Thursday, January 31, 2008 Ng: The Microsoft Zune By Wilson Ng Wired Desktop
ONE of the things I am interested in is how to set up the house so that I can watch or listen to music or video anytime in any part of my house.
If your house has several rooms, you will not find an intuitive way to do this.
Each room needs to have its own TV set, cable connection, music and DVD player. As a result, we’ve grown accustomed to bringing the discs to where we want to watch the movies. Most of the time, the discs are misplaced or lost.
Then came Windows Media Center. Here was an operating system that enables you to put all your music, pictures and videos in the hard disk.
(Windows Media Center used to be a separate Windows operating system but now it comes free with Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate Edition.)
Then came wireless networking that, after 802.11G and 802.11n standard, is now fast enough to stream video. This means you can have a PC that you can use as a video or music storage server. And if you have another notebook computer or computer in another room, you can just connect through Wi-Fi, and listen or watch it anywhere in the house!
Then I found the latest way to listen to music or watch video anywhere in the house - the Microsoft Zune. For those of you who might not know it yet, Zune was Microsoft’s introduction to compete with various music/video players like the Apple Ipod.
Microsoft introduced the first edition in late 2006. Back then, I shared notes with friends who got it and concluded that it was not as cool as Apple Ipod, yet.
Last year, Microsoft introduced the second edition, which finally got rave reviews. Although it was not sold here, I managed to get one with an 80 gigabyte hard disk and a large 3.2 inch screen. Eighty gigabytes is good enough to store 20,000 songs, 25,000 pictures or more than 250 hours of video.
The Zune can play .wmv (Windows media video/audio) files so I went to the Internet and bought a software called ImToo DVD, a .wmv converter (it costs less than $30). I then started inserting DVD discs and coverting these to .wmv.
There are three things I like about this arrangement. One, it allows me to watch videos at home without looking for DVDs. Second, if I’m traveling, I can copy the .wmv file into my thumb drive and watch videos on my notebook computer. Third, I can synchronize it with my Zune, and I can watch videos anytime.
Watching Zune video is convenient for long trips with the car or on an airplane, or when you are waiting for somebody.
By the way, the Zune also has a converter that can be attached to the TV, so if you travel a lot, you can bring the Zune and watch the movie in the hotel TV.
It is ironic that Apple is considered as the cool alternative to Microsoft Windows. Everybody has Windows, and you are cool and different because you have an Apple Mac. But in the mp3 market, it’s the other way around — everybody has Ipod and you are cool because you have a Zune.
Now, the Zune can finally be considered cool since the design and colors have been greatly improved. Coolness sells, but not if it does not have the right features.
Here are some reasons I like the Zune better that the Ipod:
1) The 3.2-inch screen is very clear and the colors are really great.
2) It has a built-in FM tuner.
3) You can synchronize wireless through your Wi-Fi network, especially if you have new videos or podcasts. That means you can synch with your computer in the house every night — without cables.
4) It jives with my network since all of them can now be .wmv files.
If you are an enthusiast or a band, the Zune has one more feature that you may want — you can send your own music wirelessly to another Zune owner, and he can listen to it up to three times for free! Of course, this feature is not entirely useful until more people have Zunes.
