Though I like the Zune HD, I'm not willing to downgrade to 64 GB. Not willing to go back to the clunky iPod Classic either. Would be OK with the iPod Touch, but Jobs didn't see fit to upgrade their capacity last fall, so they're still stuck at 64 GB as well.
My options seem to be:
a) Buy a used Zune 120
b) Make do til September and hope that even if there's no 128 GB Zune, there will be a 128 GB iPod Touch
Anybody got anything else for me to consider?
Discussion about
Zune's death has left me in limbo. My 80 GB is just about at capacity. New Zune 120's are not really available anywhere.
That's tough, there aren't that many high capacity players for sale anymore. There are clearly still people who want to carry around more than 64GB of music -- I've gotten a few emails from people in the military who want them, for example -- but it's just not a huge market. Because of that I'm not sure there'll be either a 128GB iPod touch or Zune HD this year, I don't get the sense that either Apple or Microsoft feels like there is enough demand to justify the additional SKU. I'd probably buy a used Zune 120.
Can't they just phase out the 8 GB Touch and 16 GB HD, respectively? Carrying a full-size PMP with 16 GB or less space seems dumb when our smartphones hold the same amount...
I get that demand for high capacity players prob isn't huge, but it's such a minor product change- drop larger size drive into existing hardware- that I was a little surprised they didn't do it last year. 2 years without a capacity increase would be ridiculous.
I get that demand for high capacity players prob isn't huge, but it's such a minor product change- drop larger size drive into existing hardware- that I was a little surprised they didn't do it last year. 2 years without a capacity increase would be ridiculous.
there will be a new zune!!! why do people think its dead? www.zuneboards.com
Much as I'd like for that to be true...it's not particularly convincing...
Microsoft said they are abandoning the hardware component of zune and focusing on the software instead www.geekosystem.com/microsoft-ending-zune-reports/
After reading all the responses, I think your most viable alternatives are to upgrade the HDD yourself or buy a 120, used or not.
Even if Microsoft were to put out new Zunes, it seems like they would go in the direction of the Zune HD and not another hard drive model. The 128 GB Touch is most likely coming but will be priced in the $400 premium tier.
Even if Microsoft were to put out new Zunes, it seems like they would go in the direction of the Zune HD and not another hard drive model. The 128 GB Touch is most likely coming but will be priced in the $400 premium tier.
The screen on my 80 is cracked, so rather than replacing that and upgrading the HDD, I think finding a 120 makes the most sense. Will be trying to get one for a good price (under $100)...but if that doesn't happen, I'll just have to fit 81-84 GB into 80, which shouldn't be all that bad. I can prob make it to September just to see if there will be anything new...
I'd go with a used Zune 120 as well if you have to have your entire music collection with you. I'm casually trying to track one down actually to use in a similar way to the iPod Classic I had - it's harder this side of the pond.
However I have to say that as a guy with a ~500Gb FLAC library which is shadow-transcoded to a ~100Gb lossy library by my HTPC in the background, I've rarely felt the need to take my entire lossy library with me once I felt comfortable with smart playlists (and on the Zune side, autoplaylists). My lossy collection grew to just about fitting on a 120Gb Classic, but I had that really just as a readily storable lossy backup - I rarely actually used it for listening once the Touches came out. 64Gb is a nice size for me, but 32 works for the most part just as well. I now have two 32's and two 64's (Zunes of course) with different stuff on each depending on their allotted use.
However I have to say that as a guy with a ~500Gb FLAC library which is shadow-transcoded to a ~100Gb lossy library by my HTPC in the background, I've rarely felt the need to take my entire lossy library with me once I felt comfortable with smart playlists (and on the Zune side, autoplaylists). My lossy collection grew to just about fitting on a 120Gb Classic, but I had that really just as a readily storable lossy backup - I rarely actually used it for listening once the Touches came out. 64Gb is a nice size for me, but 32 works for the most part just as well. I now have two 32's and two 64's (Zunes of course) with different stuff on each depending on their allotted use.
Thanks for the response.
I've just gotten so used to the 'entire collection at all times' thing...I tend to listen to albums in their entirety, and don't really know what I'm gonna feel like listening to next, so it's comforting to have everything to choose from. Not sure I could pare it down to 64, but I'll give a little more consideration to the idea.
I've just gotten so used to the 'entire collection at all times' thing...I tend to listen to albums in their entirety, and don't really know what I'm gonna feel like listening to next, so it's comforting to have everything to choose from. Not sure I could pare it down to 64, but I'll give a little more consideration to the idea.
Your post caused me to start thinking of finally tackling the massive project of re-ripping my CD collection into a lossless format. Trying to get a handle on how much space that would take up. My mp3's are all 192 VBR, and add up to about 80 GB. Coming up with an estimate that a lossless library would be about 240 GB...that doesn't seem to match your 500/100 ratio, and I'm suspecting your lossy bitrate might be above 192. Any guidance or websites you can point me toward?
Also, how are you doing the shadow transcoding? FLAC via EAC, and then another program to convert to mp3? Can EAC be set to do both automatically?
Also, how are you doing the shadow transcoding? FLAC via EAC, and then another program to convert to mp3? Can EAC be set to do both automatically?
My lossy library is mostly 256K. The FLAC compression rates also vary as well.
In my case the shadow transcode is via a Windows Server service I commissioned when I first built my proper HTPC on the first twin dual-core Opteron setup possible back in... oooh, 2005?, which I'm still using with a few desultory updates from the original programmer. It does bidirectional metadata syncing and folder monitoring, which I found useful when I had to edit the library metadata in iTunes to avoid a huge amount of hassle - i.e. changes in the iTunes library metadata is reflected in the FLAC library.
However, you've caught me at a time of change.
I'm looking to real-time transcodes now as the service hasn't been foolproof and not entirely bug-free, especially with iTunes' treatment of tags - and with the hardware getting to the level it is, I think OTFT should be realistic.
Also recently I dumped my mixed OSX / Windows media environment to be 'pure Windows' and in fact had a bit of a Mac clearout at home, so I'm reviewing the entire media situation to be a lot more Microsoft-centric (which is, most ironically, much more flexible and usable than under OS X in a multi-computer environment).
I'll be building my new replacement home PC next week, and once I've done that the idea is to transcode the FLAC library to WMA Lossless, then trying to use Zune's built-in conversion for real-time conversion. WMAL should also play nicer (or rather,*play*) with the rest of the PC's and Windows Media Center / WHS. I don't buy into the OSS paranoia of the FLACheads - for me, FLAC as my lossless codec of choice made sense back in 2006 but now I'm seeing no particular demerits to using WMAL, only advantages in my environment. From what I've seen I don't expect the transcoding to be appreciably multithreaded, and that suits my new PC parts pick as well as I've opted for a fast quadcore (with potentially a tiny bit of OCing) than a slower-per-core dual-socket. I'll let you know how it goes - I've held off ripping some new CD's until this is finished, so I'll likely have input on that too.
Some details for reference:
- I'll be using j.River Media Center (www.jriver.com/ ) to rip the WMA Lossless files, and indeed, to manage the files. j.River does have a free audio-only version in Media Jukebox (www.mediajukebox.com/ ), which has recently been updated - that *might* (I haven't tried it) actually be as good as the $50 jRMC if you're only doing audio. I could use EAC or dbPoweramp for the ripping, but it is a pain in the butt IMO for usually not much (if any) gain, at least with CD's in good condition.
Having said that, I also plan to give this a go (www.dbpoweramp.com/ripnas-essentials.htm ).
- And talking about Illustrate Software, I'll be using dbPoweramp to transcode the lossless library. (www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm )
The wired network on my "home home" segment is centered around an HP Procurve 2824 switch and an HP X510 Windows Home Server. Until now the WHS has stored the MP3 library, but the idea is that I store the transcoded WMA Lossless library instead.
My HTPC (really an HAPC since it does no video work at all) is a recently refreshed / rebuilt dual-Xeon (octocore), hybrid air / water custom build with a 4x 250Gb SSD array which currently stores the FLAC library. The current plan calls for this to potentially become a 'Vail' build - i.e. it'll end up taking over the WHS's duties while I sub a different, lower-end machine for pure playback duties.
The machine I'm building as my main home PC is an i7-2600K based machine which will boot off Elmcrests in RAID0 and use an OCZ Z-Drive P88 for main storage - which will include a local copy of the WMAL library - and this is the machine I'll be syncing my Pass-linked Zunes/WP7's on.
In my case the shadow transcode is via a Windows Server service I commissioned when I first built my proper HTPC on the first twin dual-core Opteron setup possible back in... oooh, 2005?, which I'm still using with a few desultory updates from the original programmer. It does bidirectional metadata syncing and folder monitoring, which I found useful when I had to edit the library metadata in iTunes to avoid a huge amount of hassle - i.e. changes in the iTunes library metadata is reflected in the FLAC library.
However, you've caught me at a time of change.
I'm looking to real-time transcodes now as the service hasn't been foolproof and not entirely bug-free, especially with iTunes' treatment of tags - and with the hardware getting to the level it is, I think OTFT should be realistic.
Also recently I dumped my mixed OSX / Windows media environment to be 'pure Windows' and in fact had a bit of a Mac clearout at home, so I'm reviewing the entire media situation to be a lot more Microsoft-centric (which is, most ironically, much more flexible and usable than under OS X in a multi-computer environment).
I'll be building my new replacement home PC next week, and once I've done that the idea is to transcode the FLAC library to WMA Lossless, then trying to use Zune's built-in conversion for real-time conversion. WMAL should also play nicer (or rather,*play*) with the rest of the PC's and Windows Media Center / WHS. I don't buy into the OSS paranoia of the FLACheads - for me, FLAC as my lossless codec of choice made sense back in 2006 but now I'm seeing no particular demerits to using WMAL, only advantages in my environment. From what I've seen I don't expect the transcoding to be appreciably multithreaded, and that suits my new PC parts pick as well as I've opted for a fast quadcore (with potentially a tiny bit of OCing) than a slower-per-core dual-socket. I'll let you know how it goes - I've held off ripping some new CD's until this is finished, so I'll likely have input on that too.
Some details for reference:
- I'll be using j.River Media Center (www.jriver.com/ ) to rip the WMA Lossless files, and indeed, to manage the files. j.River does have a free audio-only version in Media Jukebox (www.mediajukebox.com/ ), which has recently been updated - that *might* (I haven't tried it) actually be as good as the $50 jRMC if you're only doing audio. I could use EAC or dbPoweramp for the ripping, but it is a pain in the butt IMO for usually not much (if any) gain, at least with CD's in good condition.
Having said that, I also plan to give this a go (www.dbpoweramp.com/ripnas-essentials.htm ).
- And talking about Illustrate Software, I'll be using dbPoweramp to transcode the lossless library. (www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm )
The wired network on my "home home" segment is centered around an HP Procurve 2824 switch and an HP X510 Windows Home Server. Until now the WHS has stored the MP3 library, but the idea is that I store the transcoded WMA Lossless library instead.
My HTPC (really an HAPC since it does no video work at all) is a recently refreshed / rebuilt dual-Xeon (octocore), hybrid air / water custom build with a 4x 250Gb SSD array which currently stores the FLAC library. The current plan calls for this to potentially become a 'Vail' build - i.e. it'll end up taking over the WHS's duties while I sub a different, lower-end machine for pure playback duties.
The machine I'm building as my main home PC is an i7-2600K based machine which will boot off Elmcrests in RAID0 and use an OCZ Z-Drive P88 for main storage - which will include a local copy of the WMAL library - and this is the machine I'll be syncing my Pass-linked Zunes/WP7's on.
This post has been removed.
Real-time transcoding & tag-updating? Wow. That's gotta be pretty close to the ideal setup...and if you're feeding the audio into good equipment, then it makes sense to have the lossless as your main library, with the lossy only going onto portable players. Definitely a reversal of the way people seemed to think about these things in 2006. Hell, I'm probably still going to end up with the lossless being more for archival purposes than active listening.
Nonetheless, I really appreciate all the information and links. Plenty of stuff to think about before jumping in.
Good luck!
Nonetheless, I really appreciate all the information and links. Plenty of stuff to think about before jumping in.
Good luck!
Undoubtedly I'll have more feedback on this later.
I have finished building the new home PC, and copied over the main library to test transcode speed differences between local storage and network storage. I'm researching how to move the Zune install - especially my podcast state - without causing me problems, but I've already moved the jRMC install.
As I said above I don't have Zune running on the new PC yet, but running the conversions tests on jRMC to my iRiver Spinn, it looks as though a real-time transcode won't be an onerous extension of time.
It does appear to make a major difference having local library storage vs network storage as the speed of transcode is much faster than the speed of transfer of data from the network, at least as far as the HP X510 is concerned - so I will have to think about how to tackle this, since I don't plan to keep the library on the local Z-Drive. The end result may be that I migrate faster than I thought to a much faster WHS server able to throw the library down the full-duplex gigabit link at as close to wire speed as possible. The Xeon server mentioned above is probably capable of this, and I think I might move up the plans to erase this and install WHS 2011 on it.
Of course, Zune transcodes differently from jRMC but the initial impression is that real-time transcode is definitely a practical possibility even if you move in a fairly large chunk of the player's storage each time, as long as you have a reasonably fast machine with either local library storage, or a fast server (the speed ideally required I think rules out any purpose-built consumer NAS).
I have finished building the new home PC, and copied over the main library to test transcode speed differences between local storage and network storage. I'm researching how to move the Zune install - especially my podcast state - without causing me problems, but I've already moved the jRMC install.
As I said above I don't have Zune running on the new PC yet, but running the conversions tests on jRMC to my iRiver Spinn, it looks as though a real-time transcode won't be an onerous extension of time.
It does appear to make a major difference having local library storage vs network storage as the speed of transcode is much faster than the speed of transfer of data from the network, at least as far as the HP X510 is concerned - so I will have to think about how to tackle this, since I don't plan to keep the library on the local Z-Drive. The end result may be that I migrate faster than I thought to a much faster WHS server able to throw the library down the full-duplex gigabit link at as close to wire speed as possible. The Xeon server mentioned above is probably capable of this, and I think I might move up the plans to erase this and install WHS 2011 on it.
Of course, Zune transcodes differently from jRMC but the initial impression is that real-time transcode is definitely a practical possibility even if you move in a fairly large chunk of the player's storage each time, as long as you have a reasonably fast machine with either local library storage, or a fast server (the speed ideally required I think rules out any purpose-built consumer NAS).
