Thanks for the updates!! A viedo store is very exiting and very nice job in putting in autoplaylists and gapless playback. Continue the grat work you guys do!

You're welcome.

Sounds awesome to me...

But my Zune Card doesn't work anymore cause I'm Canadian :'(

Kudos to the Zune team for listening! You guys rock!!!!11!!ONE

Thanks Cesar and the entire Zune team! I'm looking forward to seeing all the new enhancements!

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!

Quick question, will the TV shows be available via Zune Pass? I assume not, but would prompt me to subscribe if they were.

Many thanks for getting the features we've been very vocal about for the past 5 months. And big ups for moving into making the "Social" into an actual social. The Pass + friend feeds = awesome. Compelling stuff Cesar.

Jesus Christ About time This Update Better Rule!

Oh, wow.

The Zune Pass was cool before.  This *is* the killer app for subscription music, if it works right, and it looks like it just might...

This is awesome I hope this update is just the shadow of things to come. Zune has really started to pull from the shadow of the Ipod and I think if anything will do that it will be listening to what people want

Wow! This is amazing. Kudos! Kudos! And yes, thanks for listening.

Wow, this looks amazing!  Thanks for all the hard work you and the Zune team do!  My only question is: will the screensaver finally be disabled during playback?  Thanks again!

huzzah!

I can't wait for tomorrow and checkout all the new goodies on the social and on the marketplace! yayz!

You rock. :D I wasn't expecting this sort of thing until the fall!!!

It feels greedy to be even thinking about the next step, and you've probably heard this before, but hey, you say feedback's helpful, right? So--

1. Audible?

2. More video content is always welcome :)

3. Is content portable Xbox <--> Zune??? (That'd be huge...)

Anyway, congrats.

Ooh, and Zune.net is down... hmmm...

can some1 tell me what exactly is an auto playlist. email me at galletas216@yahoo.com or on aim...gonnaballuup21

Haha and iFans were convinced Zune would crash and burn. Keep up this pace Zune! But Zune really needs to start expanding worldwide... I would expect by the year's end?

Thank you!! seriously!

Wanna scream out so loud for the new update

WooHoooo

Thanks to Zune Team

Still no support for East Asian Characters?

I am really disappointed.

When can we get it??? Please?

Many songs in my music collection just can't display properly on Zune because of this.

EXCELLENT! cheers zune!

We want CJK fonts in Zune!!!

Now, can we just get normal pricing instead of this ridiculous Microsoft Points BS sold in $5 increments (sp)?  I don't want to spend $5 for a song.  Until this is "fixed", I'll continue to make my purchases from Amazon.

For all else, thanks for the update.

And yet another update that list my artists and tracks as □□□□□, □□□ □□, □□ □□ and □□□□...

If you listened to your customers, I just guess people listening to international music haven't been vocal enough ?!

When will the Zune finally be able to show asian caracters like every other player on the market ?

"Welcome to the social" should start by respecting cultural diversity.

Hi, I removed DrWatson for my computer. It is required at the install. Could you tell me how to install it without it, I remember there were such a method for older version.

Thanks a lot and keep up the good work.

thanks guys! I'll report back what I think of the update but from what I've read so far, it sounds good.

Next time, though, don't wait so long to issue out small updates. Give us a bone more often with one or two substantial feature updates before your huge Fall update.

Fantastic~  It should be an exciting day... I see the marketplace is currently cown

Autoplaylists!  Thank you very much!

Holy crap. I think almost everything I wanted is in there*! It's like Xmas in Spring. Thanks for such a colossal update team!

* Except the clock :P

Zune update is excellent...metadata editing / gapless / video metadata...just get the thing for sale in the UK so I can be social and I'll be a very happy bunny

FLAC would be nice in the Autumn / Fall :o)

All my podcasts on the Zune now are in a messed up order and all my musics album art has been messed up! :( not impressed. tho the other changes seem pretty good. I definitely appreciate the gapless playback and faster opening of podcasts opening on the software

oh no its happening!!!

Zune is becoming a product and not project.

I would personaly like to give a BIG thanks and a job well done to the zune team. You guys and girls have really listened to the community and you really take the phrase "you make it you" to heart thanks from a loyal zuner!!!!!!!!

Should I be able to log in via the Zune Software? Because I can't... I hope this isn't the bug that plagued me just after I got a Zune Pass...

Otherwise, sweet update!

Seeing as how the 360 supports DIVX why not support it on the ZUNE. Arnt you guSY in the same division?!?!

Great job Zune team! Always good to see you are listening to our requests. I especially like the enhanced tag editor and gapless playback. Kudos.

But, please, PLEASE, get some Xbox 360/Zune interaction going soon. I can't believe it still is not there. Why can I not move my Xbox 360 TV shows over to my Zune. This is not acceptable =(

Metadata and autoplaylists! THANK YOU!!!

Just one teeny tiny favor though... can we bring back song flagging on the device? That feature was invaluable for dummy-playlisting.

But wow, thanks!

Just noticed that marketplace is missing from my Zune software....I presume that this is because I'm in the UK and don't have a Zune profile....bit of a bummer - even though it was ltd in v2.0 it was quite useful

Thank you Zune Product Team!

When the Zune2 software came out I listed 7 problems that you needed to address.  This nails a couple of them.  Here's my list:

1.  Auto Playlists.  (THANK YOU)

2.  Meta Tag Editing.  (THANK YOU - better than iTunes even)

3.  Audiobook Support.  (Anything you can comment on this report: http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/paul/archive/2008/04/18/unconfirmed-xp-lives-on-zune-and-audible-compatibility.aspx ???)

4.  Lyrics/Podcast Notes Support.

5.  Bring Back 5 Star Song Rating. (that would also include some auto playlist enhancements)

6.  Flag Songs to Inbox.  (I miss that feature, it was a great way to bookmark your memory about something when listening to music!)

7.  Better Playlist Support.  (M3U format interoperability - automatically - would be nice)

I use Media Center extender with my XBox 360 and I really like how that all fits together.  I stream music and have family pics scroll through.  It would really be nice if I could keep that whole integrated UI and not have to maintain separate playlists for the Zune and the XBox.

I'm sure there's more but again THANK YOU.  Now the party's over and it's time to get back to work.  So when is the rest of that list coming?  ;)

Glad to see a new release. Biggest missing features for me:

-No way for plugins like Last.FM to work. You'd have more people using the Zune Social if you didn't make them pick. If I could listen to my music in the Zune software and still keep my Last.FM profile updated, I would. Instead, I use WinAmp.

-No way to sort on filesize. When my Zune is full, there's no easy way to see what's taking the most space.

-No way to control playback speed. That's important for podcasts.

-Podcasts with more than one enclosure aren't supported. Most music podcasts include several songs in a post.

"Beginning Tuesday, Canadians will be able to download Zune music management software similar to Apple's iTunes from zune.ca. However, Canadians will not have access to the Zune Marketplace, Microsoft's online music and video store."

Now thats useless. Ive had the software workign with my zune sinse the launch of the Zune80, now that its officialy avilable here, whats new?.....nothing....I want a ZUNE PASSS

YES!!!! Auto playlists!  Thank you!  

What about the splitting of albums when downloaded?  I can't seem to resolve this issue.

Videos!  Finally....

Zune is is the best!

OK? So if I already bought tv shows on my 360, I have to buy them again on zune. Thats retarded, its even with the same .net account. Thanks microsoft! not.

Funny, after I'd stopped coming here cause there wasn't much news lately, there's the first major update to v2. Only found out about it via Major Nelson's Twitter.

But need I say how great this is? Now Zune just needs a few things for it to be fully awesome. I'd say a clock... Last.FM integration in Zune, and more TV shows (Of course, but I'm sure that's on the way now).

But you guys have really nailed it. Kudos.

Awesome job guys! And here I was beginning to think Microsoft was giving up on the Zune since I haven't heard anything lately.

Now, if only Monk episodes from NBC Universal shows up on the marketplace.

And also, like everyone else, try to get a way so the DRMs would say "we have already downloaded these files [on the 360]" to really give a push to the 360-Zune-Windows connectivity.

instead of having a xbox live marketplace and a zune tv marketplace, why don't you combine it and make all downloads for xbox and zune? (like itunes)

The whole thing of building and supporting 2 seperate marketplaces is kind of dumb

Terrific update Zune.

I am so impressed!

Updates that give are almost always good.  

The spring update seems aweosome! Many useful features! However, one thing I'd like to see in the Zune is video playlists which are not yet supported. Also, creating audio/video playlists from the device would be nice!

Great update! Most of the features still left that we've been asking for are finally here. I'm already loving how easy it is to search for album art/info, much smoother than in WMP11.

I'm still dying for a Last.FM plug-in. Hell, put out a Zune API for developers and let the floodgates open.

Definitely merge Zune and Xbox Marketplaces so that you can mix and match how and where you make your purchases. Read: If I buy, say, The Office episodes, I want to be able to download them on my Zune AND on my Xbox wihtout a hitch.

Does anyone know why the Zune still cannot recognize the DiscNumber tag? Also, what version(s) of ID3 is now supported?

Luigi, it does read and let you set the disc number tags.  There are some sorting display bugs in the UI, though.

The de facto industry standard for MP3 tagging is ID3v2.3, and the Zune software continues to read/write this.  It can also read old ID3v1 for backwards compatibility.  The same is true for Explorer shell, and all Microsoft media products.  The less common ID3v2.4 is not supported.  See my comments about why ID3v2.4 didn't do very well here:

http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28380

Thank you for the gapless playback!!!  I've been waiting for this feature for a long time!  And it works great.

grommet, yes, I see that the tag editor is writing id3 v1 and id3 v2.3 to the files. One thing that I'm trying to figure out is how we should be editing disc numbers. If you leave the disc number field empty it defaults to disc 0. When you then look at the file in mp3tag the discnumber tag reads 0/1. Not a problem now, but I'm wondering if I then load my files onto an iPod or something will it have trouble with the "0/1" BTW, is #/# the "standard" format for tagging disc numbers? Nice to have a calm discussion here. I had the wolves after me in another forum for expressing my disappointment with the gapless implementation :-)

Oh yeah, I forgot. The problem with the Zune device and the disc number was in sorting the tracks like this:

1

1

2

2

3

3

etc.

grommet, one other question on the tags. Is the Zune editor writing UTF-16 or ISO-8559-1?

Welcome, the internet, to another exciting edition of New Music Friday! Ready for some more free tracks

When is the clock/alarm coming out??  How is it possible Microsoft hasn't done this yet?  No wonder the Ipod continue to dominate the Zune in the marketplace.  Apple knows how to deliver what consumers want and demand.  I'm giving it 6 months (I've already waited a year), and then if there is still no clock release, I'm ditching my Zune and going to Apple.

I was really disappointed at the Zune 2.5 upgrade process.  First, when I followed the instructions to upgrade, they did not work.  I received a message to use Microsoft Update to upgrade.  I did that, after finding out that Windows Update and Microsoft Update were not the same.  Time wasted.  That was not even the bad part.  Once I installed the update, the Zune software wanted to sync everything in my collection to the Zune again.  This was over 1200 items.  The worst was the podcasts, which it seemed to really mess up.  It was going to transcode everything again and put duplicates in the collection and on the device.  I found that the upgrade did not find that I had set the transcoded files directory different than the default.  Even after switching it back to my setting, the sync problems did not fix themselves.  I finally gave up and deleted all my podcast subscriptions and files from my collection and from the device and starting over.  I needed to resubscribe to them all and mark which ones I had played.  Another couple hours wasted.  There were over 250 downloads to do over and the transcoding will take about two days.  This is worst upgrade experience I have ever had on any software or device I have owned.

Not that I dont want to sound unappreciative of this huge update, but the new autoplaylists dont have all the functionality we used to have.

 All I want to do is make a playlist of all the files in a directory, or a directory and it's subs.  I pull lots of free music from sites like this, and to keep them logically organized I store them in directories named after the provider (in the event the RIAA comes knocking I can know where I got my tracks from)

 I just want a playlist called "zuneinsider.com tracks" or "mysteriousuniverse.org tracks" or "ioda.promonet tracks"

 I used to have these and loved it, now they all blend together with the rest of my music, and I am not getting the "New Music Exposure" I am looking for.

I find the autoplaylists lacking as they don't allow for multiple criteria.  I would like to be able create a "Rock" autoplaylist, for example, which automatically contains all rock related genres (Hard Rock, Soft Rock, Punk, etc.).  Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't think this is possible.

I'm sorry, I just read that you can include multiple genres in an autoplaylist by separating them with semi-colons, though I have yet to try it.  Wish that was spelled out somewhere in the Zune software.

This update, at least for me, has been a total disaster.  It's trashed my podcast lists, it's doubled up entries on everything from music to podcasts, and the "constant play" with no way to disable it is super annoying.  

With the old software, I could set the zune to play one lecture as I was going to sleep, and after that lecture ended, the  zune turned itself off.  Now, it'll play everything in that lecture series, so the zune will be dead in the morning...no zune for the commute if I want to hear a lecture while going to sleep.  

Also, the ordering of things inside music and podcasts is a nightmare.  Nothing is in order anymore.

It looks like I'm going to have to delete everything from my zune, delete all of  my podcast subscriptions, start from scratch, and then hand-mark everything as played/not played.

What a complete and total waste of my time, to have to totally reset my entire library of media.  Seriously, was there any QA on this thing at all?  Does nobody on the team ever use the product?  Did it not occur to someone, somewhere, that giving the consumer a toggle to decide whether they wanted the system to automatically "play all" would be a good idea?  

If Play All is up there at the top, and I can *choose* play all, why did you make the system automatically do that, with no way to turn it off.  Really horrid UI design there.  

Don't get me wrong, I loved my Zune, but now it's completely useless unless I'm doing something that lets me babysit it all the time, and the hours I'm going to have to spend to reset all of my content have made me consider just swapping it out for an alternative player and ebaying this one.  I don't want to have to reset all my content every time you guys do an update.  

This update seems to have a problem if you DON'T have track number tags properly set in your album tracks.  While it worked in the previous version (sorting on..who knows...filename maybe?) on the new version, when it tries to add an album to the collection, it LOOKS like it's working...the UI says 'Added 10 items' but only two tracks show up.  There's just no way to add the other tracks unless you set the track tags.  And weirder, if you try to 'play with Zune' any of the OTHER tracks from Explorer, ONLY the track that the collection THINKS it already has will play.  This might be a factor in why a lot of folks are complaining that Zune is not importing chunks of their libraries...check those track tags.

I'm also baffled as to why the Zune software now sorts tracks according to Disc number, but the Zune itself continues to ignore the Disc tag.

Result: Box sets show up in the correct order on my PC, but still get listed as 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, etc. on the Zune.

Has anyone found a fix for the sync problem?  I get 79 songs out of 1500 I told it to sync.  This really messed up my whole weekend of music listening.  I was heading out of town camping and decided to add some new songs and now I only have 79.

dammit this sucks why couldnt it b the way it was when zunes 1st came out now they have all this crap and updates and new ways of using it. what ever happened to the easy way of doing things and still being able to get what u desire. but i guess. i went through hours of trying to update this thing and all i get is error or unable to complete or ...................? i mean come on im a dude that loves his music now i gotta figga this out.F.Ck!!!!!