A guide to the Zune portable media player
You’ve recently purchased a Zune or are seriously considering getting one. Either way, it’s time to find out what a Zune can do! In this article you can take a look at what you gain when you get your hands on a Zune, or figure out how to get a hold of one if you haven’t picked one up yet.
A guide to the Zune portable media player
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For Dummies is a registered trademark of Wiley Publishing, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Used here by license.
Listening to, watching, and sharing your Zune
So, the big question you’re asking yourself is this: What is this Zune thing and what can it do for me? The first thing to realize is that a Zune is so much more than just a music player; it’s a full-blown entertainment unit that has 30GB of memory and just happens to fit in your pocket. Any one of the Zune devices — they come in three different colors but are otherwise the same — is capable of doing a ton of great things right out of the box. What kinds of great things? Well, check out this list:
Take all your music, photos, and videos with you everywhere you go, which means you can
Store 500 hours (at standard settings) of music so that you can listen on the go. Tune into FM radio stations, set your station presets, and even receive station information (station call letters or music format, for example) on the fly. Store thousands of photos in full color so you can browse through them any time you want. (You can even start up your slideshow and flip through your photos automatically.) Store anywhere from 30 to 100 hours (depending on your settings) worth of movies, TV shows, and other video content . . . and watch it all on a bright display.
Hook up to Marketplace and never buy another CD again . . . or buy CDs and rip them to your Zune. It’s up to you! You can use any or all of these options:
Getting bored with your own music but don’t want to buy more CDs? You can subscribe to Zune Marketplace and listen to new music whenever you want for a set monthly price. Buy songs and albums from Zune Marketplace one at a time, often for less than you’d pay for the CD in the store. Copy your existing music, or music from new CDs you buy, right onto your Zune, and add new music whenever you get it.
Share your Zune experience with your friends and family:
Use the built-in wireless features to find and connect to other nearby Zunes and share music and photos. Fire up your Web browser and go online to check out the ever-expanding roster of Zune chat forums out there. Hook your Zune up to a stereo system (with a mini-plug-to-RCA cable or something similar) or a set of speakers to listen to your music with your friends, or hook it up to your TV (which requires an audio/video cable) to share photos and videos.
Exploring the preloaded content
Okay, we’re going to assume you have your Zune up and running. Time to fill you in on the basic navigation and usage instructions for the Zune, while taking you on a tour of the preloaded music, photos, and videos. Starting your Zune is as easy as pressing any button (unless it’s locked, of course), but what about turning it off? Turns out you don’t ever have to shut it completely off. If you just leave it inactive (not playing music, video, or a photo slideshow) for more than 30 seconds, it goes into a low-power state, and shortly after that, it goes into a suspended sleep state. From either of these states, pressing any key brings it back to full power instantly. After approximately a day in the sleep mode, the device goes into a deep sleep to conserve battery life even more. There’s little difference between the sleep and deep sleep modes, except that the device starts up a bit more slowly from a deep sleep and has forgotten what you were doing when you last used it. (When your Zune’s in either the low-power state or sleep mode, it starts up right at the song, video, or picture you were on when it powered down.) When it’s turned on after being in deep sleep mode, it goes to the startup screen with the Zune logo. If you want, you can put your Zune to sleep immediately by pressing and holding the Play/Pause button for about three seconds. Here are some other handy tips about stopping and starting your Zune:
In normal usage, tap any key on the Zune to wake it up and light up the display. If it’s been left idle for a long time, tap the Play/Pause key to wake it up. Leave the Zune alone for more than a few seconds, and the screen dims
If you want, you can put your Zune to sleep immediately by pressing and holding the Play/Pause button for about three seconds. Here are some other handy tips about stopping and starting your Zune:
In normal usage, tap any key on the Zune to wake it up and light up the display. If it’s been left idle for a long time, tap the Play/Pause key to wake it up. Leave the Zune alone for more than a few seconds, and the screen dims down to save battery power. (You can tweak how long it’ll take before this dimming down takes place.) The Zune won’t dim if it’s playing video, which is nice because that would be really annoying. Keep in mind that, after being inactive and paused for more than a minute, the Zune will go to sleep (which is still not powered down completely, but it’s very close), and that after about a day, the Zune goes into a deep sleep (or sooner if it’s very low on battery power). Left asleep, a fully charged Zune should retain battery power for a week (possibly two).
The key to making your way through the Zune’s menus and through your content is the control pad below the screen on your Zune. This control pad is a circle, but you can press it only on the four distinct sides (or on the center OK button). It doesn’t turn, and sliding your finger around it won’t do anything; it’s not a wheel.
When you’re viewing menus, you press up and down on the control pad to move up and down on the list of options. Press left or right on the control pad to move between types of lists, such as between viewing your music by Album, Genre, or Song. After you find a menu item that you want to select, just press the OK button to select it. When you’re listening to music or watching a video, press up and down on the control pad to adjust the volume. As you can see in the “Checking out the videos” section later in this chapter, you need to rotate the Zune 90 degrees to the left when you watch video or view photos; the control pad adjusts its behavior depending on what you’re doing. Volume control is always up and down relative to how the screen is supposed to be rotated.
Although we definitely spend more time talking about rebooting later, we do want you to know that if you ever need to completely reboot your Zune, you can do so by holding down the Back button and Down on the control pad.
It’s time to dig out the funky headphones, plug them in, and check out some content. While you have them out, did you notice that the headphones were magnetic? Yep, that’s right . . . those pesky ear buds will be staying nice and close due to magnetic backs. Whenever you aren’t using them, let their backs click together, making them easier to wrap up and keep untangled. The headphones also act as the antenna when you’re listening to FM radio stations, and the Zune doesn’t get very good reception without them. If you’re at all like us and aren’t really into the kinds of prepackaged headphones you get right out of any box, you’ll be happy to know that any headphones should work fine as antennas.
For many people, the Zune is all about music. When you add in the wireless sharing features along with the Zune Marketplace, you’ll see that it’s also very much about discovering new music. In that spirit, the folks at Microsoft preloaded your Zune with quite a few off-the-beaten-track tunes for your listening pleasure. Here’s the full list of preloaded songs:
Band of Horses, “Wicked Gil” (Sub Pop Records) Bitter:Sweet, “The Mating Game” (Quango Music Group) CSS, “Alala (Microsoft edit)” (Sub Pop Records) Darkel, “At The End of The Sky (edit)” (Astralwerks) Every Move a Picture, “Signs of Life” (V2) Small Sins, “Stay” (Astralwerks) The Adored, “Tell Me Tell Me” (V2) The Rakes, “Open Book” (V2) The Thermals, “A Pillar of Salt” (Sub Pop Records)
Those in the know will immediately recognize most of these bands as indie faves — that is, bands that generally record for independent record labels. This is a great selection of music for anyone who’s tired of what he or she hears on the radio and is on the lookout for some new favorite bands. Each track has a different vibe, but the set works well, as a whole, as a great mix of pop and rock songs from a variety of new artists. To dig into these tracks yourself, use the control pad below the screen. Just follow these steps:
1. Start out on the home page, the first screen of the Zune. If you aren’t on the home page, you can press Back again and again until you make it all the way back home, or you can press and hold the Back button for a few seconds, which will take you right there. This is a great way to get back to the home page, no matter how deep you are in the Zune menu hierarchy.
2. Use down or up on the control pad to select Music from the home page menu. Press the center button of the control pad (the OK button) to confirm your choice. What you see — a list of albums, artists, playlists, genres, or songs — depends on what you viewed the last time you were in this section. (If you’ve never clicked the Music item before, you most likely see a list of albums.) Whatever list you’re viewing, you can now navigate the menu choices in two different directions. Moving up and down (pressing the top and bottom areas on the control pad) moves you through the current list of items (albums, for example); moving left and right switches what list you’re viewing (from albums to artists, genres to songs, and so on).
3. To get to your preloaded content, click the right side of the navigation area until you have the Songs list selected. Because there’s only one song by each band and from each album on the Zune, viewing by album or artist just makes you go through an extra step to get to your music.
4. Select the song you’re interested in from the Song list and then press the Play/Pause button to play that song, or press the OK button in the center of the control pad for more information about the song.
If you want to play all of your preloaded content without having to select each one individually, select the Shuffle All option at the top of the Song list. Doing so plays the tracks in random order.
Your Zune comes preloaded with quite a few different videos, most of which are music videos in the same style as the preloaded music. (In fact, one of the videos is by CSS, a band that’s also highlighted in the Music section.) Check out the music videos first:
30 Seconds to Mars, “The Kill” (Virgin Records) BT, “1.618” (DTS Entertainment) Chad VanGaalen, “Red Hot Drops” (Sub Pop Records) Coldcut featuring Roots Manuva, “True Skool” (Ninja Tune) CSS, “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above” (Sub Pop Records) Fruit Bats, “Live: The Wind That Blew My Heart Away” (Sub Pop Records) Grandaddy, “Elevate Myself” (V2) Hot Chip, “Over and Over” (Astralwerks Records) Kraak & Smaak featuring Dez, “Keep Me Home” (Quango Music Group) Kinski, “Live: The Snowy Parts of Scandinavia” (Sub Pop Records) Paul Oakenfold, “Faster Kill Pussycat (Featuring Brittany Murphy)” (Maverick Records) Serena-Maneesh, “Drain Cosmetics” (Playlouderecordings) Microsoft has also preloaded onto your Zune three cool action videos that feature some extreme skateboarding, mountain biking, and snowboarding/skiing. Here are the details: 5 Boro: “A New York Skateboarding Minute” (Skateboarding) Radical Films: “Kranked — Progression” (Mountain Biking) TGRTV: “The North Face” (Skiing/Snowboarding)
These videos may not be your cup of tea, but they’re great for showing off the Zune’s big and bright display until you’ve had a chance to load some of your own videos onto it!
To play a video, follow these steps:
1. Start out on the home page, the first screen of the Zune. If you aren’t on the home page, you can press Back again and again until you make it all the way back to home, or you can press and hold the Back button for a few seconds, which will take you right there. This is a great way to get back to the home page, no matter how deep you are in the Zune menu hierarchy.
2. Use down or up on the control pad to select Video from the home page menu. Press the center (OK) button on the control pad to confirm your choice. When you first open the Videos section, a list of All Videos appears, but you can navigate the menu choices in two different directions. Moving up and down (pressing the top and bottom areas on the control pad) moves you through the current list of items (the All Videos list, for example); moving left and right switches which list you’re viewing (from All Videos to subcategories such as Music Videos and Movies, each of which shows a filtered view of the video content).
3. To get to your preloaded content, make sure you have the All Videos list selected. Browse through this list to find all the videos on your device.
4. Select the video you’re interested in from the All Video list and then press the OK button in the center of the control pad to see the details about that video. The Detail view appears, showing a description of the video.
5. Select Play to start the video. If you aren’t interested in the details of the video, you can press the Play/Pause button right on the All Videos list, and the video starts playing without showing the detailed information.
The last bit of preloaded content covers the photo angle actually, three different photo angles. You get a set of DJ photos (pictures of DJ equipment, such as record players and stacks of vinyl records), a set of graffiti photos (colorful wall art), and a collection of poster art highlighting various rock bands. Follow these steps to check out the cool eye candy:
1. Start out on the home page, the first screen of the Zune. If you aren’t on the home page, press and hold the Back button for a few seconds, which will take you right there.
2. Use down or up on the control pad to select Pictures from the home page menu. Press the center (OK) button on the control pad to confirm your choice. The View by Folder list appears. This view shows you all the preloaded photos in their three groups (DJ photos, graffiti photos, and poster art). If you press left or right on the control pad, the View by Date list appears. This list is handy when you’re looking at your own personal photos, but it isn’t very useful for the preloaded ones.
3. Pick Play Slideshow from the top of the screen to start up a slideshow of all the photos across all the folders, or use the control pad to select one of the three folders and press the OK button to view the contents of that folder. If you view a single folder, you get a thumbnail view showing up to 30 pictures at once. (In the case of the preloaded photos, you get to see them all.) You can use the control pad to select an individual picture to view or select Play Slideshow at the top of the screen to start a slideshow of the current folder. No matter how you view a photo or a slideshow of photos, the images are displayed in widescreen (or landscape) view, so you need to turn the Zune 90 degrees to the left to view them (or turn your head 90 degrees to the right — whatever’s easier for you).
It isn’t really preloaded content, but the other way you can use your Zune right out of the box is to tune into some local radio stations. Pick the Radio option from the home page to switch to a cool Tuner view. Remember that the headphones of the Zune are also its antenna, so if you’re going to use the radio feature, make sure they’re hooked up. Press left or right on the control pad to seek between stations. When your Zune finds a station, you may get some extra info above and below the tuning band. Not every station transmits this extra data, which usually includes the station’s call letters and sometimes the currently playing song, but many do!
provided by:
For Dummies is a registered trademark of Wiley Publishing, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Used here by license.
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