Great movie, better soundtrack.

When I bought my Zune, it was after careful research and investigation that I decided to purchase one.   I knew it was a device with huge dreams of being the number one portable media player.   I knew that the path to that dream was long and dangerous.   But I bought one anyway.   I did it because I thought it had the potential and the drive.

I was wrong.

Zune Video Playback Issues

A recent update on the Zune software for my computer has caused some incompatibility with my hardware.   I download a lot of video podcasts, and I have a few of my DVDs on my Zune as well.   Before the update, they played beautifully.   After the update, well I’ll just say I am now in the 1970′s – jagged lines everywhere.   Vertical lines across the video and green pixel artifacts at the edge of the video too, overall lowering the quality of the video, not to mention annoying as heck.

The video file plays fine on different software on my computer.   It plays fine on the Zune itself.   It plays fine on my other computer.   I know it’s a hardware issue, but if my computer can play the video fine with different software, then the Zune software is wrong.

I had issues when I first bought it months ago.   It would restart at random times while I played music.   I was THIS close to returning it.   I called Microsoft and they said a software update was coming that would fix it.   I gambled with my return policy and stuck with it until the update.   I gambled right; the update fixed the issue and times were good again.

Now when I want to watch a podcast on my computer I have to watch it in such a horribly low quality that I am discouraged of watching the video at all.

Microsoft promised me a fix last time and they delivered.   To be fair, I will call them up again and see if they have any fix this time.   If not, I bought the warranty for it and I plan on using it.   Ugh.   I hate being in this position.   I. Do. Not. Want. To. Buy. An. IPod… EVER. But I’m a sucker for gadgets and I have to give in.

If only Microsoft would put out a simple version to the software.   I don’t care about the “enhanced graphics.”   I hate to admit it, but why can’t it be a bit cleaner like the iTunes software?

Microsoft…   Zune software = fail.

I don’t know why I have been jonesin’ for some Final Fantasy.   I went searching my cd cases for all of my Final Fantasy music that I backed up to data CD’s just in case (I lost all my mp3′s some time ago, good thinking on my part! Yay!).   I uploaded them all to the Precious the other day and I have been listening non stop.

I got Final Fatnasy X-2 in the mail after trading one of Ciri’s books on Swap Tree.   Heh heh.   Haven’t had the time to play it, though.   I’m looking to get more FF games for the DS, especially FFTA2! I can play my DS anywhere, even while I am taking care of the baby.   She likes to sleep on me and when she does, I’m pretty much stuck on the couch… and TV gets boring.   So I’m hoping to come accross someone on Swap Tree that wants to trade FFTA2 for another stupid interesting book.   Oh yea, I forgot to mention I finally finished FFTA last week.   Kind of a weak ending, but it was still a lot of fun to play.   I was looking for my Final Fantasy Tactics for the PSX set and I couldn’t find it.   I’m trying to remember if I traded it in at EB games at one point.   I remember the game was stupid hard, and I really hated it.   Now I want to give it a try again.   Oh well, one game at a time I guess.   Besides, I have many other projects I have to worry about right now.

Forgot to mention that with the great idea good ol’ George (W. Bush) concocted to stimulate the economy, I was able to finally purchase myself a PMD (portable media device). It took me a while to figure out which one I wanted the most. I started looking at what was out there and I know that I wanted a large hard drive to store all my music rather then loading just a small portion of it.   I have about 30 gigs of music as it is so I wanted at least a 40 gig drive, but I would prefer 60 to 80.   Of all the features, the hard drive is all I really cared about.   I would be happy with a small black and white screen and a huge hard drive.   But since they don’t make anything like that I was stuck trying to figure out the best player for the money.   It came down to the IPod and the Zune.   I really liked the Creative Labs Zen, but it was too expensive and the hard drive was too small.

I liked that the IPod is fairly established.   It’s had years to refine it user interface, which is one of the reasons the IPod is so popular.   Although this is also a bad thing; they’ve monoploized the digital music realm and created their own standards without regard to the people.   They’ve told us that this is the standard and we’re going to like it.   Don’t get me wrong, Microsoft is the same way, just a different devil.   Anyway, the point is that I don’t like the IPod, but… after analyzing the different models it is still a possibility.   Unfortuneately, not even I can go against Steve Jobs.

Anyway, the IPod doesn’t play WMAs and it has a smaller screen, but like I said, it has a solid interface and TONS of accessories out there.

The Zune on the other hand doesn’t play AAC files and has a less refined interface, but has a bigger screen (the screens are actually the same resolution, but because it’s bigger, you can sit farther from it when watching videos.   I figured if I am going to be stuck with a color screen, I might as well get the bigger one.) and the squirgle.   I like the squirgle more than the touch circle on the IPod.   The computer interface is crap in my opinion.   ITunes is better laid out than the Zune software, but it may appeal to a younger age group.

In the end, the Zune was the better decision for me, the IPod is good, but not for me.   It sucks that the Zune will never sync with a Mac or Linux, but I will always have a Windows PC so it’s really no big deal.   Anyway, I’ve had it for a few months now.   The first month sucked because it would keep shutting off on me.   I called Microsoft and they said they were going to release a new update that would fix it.   I bought the warranty for it so I figured if the update didn’t fix it I would return it for an IPod.   The update fixed it so it works like champ now, but it was touch and go for awhile…

Now I take it everywhere.   I hook it up at work to my computer speakers, in my car through the MP3 player input, and at home through the Home Dock that Ciri bought me for Father’s Day.   I also got a plastic case to protect it from my clumsiness.   The Home Dock is cool; I have a ton of video Podcasts on it and I when I dock it, I can watch them on the TV.   It even came with a remote too!   I have to program my receiver’s remote to control the dock so I don’t have another controller lying around.   I love learning remotes!

My first real PMD (or MP3 player if you want to call it that, it plays more than MP3′s) ever.   The last music player I had was that CD player I bought when I worked at the Good Guys.   It was a $200 player (the case was designed by some big italian dude… I dunno, but it was made by iRiver; good company), but I bought the floor model for $30.   Heh heh.   It was sweet, but phased out by the digital music revolution.   So, now I am happy, I bought the biggest hard drive that they make in the Zune, so I will be set for a looooong time.   80 gigs is a good amount of storage space.