone's turf... so that critical mass will not be there for a long time. And if you transfer files to people in your household because many of you use the device, they probably have access to your song stash anyways. But then, it's still interesting as a device, a good exercise in style and we'll see. It might be a sleeper hit.

I would still suggest the much better Sandisk player if you want to have something good. The Sansa players are effectively of irreprochable quality, and like all Sandisk products, they are very cheap. More songs you can buy in eMusic or in CDs, less on the device. Very good players.

And about DRM, please support eMusic. No DRM at all, VBR MP3s more than 192Kbps (usually), It's nearing the second biggest online music store, and it MUST get there, hell, I'd take these over any other brand anytime. Only I'm stuck with iTunes for the major labels... and PlaysForSure's future is most definitely not guaranteed now that Microsoft has made its stance, so all the devices will need to find another way. Thanks to the Zune, I'd say iTunes has more bargaining power, as the 25% leftovers are still even more fragmented... not that I care, I got a iPod mini, but anyways. Maybe one day the big major labels (the evil goons) will understand eMusic is their alternative to iTMS and they will support DRM-less song downloads. That will be a major event.

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