Mike sends over the word that his Zune Software Customizer has been updated to 2.5 today….

I know what you are thinking, “Hey, what happened to the versions in between?“. Well I decided to just change the numbering scheme to coincide with the Zune Software Releases. Just seemed to make more sense. Does that mean you will always have to wait for a Zune Software release before seeing changes to the Zune Software Customizer? No, I’ll just make them point releases. Anyways on to the good stuff.

Just a note before I start, because of the way I handled the custom colors last release, it will have remembered all your settings, so if you left it off on the Dark Zune Theme it will go back to that or if you left it off with DarkGray being red it’ll go back to that, etc.

Head over to learn more.

With the new Videos section, auto-playlists, metadata improvements and a more social Social, there’s a lot of big changes to love about the 2.5 spring update. But what I appreciate just as much from the Zune team is the little interface and usability touches that make the experience of using the Zune software that much more enjoyable. The great thing about them is that they’re never really publicized or explained, you have to explore and find them on your own (or read blogs like this one). When the 2.0 software was released, I was amazed when I found the “Now Playing” screen when I clicked the little equalizer-looking icon by the play controls. This release doesn’t have as many surprises as last time, but there’s still a few gems to be found. Here’s just a few I’ve come across so far.

The Video Preview

If you’re playing a video (or video podcast) and you leave the full-screen view of it, you’ll get a little version of it continuing to play down at the bottom-middle of the screen.

It’s a tiny Michael Scott!

It even goes widescreen if the video is in that format. How great is that?

More Complete ‘Now Playing’ Screen

Before when I’d have the Now Playing screen up, there were many places where there wouldn’t be album covers making up the background. I had a lot of cover-less music, either live recordings, one-offs, non-album tracks, or stuff that just plain wasn’t in the Zune system. It didn’t look bad, the Zune software filled in the spaces with squiggly artsy designs, but the completist in me always wished it could be full of my album covers. Now it is! I don’t know if it’s the metadata fixes that have added art for just about every album and song I have (whether it’s the right one or not) or they just changed it to only pull actual album art, but now I’ve got nothing but wall-to-wall album covers, and I couldn’t be happier.

‘Show Episode List’ for Podcasts on the Zune

On the Zune itself, I noticed a new entry when you bring up the menu while playing a podcast. There’s now an option for “Show Episode List” where you can view all the episodes in the series and even change episodes mid-episode. Neato!

Hide the Playlist

When you’re on the Now Playing screen, there’s now a new icon that lets you hide (or un-hide) the playlist. It still auto-hides it after a few seconds like it did before, so I’m not entirely sure of the benefit of it, but hey, it’s there.

That’s what I’ve found so far. I’m sure there’s tons of other little changes that I’ll discover the more I explore through the new update. If I missed anything share it in the comments.

Oh and by the way, I’m Jonathan. I’m new ’round these parts, but I’m a bigtime Zune fan/evangelist and I couldn’t be happier to be a part of the Got Zune team. Add me as a friend on the Social if you’d like.

If you’ve been itching to check out all the new Zune 2.5 software improvements but haven’t had time to go through everything yourself, fear not. Jason Dunn over at Zune Thoughts has done all the heavy lifting for you and created a few videos detailing what’s new and exciting in the software upgrade. This first video gives an overview of most of the new features (minus The Social).

The second video goes specifically into the new features of The Social (which he wasn’t able to access in the first video)

Source

Dan over at Channel9 posted a video interview with Mike Klucher from XNA. He talks quite a bit about what we should expect to see with zune gaming, and how it will be delivered. Among many XNA-related things shown in this video, you also get a sneak peak at a game called “Alien Takeover” demonstrated using a zune 80. The good news is we should see an initial test version out within about 3 weeks, which will allow developers/users to get a taste of XNA on zune. Although they do emphasize the fact it is aimed more toward developers, anyone can download XNA studios 3.0 , and by getting your hands on .zip file of someone’s game, you can easily play it. All I can say is,  it’s about time we got some more info on XNA with zune!

Check it out over at Channel9

Edit: The video has been uploaded to youtube(Thanks to WetWorker of ZuneCards.net), so you can watch parts 1&2 after the break.

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Zune Customizer…

I’ve been working on this in my spare time for a while now and I’ve finally got it to the point where I’m satisfied enough to release it, so others can try it out. Basically ever since the custom background hack was released on ZuneBoards and people started releasing themes for the software I wanted to figure out a way to make customizing the Zune Software easier. I first attempted to make it so that you could sort playlists right inside the software, but I couldn’t get that working, so I decided to start working on other things. Which is what led me to what I am giving you all today: the Zune Software Customizer.

Head over here to grab it…

I received an email today letting me know that these guys are quite happy and ready to show the world, zSuite 2.0…

DarkZune’s hack team leader PityOnU and the rest of the DarkZune staff and testers are proud to announce the release of zSuite 2.0 (2.0.2.9). The hack allows users owning Microsoft Zune’s with the most recent versions of the Zune software to enhance their Zune experience.

This suite enhances your Zune Software experience and from the screenies I got, it looks pretty cool.

This release has 4 different tools to Enjoy the Social the way you want to…

zIconer

A simple way to define an icon file for your Zune when using zExplorer. Custom icons for Zunes will be available via the DarkZune Forum.

Read on for more screenies and links…

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    As pointed out by Rock4christ recently in the forums , SOApitstop has some tips for speeding up the zune software by removing some of the.. well pointless flashy effects. To do this you create a shortcut for the zune software, and edit the property’s of the shortcut(by adding extra info to the command line).

Some of the effects can be caused by these phrases:

• -animations:(true|false) Enable or disable fading effects.
• -gdi Use GDI instead of DirectX, seems to disable animations and probably give some legacy support. This is mentioned in the Zune 2.3 release notes.
• -switchtogdi Permanently switch to GDI rendering. makes registry entry change in general settings: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Zune\GeneralSettings\UseGDI=1
• -dx9 Use DirectX9 compatibility? Probably.
• -direction:(rtl|ltr) Use Right-to-Left rendering for languages that require it.

So, if you value speed over effects, then some of these could help you out.

Thanks to Kaseyart and Rock4christ for sending this in. It seems that Gizmodo has gotten their hands on a developer demo showing this. This could be a 3rd party hack in the works or maybe something being worked on for a future patch or release. BTW, aren’t we due for a patch soon?

At Microsoft’s Techfest, a researcher was showing off a smart shuffle system that uses tags and meta data like tempo and genre to direct playlist creation in a portable music device. The demo was being done on a first generation Zune.

The system is being developed in direct response to the huge number of songs people carry around on their media players, and specifically the millions of songs a Zune library can stock using a Zune pass. The system automatically recommends new songs based on songs played, and the logic is continuously “steered” by voting tracks up and down.

Source: Gizmodo

From: Zune Thoughts:

Adam Krebs on Zune Thought recently posted his thoughts on a tagging work-around to help those with tagging woes.  Very effective especially if your wondering why your music doesn’t have album art or show up in your "recently listened to" music in the Social.

His excerpt which references Shawn Oster’s Blog is just another reminder that we are waiting for a Zune Software update that would put us back in control of our music libraries.  At the present time the software doesn’t have the capabilities that we need to properly manage our music. "Make it your own" Without being able to provide any positive feedback for a solution, I revert to talking about temporary alternatives.

Shawn Oster points out how easy it is to hook the backend of the Zune marketplace into MP3Tag to get properly tagged and recognized files. He also points out that this could be helpful in getting Social to recognize the songs you play (though I’m not convinced of his argument that Social takes the album metadata from your computer–I’m pretty sure that comes from their servers).

He brings up another cool tidbit: "zune.net just made their 800×800 album art available via the back-end service I’m using so now you can grab full 800×800 album art even on tracks you didn’t purchase directly from the Marketplace. Just download Marketplace.zip and extract the single Marketplace.src into your %appdata%Mp3tagdatasources folder and you’ll be rocking! I’d also suggest you download the very latest beta of Mp3tag because the tag sources (what Marketplace plugs into) dialog is much easier to figure out for first timers, plus I always include the artist in the track listing and version 2.39n supports splitting this into the correct tags."

Source: Zune Thoughts

Wow. There are a ton of bullet items in this patch! The following was posted by Cesar in the Zune.net forums…

• Fixed top crashing bugs submitted by users
• Fixed bug where Zune software thinks the device memory is full (but isn’t)

Key Marketplace fixes

• Allow users to view top music videos in marketplace
• Misc improved error messaging including splitting sign-in issues into 4 separate errors for customer and support benefit
• Retrieval of subscription download history no longer stalls if the content is revoked
• Better handling of accounts that have expired credit cards
• Podcasts with spaces in their name can now be subscribed to
• Marketplace no longer blocks explicit content purchases when parental controls are set to allow
• Points balance label is now updated when user purchases new points

Key Player UI fixes

• Allow zooming in/out (2x, 4x, fullscreen) during video playback to prevent stretched playback
• Ability to switch Zune to GDI mode through command-line parameter

Key Podcast fixes

• Allow subscriptions to podcasts larger than 10MB
• Fixed some parsing errors that prevented some podcasts from syncing to the device
• Fixed bug where podcasts were unsubscribing themselves

Key Setup fixes

• Fixed numerous bugs affecting build to build upgrades
• Improved installation for users accessing from corporate networks
• Fixed driver uninstall failures
• Included device 2.3 firmware in client download
• Failure in creating system restore point no longer blocks client installation

Key Sync fixes

• Fixed issues with reverse sync
• Fixes issues with sync meter UI showing incorrect information as to what is on the device
• Fixed issues using wireless sync with multiple devices to the same PC
• Fixed a few different issues setting up wireless sync
• Device is no longer being reported as full even after deleting large file from device
• Device content is no longer being turned into guest content when it shouldn’t be
• Content with bad metadata now shows properly so it can be removed from device
• Turning off “autolaunch when a Zune device is connected” no longer prevents “Sync Now” from working from a wirelessly connected device
• Podcast bookmarking is now transferred/saved to the device
• Wireless sync connection continues to work after rebooting host computer
• Unsubscribe podcast from device now works properly
• Changing album art in the client now updates the device as well
• Duplicate tracks are no longer synced to the device twice

Key Xbox Streaming bug fixes

• Xbox Streaming now monitors the rip folder if user changes default location
• No need to reinstall client to fix Xbox Streaming when upgrading from XP to Vista

Key Infrastructure fixes

• Vista x64 customers can now get to web help from error messages
• Client no longer crashes if database is corrupted

Key Library fixes

• Changes in pictures or video metadata made outside client will now get updated in the library
• UI is now smoother during file groveling
• When a track is added to an album we will now always update the track on disc
• User can now update album art for marketplace tracks
• ‘Unknown Artist’ metadata is no longer written to files when writing out user edit of album name
• Renaming  an artist now more reliably keeps the change
• Two different copies of the same album no longer get duplicated down to one when it shouldn’t
• Access violation no longer occurs when checking song properties in the burn list
• Multi-disc albums imported from iTunes no longer show in the client as a single disc album
• Thumbnails for video content now extract on XP properly

Give us some feedback on the patch when you apply it… Also, check this thread to give input too.