Sunday, April 20, 2008

Zuned Out

You know, I was prepared to get a Microsoft Zune 8GB and like the heck out of it. I don't like how iPods won't play WMA files, and so I thought it'd be great to use a device which lets me just plug into my computer. Well, no. Microsoft, you fail.

I don't like that I have to specifically use Zune software; why can't I use Windows Media Player (try and guess who manufactures this program, if you can) to sync? Well, I figured, no huge deal: I'll just install the Zune player and let it work its magic. It's kind of skimpy, though: there's not even a way (that I could find) to sort music by genre. This is odd, as the version of Zune that I already had (and was forced to upgrade from before I was allowed to transfer music) let me do this. So does Windows Media Player. Even this was tolerable; I use WMP to play my music anyway so a tiny bit of extra hassle in sending the files over isn't the end of the world. What pushed things over the edge is that all the time-intensive editing I did on my classical and sacred music isn't recognized at all. Let me explain.

Some albums are simple: they have one work (such as Bach's Mass in B Minor) and all I had to do was change the tags so that the album artist was "Bach, JS" and the album title was "Mass in B Minor (The Sixteen)". Other albums, however, include several works. I tend to prefer to listen to the works separately, so that this album (which I very highly recommend) is divided into "Mass for Four Voices", "Infelix ego", and "Mass for Five Voices"; it's even harder when the works aren't all by the same composer. I'm not a complete nut, though: I only do this when several of the tracks are part of a larger work; compilation albums stay pretty much as they are.

Zune puts everything back as it originally was. Did I say that a better genre than "Classical" for Bach's Mass in B Minor was "Sacred"? Zune don't care. Did I divide an album of two works by two different composers? Zune don't care. Am I going to put up with this? Nope: the Zune gets returned tomorrow.

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