A guide to get DVD on Zune: http://www.soft29.com/ho...ert-dvd-to-zune-wmv.htm

Dont listen to any of these people who are talking about the zune and havnt even used one. I bought one the day it came out and i think it is awesome. All of you people need to learn a lession. Im not against the ipod and im not for microsoft...im for a good product that will expand the market and make it better. The zune is a brand new product and yall are comparing it too the 3rd and 4th generation ipod. I love the zune. It looks nice, it is easy to use...and of course it is bigger...the screen is huge. So what if the quality is the same as the ipod. When you are looking at tv's you tend to look at the bigger one. Yeah from a 10 inch tv to a 40 inch tv the quality will go down...but half an inch...that isnt going to make it look worse...its just a bigger screen which is awesome. And about the whole no videos or anything on the marketplace...it just came out...give it time. We need something to create good competition so that prices will go down and quality will go up. The zune is a great product...it may not have everything that the ipod has yet...but it has only been out for a couple of days..give it time. I would recommend the zune to everyone. It has its ups and downs...but so does the ipod. I think they are equal in there own ways. Just find the one that will work better in your life...just dont listen to reviewers who havnt even touched it yet...

Ok here is the deal i bought a Zune last night from Walmart just to try it out buying something from Walmart does not set anything in stone you can return anything there any ways I was all about the Ipod its a great music player and i think that is one of the best things apple has done in a long time I meen go anywhere and see if you can look around a store and not find something for your Ipod but my point is when i went to Walmart and droped the 249.99 down on the Zune I did it only to test it out and see how many real big changes there was between the Zune and Ipod there really was and after using it for a day im real impressed with MS new toy its going to give Apple a run for its money the FM radio is nice to have when bored of hearing my same old music over and over gives me something to play with also the Zune software makes the transfer of pics video and music fast and easy yes Itunes can do the hole music and photo but when it comes to video on the ipod it lacks plus the Zune battery is sick where if i was using my Ipod I could get only part way done with a movie before my battery was ready for a new charge the Zune allows you to not only finish your movie but still have time to do other stuff sense the battery lasts 12 hours for music and 4 and a hafe using video Ill be honest with every one I love Linux and would ues Linux all the time but there are just some stuff you cant do with out MS so I had to check what i thought would be a very sad joke of an mp3 player made by them but after using it im having A real hard time deciding if I still want to take it back of keep it the sound is great could just be the set of headphones that comes with it but it seems so much more crisp and the screen is so much nicer then the Ipod there are things that every one will hate about it and same for Ipod but not every one can use Linux and not evrey one Can install doom on there Ipod ya know so what MS has doen is made a very nice music player with a great battery and and nice screen and made it easy for people to use so for once im giving MS hats off for this one.

Now that Sprint already has music download services for their phones, I think Microsoft made a huge mistake making Zune. They waited way too long and well, geez--I can't give any reason they would do this now.Microsoft usually does the smart thing, but here they appear to be stupid.

Perhaps there's something else up their sleeve, but any "almost IPod" at this point is useless. Like Dell's MP3 thing, like Creative's (which is the only one I use, by the way), like Samsungs, etc.--they are not well known and without winning any popularity contests they never make it. Dell's was the closest success and after Christmas of last year they were discontinued. WHAT IS MICROSOFT DOING?

If anyone has any answers, I'd love to hear them...

A very same thing they did with the XBox and IE.

Release it, it does ok, and then keep feeding it money until it prevails, and them abandon it until some other companies starts releasing a better alternatives, and then they release an XBox7/IE7.

Since I'm an iPod user and open minded towards new technologies, I was looking forward the Zune "phenomena." I don't mind changing my MP3 player to something better. But, to this day I still get a shock at the "clumsiness" from some of the high-tech companies and I'm baffled as to why (?) they don't get it right the first time. Did Apple hire all the imaginative engineers on the planet???
The success of Apple in the MP3 market is not just the iPod. But it's the combination of iPod and iTunes that makes it so good.
I know that iPod has certain limitations, and I can think of at least 1000 new ways in making a new MP3 player that will smoke the iPod. But since Sony, Samsung and Microsoft live in their own bubble, for the time being I'll stick to iPod.
I'm patient and still waiting for something that will knock my socks off.

I think Microsoft Points (79 points = 99 cents) is a brilliant marketing strategy. It confuses the consumer while benefiting the merchant.
Is it true that Zune will require product activation?

Damn right its no iPod.

iPods are actually cool.

They got one thing right. MS didn't name the device the "XZ32a10" or some ridiculous random series of letters and numbers.

Yeah, not being an external hard drive means I wouldn't be able to write it off as a job related expense. Oh well, next version I guess.

Ok so I’ve had every generation of the ipods. So I know what im talking about here. Now just recently I’ve found some things that I don’t like about Itunes and Ipod. Ipods I found, come preloaded with a virus. I’m really not sure what the virus does but really I don’t want that on my computer. from what I know so far its not malicious. But who knows.
Another thing that disturbed me was when you do buy songs off itunes they instantly go to MPEG4 format. Now that’s pretty much locking you in so the only place you can put those songs is your Ipod, not the Zune, a cell phone, or any other mp3 player. That means the, 100+ songs that I’ve bought ($110 for me) will not work on the zune when I buy it. So pretty much what there saying is those songs aren’t yours.
1st. Mr. Mossberg himself said, "He also notes that the larger screen doesn't mean better resolution than the ipod - just a bigger picture." exactly bigger picture so who’s that making better? 2nd "Songs are priced at 79 points, which some people might think means 79 cents. But 79 points actually cost 99 cents," Yea Mr. Mossberg how much do Itunes songs cost? Oh wait, I think, yep 99 cents. How weird the same price. now for that next statement about the zune only letting people buy in $5 dollar increments, yes i do agree that’s pretty foolish, but I’m sure after time there going to realize that sucks or they'll lose some money over it. now what’s the size matter. i mean come on they have to keep it somewhat in reason. and that is. what are you complaining about. again lets go back and look at apples first Ipod. yea that was just as big, if not bigger.
See, Mr. Mossberg is also criticizing the library music variety. About how the zune library doesn’t have enough videos and shows so customers can buy. The thing is you can put your own movies on your zune and not have to search on google for hours on "how to put home movies on your ipod". So really I’m not getting why apples critsizing Mr. Gates. Everyone has a fair share at the market. that’s what made this country. I cant even start to explain the accessory store. I mean its deffinatly a way for apple to make money ill give them that credit. But I’m mean come on some things are just ridiculous. Like not sending chargers with the ipod that plug into the wall. and the outrageous prices on apple.com. But hey maybe they think if you can purchase a 200+ dollar piece of equipment then you can afford anything -_-. I’m going to leave some sites that tells you more information on the zune and ipod if you want to read. It compares the ipod and zune side by side. I hope this has broadened your minds a little more. And not give just one superior opinion. thanks

1.http://www.zunescene.com/(go in here with an open mind)

Dude, learn to break up your text. You might have some good points, but this is almost unreadable.

You are right "imafurby." But he has some good points to make.

I was going to buy one until I read one of the devs blog saying that only WMA, WMV and AAC were "natively supported", the other formats are transcoded by software (which is bad imo).

The problem is that the Zune is a rebadged Toshiba gigabeat - they'r not bad players, but they're not new tech per se. Wifi is just not significant enough to have the player stand out - neither is this budding ms music community. Furthermore this whole no playforsure deal has a sour taste. It's what killed it off for me. Personally, from a marketing perspective I can see what MS is trying to do - they're just doing really bad job of it. They're def. trying to copy the ipod/itunes model, unfortunately they don't have something essential to that equation.... Rabid, crazy, foaming at the mouth, cult type Appleites who would buy poop if it had Apple branding on it. You know what they say about Apple products, they're better than anything else out there in the world.
So they're making a REALLY big mistake. I was looking forward to buying one but now I'm thinking I'll just wait for the next great creative labs mp3 player....no, not being sarcastic. I do prefer them entirely to ipods, simply because of playforsure. Unlike many, I LOVE the subscription model. Nothing beats 'renting' an unlimited number of 160k and up mp3s monthly for $14. Or maybe I'll get a real Toshiba® Gigabeat, really, anything that's solid, works and doesn't lock me into buying from a single music store, oh, and ofcourse that uses playforsure. Very disappointed here.

People are fools if they allow the reviews of others to be their final verdict on *anything*.

Reviews are only guides of information we all must try to pick out what is fact and what is opinion, the rest is up to us to decide.

"Don't buy a Yugo!"

"Well, forget that! I want to make sure I know on my own, so I'm going to buy one!"

-- explode --

Make sense?

"'Songs are priced at 79 points, which some people might think means 79 cents. But 79 points actually cost 99 cents,' he lamented."

That is just SO Microsoft. It's obviously misleading and I can't wait to hear the explanations.

It's so that they'll be the same "price" in points around the world - all that changes is the exchange rate to local currency.

Mossberg and Pogue are both Mac fanatics. You always have Jobs using quotes from them in his keynotes.

Not that I'm saying their criticisms are not valid, take them with a grain of salt, is all.

Or, perhaps they might actually have a point in that Apple offers well-created products these days.

To bad they don't create any of it.

I agree, Microsoft are an organisation packed full of staff that have original ideas and Apple just copies them all, and does a shoddy job of it.

Oh no wait, I got that the wrong way around.

Apple often adopts unfinished or conceptual ideas and develops them into a stylish product, Microsoft then waits and copies that product badly and commoditises it for beige box buying masses masses.

Coming up with the idea is the easy bit (I own four patents, I should now), initially taking it to market is the risky bit - copying it is the very easy bit, especially making a bad copy.

Never said MS was any better... They are far worst, no argument there.

uhhh ... so creative makes a mp3 player, they're not copying apple ... jetaudio has a mp3 player theyre not copying.... microsoft makes a mp3 player .. and they're copying apple?

What is microsoft copying apple because their OS uses a mouse and keyboard? seriously the bias on this webiste is absolutely astounding.

See 'Xerox' =)

Competitionis healthy, no doubt but over-used bad pr is so predictable with MS.

Does anybody see the trend with MS? Ever since the mid-90s, they have done the same things over and over. Hail their new product as revolutionary, hail the amazing feature, hail the impending market, then they very rarely meet the market date, cut a lot of feature and there is no more splash.

MS has taught all of us at least one good lesson, never buy the first version.

Zune 1.0 is nothing to write about but watch out for version 3 or 4...

that reminds me of Sony Playstations.

Well, iPod didn't take off until it came out with Generation 4 AND WORK FOR WINDOWS.

the ps1 and ps2 were more than i expected at the time.

I hope the Zune and music store does bad enough that Microsoft rethinks this whole closed ecosystem. They might open up the Zune with a firmware update in a last ditch effort to speed adoption.

I think i'm going to buy it and make my own assessment, rather then rely on the word of people who may be either biased or bought off by the ipod monopoly.

I'm surprised to read how they completely sidestepped some of the Zunes other features (landscape video playback, playbackfeatures, ability to share photos wirelessly from zune to zune, wallpaper images, lack of prepackaged viruses [lol], etc etc...) and failed to highlight what features Ipod has, that the Zune hasn't.

Especially when one of these reviews comes from a disgruntled ex microsoft employee, it's rediculous... cant wait to get my zune :P

Completely agree with you there. I don't trust reviewers anymore these days, but rather judge the product by myself, for my needs and wants.

hmmmmmm....interesting point you made, perhaps without meaning to do so, about viruses and sharing wirelessly.

Exactly! I only see reviews to see certains points of view of the products and the images, sometimes I don't even read the review only some lines.

First, everyone has a bias, it's human nature and just by experiencing life and making assessments you create a bias. If I'm not mistaken your bias is towards ms by that comment you just left and the article doesn't have all of what the people said about the zune, they could have loved the landscape video playback...

phenomnaruto wrote
"I think i'm going to buy it and make my own assessment, rather then rely on the word of people who may be either biased or bought off by the ipod monopoly."

LOL I love it, you are going to take a $200.00 bath to find out the the thing isn't what it was touted to be? People like you made MSN what it is today, a company that doesn't care what sort of crap they put out because they know someone will buy it.

It's his money and he can spend it if he wants to. Not all of us are sheep directed by the media and so-called popularity. I spent the money to try the ipod because it was said to be so great.....and you know what? I learned my lesson because it wasn't. Same sound quality as the others, same screen quality as many similarly priced items. Only big difference is how sexy it is, that's it - it's trendy and looks nice. Well yeah, trendy doesn't mean crap to me. So I agree with him completely....try the damned thing and if he doesnt like it, unless he buys it stolen, he is 100% sure to be able to exchange it for something else.

Nuffin but a rebadged Toshiba player...

Hey, I'm still carrying around my Old Tech cassettes, ripping anything I want from my collection going back to the 50s and unlike iPod's DRM or Zune's clunkiness, it's absolutely free. I'm sure the RIAA Mafia goons would love a piece of my action.

Of course, if you're ripping from your own collection, you don't have to deal with FairPlay.

Fair enough... but the rest of us are listening to much higher quality audio.