One week in, and here's what I'm hoping for...

[meatee]

I've had my Zune 80 for about a week now. At first, it seemed like this thing was absolute perfection. But, now that I've spent more time with it, there's a few things that I'd definitely like to see added in a future software/firmware update.

1) Sleep Timer
I'd like to be able to set the player to automatically turn off after a set time.
When I bought the Zune, I didn't even think about this. My previous player (the Creative Zen Xtra from 2003) has this feature and I used it all the time, and its a bit disappointing to not see it in something this new.

2) Better Album Art Handling
I spent a truckload of hours making my collection have perfect album art, mainly for use with Windows Media Center. The Zune software makes all that hard work somewhat meaningless, as it downgrades the art and uses some less than desirable jpeg compression. Album covers that aren't perfectly square get cropped and seem to have even worse jpeg compression applied. Plus, I had to use a hack to make it recognize my Folder.jpg files. C'mon Microsoft, make my art look beautiful again!

3) Native support for Windows Media Player 11
I've been using Media Player to sync my older player (the Zen Xtra) for years and it works flawlessly. This new Zune software really leaves a lot on the table, and even though it looks cool, I'd rather just have all my features I get in MP11.

4) Turn off the backlight when using the Dock
I just bought the dock today and hooked it up to some Klipsch PC speakers I wasn't using in my office. I popped the player on, hit play on a playlist, and went on working. I looked over at it about 10 minutes later and noticed the backlight was still on! That's just ridiculous, I should at least have the option to set my backlight time while docking, there's no need to have the screen on constantly in most situations with the dock.

5) The "shuffle" option should appear in more places
As it is now, the "shuffle all" command only shows up in each of the main categories (Songs, Artists, Genres, etc.). Not sure what genius came up with that plan, but guess what -- picking "shuffle all" from any of the main categories does exactly the same thing, it shuffles every single song on the player! It would make more sense to have the "shuffle all" option after I pick a genre, so that it would shuffle all Industrial songs or all Christmas songs (yes, both of these genres do exist on my player). I know I can switch to shuffle mode after I get a song playing, but that's an unnecessary extra step. Simplify simplify!

So, there you have it. These 5 are really the only things I'd like to see added at this point. Things like a Clock or Hard Drive access would be nice, but I'm not all that concerned with those at the moment. Other than that, I'm completely lovin' the Zune.

What's your opinion on this?

- t.j.

[Gregory]

Ehhhh, remember the zune is a media player, not a PDA. As for #3, try zAlternator.

[meatee]

What on here has anything to do with a PDA? 3 of the 5 options on here are on my old Creative Zen Xtra that I bought in 2003. The other 2 (album art and the dock issue) don't apply to the Zen Xtra because it only has a black and white text screen and doesn't have any kind of docking interface. If a plain old mp3 player from 5 years ago can have these options, why can't the Zune? The Zune is closer to being a PDA than my clunky old Zen ever thought about being.

And as far as zAlternator, I'm saying Microsoft should make Media Player support "native" to the Zune, not something I have to run a hack and jump through hoops to make happen.

[CameleonMK]

I think the zune is fine where it is. Though I wish they would remove the 3 play thing and just let them keep it.

[mr.handsomeman]

I'm sure everybody would love to get rid of the three play thing. I know I would. I don't know though. I like the idea of a sleep timer you know? That sounds pretty cool.

[CameleonMK]

That would be great for people who are always asked by people to see their zune. But it's really uneeded.

[mr.handsomeman]

what's unneeded? The getting rid of the three play thing? I would die to get rid of it! It would be amazing!

[CameleonMK]

The sleep timer is uneeded.

[mr.handsomeman]

unneeded....yes.....a nice thing to have still?.....yes.

[Jon]

I'm for appearance, I would love to see Opinion 2 added.

[mr.handsomeman]

YES!!!! i love having all the album art, and I would work on it for hours with WMP, but now, i feel like it's too much of a hassle to fix.

[meatee]

A few updates:

Well, the album art thing bothered me enough that I decided to edit all the album covers that weren't perfectly square. It didn't take me too long, all I did was open them in Photoshop and change the canvas size to 600x600, which let it add black space where needed. So, now everything looks perfect on the Zune with no cropping! I still wish there was some better jpeg compression, but for now I'm much happier with the album art.

On the screen/docking issue, I've been setting the backlight to "low" before I put it on the dock. Its not exactly what I want (still wish it would turn off), but its better than having it glaring at me all day.

With Windows Media Player 11, what I really wanted was easier Playlist creation. I found out that I can just create playlists in MP11, then change the file extension from .wpl to .zpl and the Zune software can read them with no problem. So, now I'm not so disappointed, but it would still be nice not to have to use 2 separate programs.

Sill hoping for the Sleep timer, though!

- .t.j.

[mr.handsomeman]

i still get annoyed when I see my background picture instead of the album on my Zune.

[EndUnknown]

Originally Posted by oharaj

i still get annoyed when I see my background picture instead of the album on my Zune.

same here, so I spent a while fixing all 4400 songs, and now I am happy.

[mr.handsomeman]

must have taken you a very long while huh? I'm too lazy to do that.

[LightingZaria]

Yeah one day I'm gonna buckle down and fix all my album art. I only have bout 5-600 songs so it shouldn't take too long....hopefully. As long as Zune doesn't freeze on as it is very prone to do.
I also would love to have a sleep timer, because I fall asleep with my Zune on and I would like to be able to shuffle everything and not worry about wasting my whole battery.

[Scrapz616]

^yea me too thats y i rly want a sleep timer cuz now when i listen to my music when im trying to sleep i have to remember to turn it off

[Snackbar]

What irks me is that the dang thing keeps playing the same 30 or so songs over and over on "shuffle all". I have about 1000 songs on there right now and it only plays those same songs.:confused:

[got zune?]

Originally Posted by CameleonMK

I think the zune is fine where it is. Though I wish they would remove the 3 play thing and just let them keep it.

you know there's a workaround for that, right?

[ZGamer]

Patience, it will happen.
But you have to wait!