The Zune Feature Request & Suggestion Thread

Unicode support for non-HD Zunes.

It's not a feature—it's a necessity for many users.

Hey y'all. I'm new to the forums, so if I've posted this wrong then I hope one of the moderators will move it to its proper spot. Thanks.

I've got some suggestions too about the Zune software (for the computer), but nothing about the WP7 because I don't own one. My post is primarily about the Zune software and how it could be improved and be made more popular. I will talk about what I like about Zune, what I don't like about Zune, and then lastly I will discuss how I think some of the features of the Zune software can be tweaked to be really cool and better for the user.

***Caution:  Wall of text ahead!!!*** Lol

I.) WHAT I LIKE ABOUT ZUNE:

1. The Service:

• I really like Zune. I like the service they provide and I think it is better than Apple's iTunes. I like the idea that I can buy a $15 Zune Pass gift card that will allow me to buy 10 songs (just 5 songs short of a regular iTunes gift card!) and let me download and listen to as much music as I want for 30 days. The gift card is a great idea and it provides me with tremendous flexibility in regards to my wallet allowing me to renew my subscription at anytime that is financially convenient to me (as a 20 year old going to community college, I've got to consider my tution and rent).

2. The Interface:

• I LOVE the Zune software! It's so much more fun to look at than iTunes' dull, gray, boring, gray, depressing, gray interface, and it also gives you background themes!!! Very, very cool. I also like the fact that I can sign into Zune using my Hotmail account (I have suggestions about the "Social" aspect of Zune which I will discuss later), which gives it an "official" feel to it (at least for me).
• I really like how the "Now Playing" thing shows all of your music's cover art, and then switches to showing pictures and info featuring "the band." It enriches the listening experience because you actually get to see the people who play the awesome music that you're listening to, and you don't have to go to Google Images to download pictures of the band if you really want them.  
• I like how my content is displayed for my music: Artists on the left column, my Albums in the middle, and my songs in the right column.  

II.) COMPLAINTS AND SUGGESTIONS  

• Album Cover Art:   When your mouse pointer hovers over a particular album for 3 or 4 seconds, the cover art should be blown up and magnified so the user can see it better---allowing the user to look at it as long as they want.  Why?  Because people want to see the cover art for their albums! 
• Full Screen:  This option should apply to the whole interface like a web browser does and not just for "Now Playing."    
• Zune Social:  Okay, to me, this was just a great and awesome idea that became a fail.  Having a program that lets the user play his/her media like iTunes and do social networking like Facebook at the same time is definitely a VERY cool idea.  Problems: the social networking experience is lacking, it's certainly not very popular, , and.  I can't remember if Microsoft hasn't already done this, but the username for your Hotmail account, your Xbox Live name, and your Zune name tag should all be the same (but I think they have already done that).  
• Windows Live Services and Zune's Interface:  When it all comes down to it, you can take most of the Windows Live services and fit them into Zune.  Just put them in a blender, and you'll get something awesome.  I really can't understand why the Zune Social doesn't have the social networking of Windows Live Messenger and the email features of Hotmail.  I mean, come on: at least give Zune the Hotmail treatment!  You should be able to connect to Hotmail and Messenger through Zune.  For Zune Social's interface on the software, just give it the same user interface from the website (social.zune.net/home)!!!  It's so obvious: the website's interface is just so much better that I feel awkward even suggesting the change.  For the social networking aspect of the new interface for Social, it should just do what Messenger does: upload your friends' social statuses and your connections to sites like Live.com, Facebook, Twitter, etc., show what songs or media you are currently playing, and update you when you're friends get online.  As far as I can tell, the "Comments" section of Social just act like a private messaging system---which is stupid because that's the whole point of email.  Just delete the "comments" section. The rest of the Windows Live services like Photo Gallery and Movie Maker should just exist to make more complicated and more sophisticated changes to photos and movie projects like they already do.  I saw somebody on the forums earlier today who made the suggestion to allow users to see the ratings of their photos and their tags and flags on the Zune software.  That's a really good idea and Microsoft ought to implement that ASAP (do this for videos too).  Keep the link to open Photo Gallery if you want to do any fancy editing.  WL Mesh is perfect the way it is; it should stay as a separate program.  
• Zune's Interface #2:  You really could just copy and paste the layout of the Zune website into the Zune software; it will give the Marketplace a slightly improved look and feel.  
• Social Networking and Watching Movies:  Perhaps what Zune needs is to form an alliance with Facebook and Netflix to provide Zune's customers the social networking experience and video streaming that so many Americans enjoy?  (Only if Microsoft can't do the ideas listed above.)   Facebook knows social networking and they do it better than anybody else (and Netflix with movie streaming), so it would be beneficial to learn a lot from them.  
• Background Picture for your Playlists:  When you look at your "Details" section of your selected playlist, it just has the name of the playlist and then a black background.  Change this and give us an option to either add a background picture to it or at least let us change the background color (black gets boring to look at after a while).  
• Background Picture for Zune Software:  Give us the option to adjust the contrast how we want so we can choose whether or not we want the background picture to be more or less faded.  
• The "Back" Button:  Okay, again, great idea and extremely useful, but can we add a "Forward" button too??  Or at least make it so that when you want to return to the last page you visited before pressing the "back" button, easier.  
• Channels:  Zune Channels just need a major overhaul in my opinion.  The content on most of the channels just make you scratch your head and wonder why Aerosmith's, Kid Rock's, and Bon Jovi's songs are in the "Metal" channel.  That's just ridiculous.  Metal is: Metallica, Pantera, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Slayer, Five Finger Death Punch, Killswitch Engage, System of a Down (they're actually on the channel like they should be), Creed, Disturbed, Alestorm, Deftones, Godsmack, and KoRn.  Now that's metal music.  
• Radio:  Where the heck did radio go??  Wasn't radio one of the main features of the Zune mp3 players that were boasted about?  Apple didn't even have radio for their iPods until this year, but they have radio for their iTunes.  Why don't we have radio for the Zune software?  It doesn't make much sense.  
• Quickplay:  A few things to change here: we need to be able to see more of our "History," see more items in our "Pins," and for "New" content, I actually had to make an autoplaylist in order to see my new stuffs.  That should already be a default setting for users.  Do what I did: make a playlist that shows all of your recent downloads and purchases within the last 30 days and name it "New Content" or "Recently Downloaded."  What a phenomenal idea!  Lol.  
• The Shopping Cart:  OH MY GAWD.  This is a deal-breaker for me.  If your media player software doesn't have a "Shopping Cart" that shows the content that I want to purchase later all on ONE LIST, then I'm switching to a different service.  Apple got rid of theirs for iTunes and replaced it with the crappy "Wish List."  IT SUCKS.  You can only see so much content on one page, and then you have to keep going through your pages until you find the page that has the song(s) that you're looking for.  It doesn't even matter if you tell it to organize your stuffs alphabetically because it only does it for your current page.  ZUNE DOESN'T DO THAT, and I'm so glad they don't!!  Thank you very much!!!  

That's all I want for the Zune software.  Please take this up with Zune or Microsoft, or at least really consider these ideas.

video:

K•9 (2009) (television)

K•9 and Company (1981) (television - only one episode made, A Girl's Best Friend)

The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978) (television -

People are going to download this one illegally in pretty bad quality.  Lucasfilm might as well make some money off of it)

music:

The Solids

The Friendly Indians

Keren DeBerg

The Beatles

why cant i get this for free

Hello,

Not sure if I am in the correct forum but I wanted to report an issue with your artist information in the Marketplace.

It appears that when you search for the artist "Andy Davis" and pull up their album catalog, you get two artists listed as one. 

The "Andy Davis" I am searching for is a modern artist with their first album released in 2004.However you have another Andy Davis listed along side the current artist that has albums released in the early 80s when the current Andy Davis was in short pants on the playground. 

I would like to suggest a review of the catalog and separation of the artists. 

Current Andy Davis from Tennessee has the following albums:

Things of Her

Fine China

Let the Woman

New History

Thank you for your time and kind attention.  If this posting should be placed in another forum please let me know and I will be happy to make the correction.

Kind regards