Slashdot Mirror
Second Time 'Round - the Zune Flash In-Depth
J Mallard writes "Ars Technica has an in-depth review of the new Zune Flash. The overall verdict? An improvement over the original, with some caveats. 'I suspect there's a special shotgun in Redmond passed around ceremonially to the different divisions so each can shoot itself in the foot. When the shotgun arrived at the Zune team HQ, it appears to have been directed squarely at one of the most promising new features the device has to offer: autosyncing of recorded TV content ... [Specifically,] DVR-MS support for unprotected standard definition TV recordings from Windows Media Center. HDTV and protected recordings are not supported.' Let me make sure I understand this: at this point, a consumer has purchased a PC, Vista, a tuner card, and a Zune, but still can't be trusted with high-def content? Nice.'"
The name.
Seriously, what the hell. Zune?! Why not name it Monkey nipple? Man..
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
but that... is quite a blunder there. Sure most people won't want to use it for HD content, but dissapointing the crowd with the loudest voice is usually a bad idea...
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
I think this is what is most bothersome, and tiresome, about the treadmill that is Microsoft's products, advertising, etc. From the article, yet again:
It's hard to imagine how this goes on and on, but it does. I don't know who it reflects more poorly on, Microsoft's disingenuousness (word?), or the public's collective willingness to be fooled again and again.
I've often referred to the Charlie Brown - Lucy tension as the perfect metaphor... Lucy promises to placehold the football so Charlie can kick it. He falls for it every time and she never fails to pull it away at the last second (I keep hoping there's one strip where she doesn't pull it away, but I never saw it.... anyone?). We, the public are Microsoft's Charlie Brown. Sigh.
But will it run Linu^H^H^H^H rockbox?
Probably not.
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
HD content displayed at 320x240 on a device with an 8GB capacity? Yeah, that makes a ton of sense.
Only recently has the company admitted what was clear from the outset: the first Zune was rushed to market (it was a "sprint cycle," in Microsoft terms), and "compromises" were made in order to make that happen.
Translation: Release it. Fix it in SP1
I got a catholic block.
Why would you need HD content on a device with a 320 x 240 screen?
One of these days, I'm going to cut you into little pieces.
Heres another quote, from the conclusion:
We expect that the new lineup will help Microsoft become an established player in the PMP space over the next year. The updated devices should also put an end to the almost-endless set of Zune-related jokes, and they are an obvious choice for anyone who loves subscription music services.
You are mistaken in thinking the person who bought all that and wants to watch the TV program is the customer. Sorry. You are wrong. That person is the product. The advertisers and content owners who want to protect it using ever increasing amount of DRM is the customer. Got it? Now it all makes sense, doesn't it?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
1) Support for Ogg Vorbis or FLAC?
2) How is the sound quality overall?
3) How are the headphones?
I suspect I can guess the answers to these:
1) No
2) Like the iPod.
3) Ditto.
...The ability of people to find new euphemisms always amazes me. I'll have to remember to use this one, it's good.
"Too bad about the Titanic, but they told us to make the maiden voyage on a sprint cycle."
"Sorry about publishing that completely wrong news story, but, you know the news business, always on a sprint cycle."
"Sorry you're not satisfied, honey, I guess I was just on a sprint cycle."
New proverb: Sprint cycles make brown waste.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Isn't this a SCRUM term?
(Seriously, I have Vista and have been more than happy with it.)
What makes it all doubly stupid is that Microsoft is able to identify copyrighted files that aren't allowed to be shared (e.g. Frank Sinatra) through WiFi.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I had long hoped to speak to Charles Schultz about this very item. It was my fond hope that in the very last Peanuts strip that Lucy wouldn't pull the ball away, and Charlie Brown finally kicks it...
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
To paraphrase another Slashdot member, "No HDTV, less space than an iPod. Lame."
How many people at Microsoft have a Zune?
Better yet, how many people at Microsoft have a Zune in a drawer, and use an IPod outside of work. If you can't sell it to an employee, forget the marketplace. I guess Microsoft wants to sell the Zune, then sell an add-on HDTV recorder (sort of like Plus!). Good luck milking that cow for all it's worth, your going to need it.
Does one really need HD content on a 3 inch screen? HD was more or less made because SD looked like shit on big screens.
Did all of the astroturfers get mod points today?
The Zune isn't exactly winning the media player wars you know. No one is being fooled, unless it's Microsoft fooling itself. They keep producing trash media players and no one buys them. The iPod line totally dominates over everybody else, Zune included. Microsoft is almost a no-show in that market.
Unfortunately, it's not just Microsoft. Cable and Satellite providers have things so locked down that doing what *I* want with the HD content I pay for is simply out of the question. I use an HDHomeRun box in conjunction with SageTV, which will let me record both OTA and clear QAM HD channels over cable, but the offerings are limited, and it's certainly NOT a system for Joe Sixpack. While it is nice to be able to watch and record HD content, unless it's clear (unencrypted) you are out of luck. Cable, DirecTV, and Dish all provide varying degrees of "premium" HD content, but unless you lock yourself into a their HD-DVRs, again, you are out of luck. And even if you do use an HD-DVR from cable or satellite companies, don't even think of offloading the content.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
The old one is now a great bargain. I have the old 30gb model, I won it at a charity auction. I always liked the thing, but with the new firmware and software it's really nice. I've seen them for $85 online with free shipping (in the U.S.) Not bad for a 30gb player with wireless and video!
It still looks too generic and cheap, it looks better than the original Zune, but still looks like a toy and not something sophisticated for adults.
As for the fullscreen playback, the montage background is neat and all, but it doesn't touch using Front Row with the included remote.
And please keep your dwarf fantasies to yourself.
Quack, quack.
But the truth it I don't find it all that elegant.
It is a rectangle white one one side and shinny metal on the other. Yea it doesn't clash with anything but I don't find it out of this world.
The audio jack is on the bottom of my nano. Really annoying because it have to stick it in my pocket upside down to have enough lead on my ear buds.
The UI is nice but it is hard to use in the dark. I use my IPod when I am out walking my dog at night so that lack of tactile feedback is really a pain.
The elegance of the iPod as reached mythic levels. It is good but far from perfect.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Last I understood, no one was fooled the last time.
... but it sits on a shelf actually in front of a real shopper.
Microsoft may have invented an entirely new form of advertising, called "Eye-Ware".
They know perfectly well their 0.1 release of something is garbage
Then their 3rd revision becomes mostly usable, at which point their FUD campaign may have had time to work.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
...when for $300 you could have an 8Gig iPod Touch, which is a a seriously nice bit of kit, even to a jaded oldie like me - that multitouch screen is truly lovely and (almost) everything about the interface is polished to a delicious, gloss, sheen.
I fail to see why anyone would be surprised by this, we are seeing this everyday in so many different ways, but especially with content. Smart people have been thinking long and hard how to get around getting people to pay for stuff that is now essentially free. New York Times tried it (i.e."Times Select"), Slashdot has subscriptions where you can forego ads.
Search for an IT term in Google and typically you'll get the first five links are at techmag sites and you only get the first paragraph, the rest you have to pay for. Same damn thing.
Wait awhile, soon you'll be able to get Hi-Def, but only if you subscribe to a service somewhere. It's only a matter of time. Besides, what's the big deal about watching Hi-Def on a 320 X 480 or smaller screen anyway?
God: When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
Only recently has the company admitted what was clear from the outset: the first Zune was rushed to market (it was a "sprint cycle," in Microsoft terms), and "compromises" were made in order to make that happen. So Microsoft started over.
Sweet! Only one rev left until we get to MS's famous "adequate" 3.0 phase!
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
"The Social" was moved online, where Zune users might actually find others to share their musical tastes with.
(No additional comment needed.)
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I'm a Zune owner, and I record Terrestrial Broadcast HD shows. My Zune syncs with them fine, after the software does its automatic (and transparent to the user) conversion for resolution and space. This is on my old Zune 30GB, even. I'm not sure why the article says that non-DRM'd HD doesn't work...perhaps they only tried a DRM'd video and assumed it all wouldn't work?
Still IMing in the stone age?
Since it seems a reasonable response to the 62 posts griping about how the Zune won't do HD video...
Three Squirrels
From http://www.peanutscollectorclub.com/football.html: In 1979, Charlie Brown winds up in the hospital for surgery. In a fit of desperation, Lucy promises not to pull the football away the next time, if only he'll get better. Well, he obviously gets better, and all the neighborhood kids await the results. This multi-week "novelette" climaxes in the 8/2/79 daily strip, when she doesn't pull the ball away ... but Charlie Brown misses and kicks her arm instead!
Why do I hear this so often? Why can the customer not be both the person watching and the person advertising? Simply because one pays money and other does not? No, the content is the product. The customer is both the watcher and the advertiser; the content provider is incentivised to provide quality programming to please the watcher, and the please the advertiser. Thus they make money.
Should this be the way it is? I don't think so. I'd pay money for a quality show. They could give new shows away for free to get people interested, to get watchers hooked. And the numbers would be way more solid.
What is is all that is. Isn't that obvious?
Wow...just....wow. They are copying the Apple business model of what, three years ago? Now that apple has moved onto miniscule Nanos and Touches, Microsoft comes up with a clone of the 1st Gen iPod Nano? What's next, Microsoft? Are you going to showcase a new "Shuffle"?
when and if the analog shut off takes place in 09, then all tv will be HDTV, and only unlockable at their whim. need we say more ?
The issue isn't that the Zune won't play HD content but that if you want to downres and copy content from your Media Centre PC to your Zune you cannot do that if it is HD. You can (it isn't clear on this, actually) if it is SD. Even if the downres'd content is the exact same.
So:
copy to Zune SD content after downresing to 320x240 15fps OK
copy to Zune HD content after downresing to 320x240 15fps NOT OK
Why?
But it doesn't want to. Why? Because they want the media business to use Windows codecs, Windows DRM and therefore lock Windows servers into the industry, require Windows products to view all media.
MS could turn round and say "tough titty. our customers won't want it, it's an expensive product that doesn't work and only benefits you." what are they going to do? Abandon the billion desktops? Write their own DRM, applications and OS? No. But they may go to, say Real and then why is there a need to go Windows? Real could write for Solaris or Mac. Heck, even Linux, because Real would only have to give the media companies the changes to the kernel and they aren't going to leak it for free, are they?
So MS allow themselves to be talked into bed with the Media Cartel so that they get the maternity suit and make Media their bitch later on down the line.