Zune question

QueBert

Lifer
Jan 6, 2002
22,946
1,138
126
What's the best forum out for for Zune's? Traded my 16 gig iPod Touch for a 64 gig Zune HD and want to see what I can do with it. I really like the Now Playing screen but 95$ of my music isn't popular so there's no images or info here. Hoping some forums somewhere have info on a way I can hack custom images and bio info into all the artists I got which Zune doesn't recognize.
 

Gooberlx2

Lifer
May 4, 2001
15,381
6
91
Is your music tagged and cover art in place? You might need to do this manually. This way it should at least show the cover art.

To my knowledge, the scrolling "Ken Burns" effect images you're seeing are being pulled from the Zune marketplace. There's no way to redirect the Zune to a different service. If there isn't about the artists on the marketplace, you're SOL.

Anyway, forums.zune.net is the official Zune forums. Lots of traffic there, but it's very much clogged with newbs. Zuneboards.com is another one.
 

QueBert

Lifer
Jan 6, 2002
22,946
1,138
126
I thought you hated the Zune and it's minimalist rating feature?

I hate the rating system, not really sure how anyone can like it, it's easily the worst use of a rating system I've ever seen. I don't like the Zune software that much either. But, I ended up getting an almost brand new 64 gig player for my old 16 gig 1G Touch. I wanted more space so this worked out okay for me. I don't hate Zune's, I just don't like them as much as a Touch. But 64 gigs >>>>>> 16 gigs. I also have an Android phone.
 
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Deeko

Lifer
Jun 16, 2000
30,213
12
81
I don't like the rating system either, but it seems to be the trend of the rating industry (a trend that -gasp- Microsoft was ahead of?). Youtube no longer has stars either, its just up or down.
 

QueBert

Lifer
Jan 6, 2002
22,946
1,138
126
Youtube made a huge mistake with the thumbs thing, I really really hate it. At least I can rate my songs in WMP and create an auto playlist in WMP that will work based off stars. Which is very good.
 

Nebor

Lifer
Jun 24, 2003
29,582
12
76
I like Windows Media player's star system WAY better than the stupid "heart" or "no heart" system.
 

RandomFool

Diamond Member
Dec 25, 2001
3,913
0
71
www.loofmodnar.com
Has your Zune finished gathering all the artist data? Mine took awhile to gather everything but it got most of it. I ended up leaving it on overnight to download for a day or two.

I didn't actually realize how much info it was putting on there until recently. A friend of mine was playing with it and told me she thought it was cool that you could see pictures, bio, and what not.

As for the rating system, I like the simplicity. I like a song or don't (or it's broken). Otherwise, it's just a song. I get why people like stars, but I don't have any interest in them myself. Too much time.
 

QueBert

Lifer
Jan 6, 2002
22,946
1,138
126
Has your Zune finished gathering all the artist data? Mine took awhile to gather everything but it got most of it. I ended up leaving it on overnight to download for a day or two.

I didn't actually realize how much info it was putting on there until recently. A friend of mine was playing with it and told me she thought it was cool that you could see pictures, bio, and what not.

As for the rating system, I like the simplicity. I like a song or don't (or it's broken). Otherwise, it's just a song. I get why people like stars, but I don't have any interest in them myself. Too much time.

I did not allow Zune to do this, the first time I installed the software, last year. It basically fucked up about 80% of my tags and inserted totally wrong album art for a good number of my albums. I'm still fixing that *sigh* The problem here is I have some albums that are on the marketplace and have artist data like pics and stuff, they're not coming up because the album I tagged is tagged slightly different. But, the flip side to this is letting Zune scan and tag everything and me being left with a clusterfuck of wrong tags. Dunno why it happened the first time because my tags were uniform and 100% correct. But it made a huge mess of my music.

As for the rating, I like to be able to say I really love a song, or I somewhat like it. I'm not as simple as "I like it" or "I don't like it" In iTunes I have every song rated. A lot of days I'll sync a playlist that's 3 stars only because I'm always listening to my favorite songs (4-5 stars) but change can be nice. I don't have any music in my library I don't like, so a broken heart is very pointless. At worst I have some songs that aren't my favorite but I still like time to time. Those are the ones I rate 3 stars.
 
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Nebor

Lifer
Jun 24, 2003
29,582
12
76
I have a sync rule for my Windows Mobile phone (which I use with Zune Pass) to only sync 3 star music and above. I get all my favorites, plus some that are good enough for variety.

But it looks like the "i like it" or "i don't like it" is the way of the future. :(
 

hanoverphist

Diamond Member
Dec 7, 2006
9,867
23
76
I like Windows Media player's star system WAY better than the stupid "heart" or "no heart" system.

how many levels do you really need to rate a group of songs tho? like, dislike and dont care. heart, no heart and broken heart. doesnt really bother me, but i dont use any rating systems at all. if i dont like a song its not goiing to be on my player. if its a song i like but dont want to hear it very often, ill put it down a level so it doesnt play as much. i really only need 2 levels of rating i guess.
 

RandomFool

Diamond Member
Dec 25, 2001
3,913
0
71
www.loofmodnar.com
I did not allow Zune to do this, the first time I installed the software, last year. It basically fucked up about 80% of my tags and inserted totally wrong album art for a good number of my albums. I'm still fixing that *sigh* The problem here is I have some albums that are on the marketplace and have artist data like pics and stuff, they're not coming up because the album I tagged is tagged slightly different. But, the flip side to this is letting Zune scan and tag everything and me being left with a clusterfuck of wrong tags. Dunno why it happened the first time because my tags were uniform and 100% correct. But it made a huge mess of my music.

As for the rating, I like to be able to say I really love a song, or I somewhat like it. I'm not as simple as "I like it" or "I don't like it" In iTunes I have every song rated. A lot of days I'll sync a playlist that's 3 stars only because I'm always listening to my favorite songs (4-5 stars) but change can be nice. I don't have any music in my library I don't like, so a broken heart is very pointless. At worst I have some songs that aren't my favorite but I still like time to time. Those are the ones I rate 3 stars.

There's an option to only allow it to fill in missing information. That's how I have it set. I don't trust any program to tag and organize my music.

I only use broken heart to mark songs that I need to fix or delete on my Zune and then I occasionally go through the list on my PC. For me I tend to either listen to a mix (either a mixtape or Smart DJ) or more often just a single artist.
 

QueBert

Lifer
Jan 6, 2002
22,946
1,138
126
I googled this and tried to figure it out on my own. I'm editing tags and adding album art in Tagscanner, it's not updating my library in the Zune software. I exited and reloaded 3 times. HOW do I get the software to see I made changes to a bunch of ID3 tags? Editing them directly in the Zune software really sucks. I couldn't even figure out a way to change genre for a whole album except 1 track at a time.