krollohare2 asked:


You know I paid $225 for my Zune player about six or so months ago. Then of course I bought the obligatory accessories. Add about another $90 for power adapters, cords, docking stations. Then I paid $100 for a tabletop dock with speakers and FM tuner, etc and Aux inputs, etc.

So after like $500 invested into this device, about 170 albums, and a dozen full length feature films in it, it conks out on me!

Now I know, there’s some kind of bug out there in the “firmware”. Apparently because of the fact that this is a leap year, the internal “clock” on the player couldn’t handle the change in dates, and everyone’s Zune player had a brain-fart at 12:01 a.m. today (Jan. 31st, 2008).

Of course now its frozen on the loading screen.

So I dutifully paid my $6 for a screwdriver. I popped the little plastic cover off the bottom of the player where the data cable goes in, removed the two tiny phillips screws, located the battery, unhitched the little plastic locking piece, and disconnected it.

Problem solved, right? Well it was working fine until, and here’s where the HITCH is, until I tried to sync another full length feature film into it.

That’s when it went back to being frozen.

So I figured it out that its not the hardware. Its the firmware. Once you connect it to your computer and try and sync it, it uses your computer’s clock to reset its clock and voi la! The thing crashes again.

Now the funny thing is, the player itself is great. Even though its got 30 gigs of storage in it, it works fine once you “hack” the way to arrange all of your stuff in it the way you want it arranged.

I mean if they made it more accessible and made it so it wasn’t so dang hard to access because of all of the MPAA and RIAA lawsuits hanging over their heads, wouldn’t it just be really cool to finally realize its complete and ultimate potential?

It took me awhile to figure out how to upload my favorite movie DVD’s into the thing and they play wonderfully. But it seems to me Microsoft has a great product but its configured so horribly that maybe we, as the consumer, should start writing them and all of their complicit intellectual property idiots and make them all get together and make US happy instead of selling us an entertainment machine that does only 1/2 the job all of the time.

So all fo the above is the reason for my question to everyone out there is, “Who else is “fet up” with their Zune & its firmware?”
Yes, its true the software is a problem too. The DRM stuff was easy to break.

As for the accessories, well since I use it at work, on the road, and just about everywhere, including putting work files on it, PDF’s and the like, its come in pretty handy. Hence I have the dock for the office, the dock for the home entertainment system, the dock for the bedroom with the speakers, etc.

So yeah, I spent some bucks on the accessories, but I use all of them.

I guess shame on me! I got so spoiled not having to play CD’s, DVD’s, and carry around a laptop everywhere.

What burns me the most, maybe that’s why it seems like a rant, is that now the same player with 120 gigs is available for about $200 at the local Target. Eeeggghhhh!

Maybe next year I’ll invest in the bigger and better and transfer everything over there. As for the “hack”, my Zune for whatever reason refused to play albums in the track orders, choosing instead to shuffle them, etc. So I got hack for that.

Michele