The Zune Feature Request & Suggestion Thread

Along with the above-mentioned updates to the Zune software, I would also like to mention some updates that would make the PC software a much better experience for the end user.

In the music section, I have a number of artists I enjoy listening to. I would like to have the option to 'favorite' my top artists, and have the Zune alert me when they have a new album or single or video out. This would be displayed in Collection > Summary, a new page to show you collection highlights. This summary page would also show you upcoming concert dates for your artists, with links to purchase tickets. Zune allows us currently to have 3 'favorite' artists, but it doesn't seem to do anything with them as I've seen. From this summary page, it would be nice to be able to choose a random music video playlist from your favorite artists to have playing in the background, or see a feed of upcoming concerts for your favorite artists, or see new FB/Twitter posts by the bands, or get notified when new albums/singles come out.

With the favorited artists as well, when anything on their profile updates, it would be great to utilize the currently blank space on the right-hand side of the music marketplace to show updates in a twitter-like stream, such as "Third Day added a new album, Follow Me" or "Carbon Leaf posted new concert tour dates for 11-28-2011." Any time a concert near the user appears, the Zune software should notify the user and have embedded links to purchase tickets on the artists' profile pages. When a new album posts, you can click on it to go to that album's page from the artist.

Considering the proliferation of video files on hard drives nowadays, it would be nice if Zune would include a function to recognize video files as TV Shows and get the metadata for it automatically, like it currently does for music files themselves. In addition, in the Video library, it would be much more organized if the main view would be a list of series as DVD covers, much like movies are currently. Rather than see 1000 episodes of a number of TV shows, users could then see the 20 or 30 TV series they own, and then drill down into that series to see its episodes. This would be much cleaner and more organized to the end user, and better reflect the organization of the marketplace itself. When viewing TV Shows also, we should be able to right click a season and have the option to "add to now playing" and add individual episodes to video playlists. We can do this already in Windows Media Player, so it's not beyond the realm of possibility.

Also, if Windows Media Player can play the file, Zune should play the file also. If the codec doesn't exist, then Zune should automatically find and download the codec. VLC media player already does this, so it's not impossible. Zune should support video files with multiple audio tracks, imbedded subtitles, and separate subtitle files for videos, with the ability to switch audio and turn on/off subtitles for any TV show or movie, and chapter support for TV shows and movies. This would be a big help for usability and to help deaf or hard of hearing users enjoy videos along with others.

In the video collection, in addition to viewing by Series Title, viewing by Date Aired and Year would be great as well. If you see what aired today, you might be able to discover an old episode of a show you watched a long time ago, so it doesn't become 'lost' in your collection. Additionally, if you have a large number of files, it would be helpful to searching through to simply start typing and have the video collection start searching for videos matching what you search. So, if I type S, then T, it will narrow down what's on screen to those videos containing the letter S, followed by the letter T.

A number of TV Shows are missing from the Zune Marketplace, such as Star Trek (Remastered), Get Smart, and any other number of shows. When searching for such 'missing' TV Shows, or movies that aren't in the Marketplace, the software should give us the option to 'sign up' to be notified when it's released. This way, Microsoft can use this data to gauge how many people want certain shows, and then go get those shows.

Integrate Zune into the Windows Media Center application.  Allow music purchasing and streaming from Media Center.  From within Music, I should be able to see all my Zune pass music.  From TV, there should be a built-in TV Library, similar to the plug-in by JackLuminous on The Green Button, for all the content I purchase through Zune, so that I can view it in the media center in a consistent interface.  The same for my movies (seen in the movie library), and for music videos (seen in the music bar, but in a separate music videos tile.

Hello,

I would like to see music from Brent Keith.

Thanks!!

Can you ( Microsoft - Zune ) Create a Texting App, Office Mobile 2010, and New 4.8 Firmware for the ZUne HD? this would boost my happiness for the Zune and most of the zune network.

Thanks!!!!! :D

on my xbox, zune software, and online, I'd really like the ability to list all the artists alphabetically, then when I click on an artist, see all their available music videos. The same would go for music if it's not available.