12-28-2006, 10:00 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Possible Upcoming Zune Desktop Software Features: Podcasts, Synchronized Lyrics?
File this under the "maybe kinda' sorta' will happen" category, but according to the discussion threads over on Zunerama and Zunescene, some clever folks have poked at a few Zune DLLs on the desktop and discovered some tantalizing mentions of features that might be released - or they might never make it out of the testing phase. So far the list is looking like:
- Podcasting Support. No idea what this will look like, or how it will be implemented, but I suspect it's part of a larger move by the Windows Media Player team to support podcasting, and the Zune team is going along for the ride. Although it's also possible that because Microsoft now has their own hardware, they place a higher priority on getting podcast support.
- Lyrics Synchronization. There's a metadata field for lyrics in each song file, but there's no support for lyrics on the Zune itself. This might link in with a future firmware update on the Zune hardware - though I'm still no aware of any great automated way of pulling in song lyrics to populate the metadata fields. Anyone found a great way to do that?
- A mini-mode for the Zune desktop software. Think the toolbar mini-mode that Windows Media Player 11 has. Something they should have had at launch, so not terribly exciting but useful if you use the desktop software to listen to music.
- Video Acceleration. Already part of the software (look on the Performance tab) but perhaps something new related to the MPEG4 playback features.
- Purple and Yellow Icons. Might be for purple or yellow Zunes in the future, since the Zune software will show you an accurate icon of your Zune.
- Plug-ins Being Re-Enabled. Windows Media Player 11 has always had plug-ins such as Media Playback Speed, SRS Wow Effect, Cross-fading, and a few others. The Zune software lacks all of them - my speculation is that they gutted them from the Zune software because they didn't have time for proper Q&A testing with their accelerated launch schedule. Looks like they might be coming back.
- Visualization & Plug-In Support. We might see added visualizations in the Zune desktop software, but moreso, perhaps WMP11-compatible plug-ins will work with the Zune software.
So, all in all, most of this looks like it's re-enabling things from WMP11 that were disabled. Myself, I was hoping to see some mention of DVR-MS transcoding. Nothing yet, though I've heard it's coming...
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