Map Of Zunes

That's the kind of thing I've been seeing for about a month now from the Zune desktop software when I try to sync the College Humor video podcast. A couple of months back, it would only happen every few videos, but in December it turned into a problem with every single entry. When I click on the yellow exclamation mark, here's the error I get:

The Web Help link doesn't provide much in the way of useful information. The problem is that the files are MP4 in format, and I kind of doubt that the College Humor people decided to change their format recently (though I suppose anything is possible). So what's going on? I have no idea. I'm not the only one complaining about this issue, but so far there seems to be no fix. I tried un-subscribing to the podcast, and re-subscribing, but that didn't help. A podcast directory is only as good as the content in it, and if Microsoft doesn't have some way of tracking podcasts that are tossing errors into user's faces, it's going to be hard for them to grow the service as a reliable method of subscribing to podcasts. Any ideas?

Soon after the Zune HD Twitter app was released yesterday, people who were following people who swore in their Tweets noticed something strange: the app on the Zune was filtering the swear words and replacing letters with asterixes. It looked like this:

Image courtesy of Engadget

Now, personally I don't follow many people who swear - and would probably un-follow anyone who swore constantly - so this issue didn't bother me at all. Many people got worked up about this though, so when I started to think about why Microsoft did this, the reason seemed obvious to me: parental controls.

If you're a parent, and you bought an iPod for your kid, you might not want him to be able to download any app he wants from the app store. The app store doesn't have truly "adult" apps, but there are some "mature themed" apps. From within iTunes you can control which apps your kid is allowed to download. If you own an iPod you've doubtless seen the pop-up warnings about age 17+ content on apps like FML [NSFW] - those are more of a "cover your butt" thing from developers. The reality is that if a parent wants to control which apps their kid downloads, they need to lock it down from iTunes.

Here's the thing though: the Zune software lacks any type of parental controls. There's no way to lock down a Zune HD from downloading mature-themed apps. Up until now, with only a handful of games and a couple of utilities, this hasn't been a problem. But with the Twitter app, the Zune HD had an app that could have some mature content on it. So my thought was "OK, that must be why they're censoring curse words in the Zune HD app - because they don't have a way to allow parents to block the install of the app." Sounds reasonable, right?

It seems not - I was interpreting the Zune team's behaviour incorrectly. I asked the Zune team for an official response to this issue of censoring on the Zune HD Twitter app, and here's what I got back from them:

"The recently released Twitter for Zune HD application has been abbreviating some explicit words in tweets when viewed on the device; however these explicit words do appear in their full text on the Twitter site or on any other Twitter client. We have identified the issue and are taking steps to update the application as soon as possible to ensure Twitter for Zune HD users are able to view tweets in their original state." - Microsoft spokesperson

They've "identified" the "issue"? That's Microsoft-speak for "we've found a bug". This makes no sense to me though - the app filtering curse words isn't a bug, it's a feature. A bug is the Zune HD Twitter app disconnecting from WiFi, or locking up (I haven't seen either of these issues myself). Word-censoring is feature that was poorly received and resulted in some blow-back - mostly from people who delight in hammering Microsoft on everything they can - but instead of explaining why this feature was implemented, the Zune team is back-peddling and trying to pretend like this is a glitch that shouldn't have made it's way into the product.

When I asked the Microsoft spokesperson for further clarification on this issue of it being a "bug", I was told that he had no further information for me. Something doesn't seem right about this. Ed Hansberry came up with this interesting thought: perhaps this was a feature that was meant to be something you could toggle off or on, but it wasn't quite ready yet and somehow it got turned on by accident? And we'll see this feature come back in a later version of the app? But if that's the case, why not explain that to Zune users? Pretending a feature is a "bug" is disingenuous at best. Come on Zune team, I know you can do better than that!

Jason Dunn owns and operates Thoughts Media Inc., a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys photography, mobile devices, blogging, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog. He's dreaming of the day when he can get a Zune HD with 64 GB of storage.

Do you enjoy using new hardware, software and accessories, then sharing your experience with others? Then join us on the Thoughts Media Review Team! We're looking for individuals who find it fun to test new gear and give their honest opinions about the experience. It's a volunteer role with some great perks. Interested? Then click here for more information.

Digital Rights Management, or DRM as it's better know, is an ugly technology that ends up doing far more to alienate legitimate consumers of media content than it does to stop the people who want to take content they didn't pay for. Case in point: here's an email I received from a Zune Thoughts reader last week...

"I just upgraded to Windows 7 from Vista, and it went smoothly. That is until I tried to sync my zune. Apparently many of the songs I purchased long ago from the zune marketplace were DRM protected WMA. Of those songs a number are now available only as MP3. Somehow my songs, which worked fine until I upgraded to Win7, are now useless files that won't play on my PC or sync to my zune. I called zune customer support and they told me that per Microsoft they are not allowed to credit me for songs that were once WMA and are now only available as MP3 because the content provider has changed. I am now stuck having spent money for music that is gone forever...It is incredibly hard to believe that they are refusing to help one of their customers out. I guess I am going to have to switch to using the Amazon MP3 store 100% of the time. The only reason I was purchasing from the zune marketplace to begin with was an effort to support Zune."

Can you believe that? We're not talking here about a DRM-laden store going away - a la MSN Music - we're talking about the Zune Marketplace's back-end music content shifting and burning customers in the process because the DRM-laden WMA files they purchased magically vanished and MP3s appeared in their place. I'm not aware of any simple way - or even a complex way for that matter - for users to export the DRM licenses for their Zune Marketplace-purchased content. So what does the Zune team expect people to do? Never switch computers, and never upgrade to Windows 7?

The good news here is that a few days after this person contacted me, he followed up to inform me that someone from the Zune Team contacted him and offered him song credits to fix this situation. That's great to hear, but it's clear the Zune Marketplace has a very screwed up system if this was allowed to happen in the first place.

DRM is a poison that's best avoided, and until the Zune Marketplace is 100% DRM-free, I'm not going to purchase songs from it. Amazon's MP3 store gets all my money right now. Where do you purchase your music from?

"Naturally as an iPod devotee, I felt predisposed to Hate (with a capital "h") the Zune, but I decided to give it a fighting chance nonetheless. I loaded 'er up with about 2 gigs of my most-played music, downloaded whatever apps the Zune Marketplace had to offer, subscribed to a podcast or two, and got myself a two-week ZunePass to make sure I was getting the full sha-bang. After five days' worth of go-rounds on the NYC subway, I realized there are a few spots where the Zune HD does in fact out-class the "funnest iPod ever." But don't check me off as a convert: For every nugget I came to love about the Zune, there was another one tipping the scales back to the touch."

As if I needed another reason to break out this picture. PopSci's Corinne Iozzio finds many things to love about her HD-convert experience, and a number of reasons to stick with the tried-and-true iPod. To be fair, her first two suggestions could be easily fixed in coming software updates—and probably will—but the others are valid points. Have you switched to Zune HD from an iPod? If not, why not?

"Let's peer ahead one year, where we'll see how the release of Zune HD represents a shift (*ahem*) in Microsoft's strategy, a convergence of media everywhere, using multiple screens for the same content. You buy (or steal) those movies, TV shows or songs once, and then you can watch them anywhere. Imagine this: You carry around a slim, tiny phone, and when you get home you plug it into a dock that charges it. Meanwhile you instantly have access to its content — movies, songs, pictures — on any PC on your network, your Xbox 360, or any TV in your house. That video you started watching on the train? You can finish watching it in your home theater in HD, even 1080p on your Xbox 360."

I'll believe it when I see it. The pieces have been in place for years, and only now are we starting to see a real convergence in device strategy between the individual Microsoft departments. DVICE makes a good point about the usefulness of a subscription service tying the individual pices together, and the Zune branding of Xbox Live video marketplace was definitely a good first step. It remains to be seen, however, if new Xbox, Zune, and Media Center developments (not to mention those in Windows Mobile and Windows 7, plus Pink, Turtle, and Courier) will help sort out these integration deficiencies, or the groups will continue to live isolated as they have the last few years. I'm really hoping I'm proven wrong.

"There were also a couple of mild unfortunate surprises. First, Microsoft has removed the "squirting" feature, which let you send songs directly from one Zune to another. This feature was supposed to be a big selling point of the first Zune but was crippled by unreasonable rights restrictions that let you play songs only three times or within three days (whichever came first)."

This isn't something I noticed missing when I was doing my videos on the Zune HD, but it's definitely not there. Even if someone decided it was no longer a feature they wanted to offer for sharing music due to pressure from the music studios, why remove it for sharing pictures and podcasts? The wireless sharing feature wasn't something I used daily, but at least a dozen times a friend of mine has brought his Zune over when we've been hanging out together and we've shared music back and forth. It's a feature that the iPod doesn't have, and if the Zune HD becomes a success, it's a feature that would have become more useful as the market grew. So why did they take it out?

"Despite the software’s attractive design, it might also serve as a case study for just how hard it is to nail interface design on a first pass. Moving around in the interface takes a bit of getting used to; for instance, there’s no single way to back out of the menu hierarchy. When viewing the details of an album, backing up requires a press on a white arrow in the upper left corner of the screen. Clear enough. But when you bring up the special player-wide control screen (triggered by that button on the left side of the device) to adjust volume or to pause playback, backing out involves tapping the tiny word “exit” in the upper left. ... Do we need four slightly different ways to accomplish the same thing?"

By now you've probably read a ton of reviews of Zune HD, and have essentially made up your mind about if, or when, you plan on buying one. What makes this review different (and what I love about most Ars reviews in general) is that they explore the device in context of its ecosystem and competition. Unlike other reviews that simply compare feature-by-feature the Zune HD and iPod Touch, Ars' Nate Anderson truly delves into what it's like to use the player. He is impressed with the music discovery features, newly fixed album art display times, and HD radio experience, while lamenting the decision to use on-screen volume controls, inability to natively sync DVR-MS files, and poor browser experience. The Zune pass too is seen as a very positive feature, and as yet another expense to consider. All in all, an incredibly fair review that touches on some key points to consider when making a purchase decision.

"Certainly, two of the most exciting releases of the past couple weeks are the new iPod Touch and the Zune HD. Now, if you're curious how the two devices compare with one another, you could always read the deluge of articles available on CNET and around the Web, but we can certainly see how that might be a bit overwhelming. Soon enough, we'll pit the two players head-to-head in a knock-down, drag-out brawl (aka Prizefight). In the meantime, we've created a purely technical spec-to-spec comparison chart to tide you over."

As you can clearly see in the diagram above, the Zune HD is not, in fact, Apple's iPod Touch. For more information, like device dimensions, battery life, and supported video formats, check out CNet's article. It'll make your next iPod vs Zune debate that much livlier.

As a Zune MVP, my hope is always that I'll be able to bring my experience to bear and help the Zune team improve their products. I have a passion for the Zune to succeed, and to help Zune owners get the most out of their product - that's why Zune Thoughts exists. Unfortunately, the Zune MVPs weren't given a chance to test the 4.0 software prior to release. And, even more unfortunately, the 4.0 software looks like it could have used some broader beta testing - I've never had so much trouble with Zune software as with the 4.0 release.

As evidenced in my Deep Dive series on the 4.0 software, I tried an on-camera install of the full 4.0 software package downloaded from Zune.net, and it failed miserably. Getting the 4.0 software via Windows Update worked on my main "Zune computer", but when I tried to do the same thing on my wife's computer (an HP Slimline running a squeaky clean install of Windows 7) it didn't go so well.

The install completed, but when the software loaded, this is what I was presented with:

Let me decode that for you: the database knew that it had 13,593 songs on it, and 670 different artists, but only one album was listed. I tried exiting and re-starting the software, but it didn't exit and when I tried to re-start the after after a few seconds, I got an error message about the Zune software already running. Sure enough, Zune.exe was still running, even though the UI has exited. I killed the task, and started up the software again. Same problem: only one album listed. I then went into the Song view, selected all the songs, and deleted them from the Zune software. Going into Settings, I clicked on the button to "Restore media previously removed from collection". After a few seconds, my albums started to show up. I clicked on one of them to listen to it while the scan continued, and after a few minutes the software crashed:

Thankfully, after re-starting the software again, the scanning and music listening is still working. I'm left wondering how the 4.0 software, which is based on the 3.x codebase well over a year old, could have become so flaky. This is not a good experience for old, or new, Zune customers. And I haven't even mentioned the disaster that is the photo collection scanning...

There's not much to this post, but a few bits of info that I wanted to share:

• When it comes to apps, it's going to be Zune HD only. Moving forward all apps and games will be only for the Zune HD, not any previous models.
• Older devices will be able to play back rental movies from the Zune Marketplace, but not download-to-own movies. I'm not sure if this goes back all the way to the Zune 30 devices - I'll have to test that.
• Obviously, without the Tegra chip, older devices won't be able to play back HD content.
• The Quickplay UI will not be present on older devices