Well, technically, my boss has a new boss. You may have seen this in the PI.

It is a very bittersweet day for me. It's bitter in that I am really sad to see Bryan retire. I've had the pleasure of working with/for Bryan for over a year and a half. Bryan is one of the main reasons I came to work for Zune. I personally approached him about the project and he really took me under his wing. He's been a fantastic boss and I have learned an incredible amount from him. He's extremely passionate about this space and has motivated all of us by his example. While I'm sad at his departure, I am happy he'll be able to spend some (well deserved) time with his family.

With the bitter comes the sweet. J is going to be my new "big" boss. If you've read my blog, you'd know I think the world of J. If we have to lose Bryan, you couldn't find a better replacement. It is going to be fun injecting a new perspective into our business plans and I'm sure I'll have lots to talk about in future blog posts.

I personally feel incredibly lucky to have worked with Bryan through the Zune launch. There are very few places I could work and get that calibre of business leader and personal friend. Bryan, I wish you all the best in your new venture!

I had a few folks over this weekend to test out the HD downloads from Xbox Marketplace (yeah, I know how to party!) I wanted to see what the experience was like. Overall, I was pleased. The selection was pretty good and it was easy to use my points to buy the file. It took 6+ hours to download, but I started it the night before so it was no big deal. It hung up at 68%, but I just started it again in the morning and it finished in about an hour.

As for the video itself, the encode was very good. During playback, it seemed to drop frames in the beginning. I'm chalking it up to a slow HDD rather than a poor encode. Either it stopped dropping frames part way through or I stopped noticing it. Either way, I doubt most consumers would care. I'm told the HD-DVD drives do not have that issue, but I've not been able to try it out yet (hint, hint Scott).

Would I do it again. Yes. there are some drawbacks. The main one is you have to plan in advance, but since they don't expire for 2 weeks, it's pretty easy to say I want to watch a movie this weekend and just fire it up during the week. I've not cross checked the titles available against Bluray or HD-DVD catalogs, but I bet they have things not available on either format. One last thing...I watched the Decent. That had to be the worst movie of 2006. I previously thought The Day After Tomorrow was the worst movie I have seen. this might just replace that.

I was playing Gears the other day. One of the guys I play with knows I work at MS. He wanted to know if he could stream a divx file to the 360 directly. I knew you could stream avis, but didn't think you could do it without having the divx codec installed. So...I did a little digging. It turns out there is a program called Transcode 360 that will let you do just that (as well as lots of other formats). Te only issue I see is that it is for MCE (not a problem for me). In fact, it has very tight integration with MCE. All you have to do is put the crsor over the selected flie, hit info -> More options and transcode. Simple as pie. Very cool.

Get it here

I was going through some of my old PCs and I came across an old copy of MoodLogic's playlist generator. I'd forgotten all about what a great program it was. Out of curiosity, I went to www.moodlogic.com and sure enough it is still available. I re-downloaded and gave it a try with Zune.

It turns out that it works pretty well with Zune. It will grovel your hard drive for tracks and then allow you to make auto lists based on genre, artist or even song. Just right click on a file and use instant mix and presto, there is an automatically generated playlist based on heuristics.

The trick is getting those playlists imported into Zune. I made a bunch of playlists and exported them as M3U files. I then clicked on the files. they are automatically imported into the now playing area in the software. I then simply saved that as a playlist in Zune. It automatically saves it as a ZPL file with the same name as the M3U file. Voila.

The best part of this is that there is a free 5 day trial. Give it a try.

OK, and guys too if you're really interested. Elle dropped by yesterday with the socks she knitted for the Zune. All I can say it these are really really cool. Elle, you out did yourself. Rather than just telling you about them, I'm going to give one away. I want you guys to tell me 1. Why you want one and 2. What other fashion accessories you'd like to see. I'll pick a winner in the next week or so.

I managed to get a hold of the SkinIt folks right before CES. They sent me some Zune samples. I chose Elvis (well, because he's the King!) I was pretty skeptical about the adhesion qualities of the product. I thought it would be hard to put on and even harder to take off. I thought that the edges would catch and fray. I thought it wouldn't stick to the rubberized surface of the Zune. I was wrong on all accounts. I even tried putting it in the tightest fitting case I had (the iVolution down below) several times. It stayed on perfectly. They were nice enough to bring me some new samples today and all I can say is WOW! This is a REALLY cool product.

One of the things I didn't get to show you was the special edition Vaja case I got at CES. As is typical of the Vaja cases, this one is of exceptional quality. It is decked out in green and brown. Let me know what you guys think.

I managed to meet up with a few folks on Tuesday night (sorry Stephanie and Ash, it looks like we missed each other) but nobody took photos of the accessories on the floor and sent them to me to win the event pass. It's too bad because the party was smokin! Anyhoo...If you happened to take photos from the show floor, send them to me now and I'll come up with a suitable prize (mostly because I'm looking at about 200 business cards and I have no idea where to start). Maybe next year I can ask Thomas Hawk to help out. I hear he took 1000 photos at CES this year. Sean, maybe you'll introduce me.

So I'm off to Japan for a quick business trip. While I've been there many times, I thought I'd pick your brains on two items:
1. Best places to take photos
2. Coolest gadgets in Akiharbarra that you can't buy in the US

I didn't forget about the survey either. The results are in and it looks like sirius is your pick. So, I've been meeting with a few folks to see what can be done. It might not be exactly what you expect, but I've got an idea that I'm going to start working on for you guys.

On a related note, you may have noticed #2-3 are already working with us and/or made announcements at CES. There you go, a 3 for 1.

I have not forgotten about the New Year case giveaway. It was hard to pick a winner, But in the end I decided on James. Not only did his reason rhyme, but it involved ham. Who doesn't like ham? We've got to work on the Wii part, though. Now if it were only a rhyming Haiku... James send me your contact info and I'll get your case out to you. Here's the winning entry:

On Christmas day to my surprise the gleam of ham was in my eyes. My trusty Zune was close to me, in a pocket near my knee. I peered towards the Christmas tree, the lights and bulbs excited me. I pulled out my Zune for all to see and flipped on some sweet ACDC. I turned it off then sat to eat, the Christmas dinner I knew I'd meet. Without my sweet Zune I'm sure it would be just another Christmas day to me. We went to presents, which I love to see. To my surprise, I got a Wii.

 
I was going through my old photos over the weekend. I came across this one. It reminds me of why I live here (even when the weather is as bad as it has been).

 
 
I didn't see the folks from Griffin at the show this year, but I did get to test out their kickstand case. It is cool because you can put it in horizontal or vertical modes.

 
 
I've been meaning to post these for a long time. It's a photo of the Altec Speaker dock. I've had very good lock with them and I even gave a couple out as Christmas gifts.

 
 
In case you wondered where I was holed up for most of last week. I suppose there are worse places to be.

 
Ran into SeanAlex at the BillG keynote (if you don't read Addicted to Digital Media, you should). This was before he was partying with his Emmy.

 
 
 
 
Photos of some of our accessories partners at teh booth.

 
 
Ever want to know what our section of the MS booth looks like? Well, here are a couple of shots from our little corner of the world.

 
On Tuesday night, I managed to find the boys from Belkin. We had a great dinner at Tao followed by drinks at our party. Man what a great night! Thanks guys for all of your hospitality!

Since I'll be at CES, posting will be very light. Sorry.

I've decided that if anyone wants to get together at CES, I'm going to be at the Tao Bar in the Venetian at 10:00PM on Tuesday. How will you find me you may ask? Well, If you can't tell from my photo on the sidebar, I'm as bald as a cueball. While that's not that unusual in Seattle, I imagine in Vegas that may not be all the rage. Also, I'll have a ticket for person who takes the most photos of potential partners on the show floor (see below).

Speaking of videos. One of the readers asked me why video playlists didn't transfer to the Zune. I replied, "of course they do." And then I tried it. Sure enough, it doesn't work. The files all transfer over, but not the playlist. I'm still not sure why, but I intend to mail the dev team to find out. And I thought I knew all the features of the product! ;)

I saw a blog post (I forget where) this week about a little app called ZuneIt. It was supposed to save Google videos or YouTube videos to Zune. I was pretty skeptical about it. It seems like a pretty involved process to download, transcode and put videos into the video folder. It seems especially hard to do from a button on the browser. But...That's exactly what ZuneIt does. And it works. The reality of the world is that it isn't likely that I'll ever really want to watch something on YouTube more than once and less likely that I'd want to do it on my Zune, but I have to say, it is pretty cool to know I can do it automatically if I wanted to.

It seems like everyone is doing a "top ten" list. Why should I be any different?!? So, the following is a list of my favorite albums from 2006 in no particular order (and yes I know a couple of them came out in late 2005, but I only listened to the in 2006).

Hinder - Extreme Behavior
The Fray - How to Save a Life
Dashboard Confessional - Dusk and Summer
AFI - Decemberunderground
Fall Out Boy - From Under the Cork Tree
Augustana - All the Stars and Boulevards
Gomez - How We Operate
Gwen Stefani - The Sweet Escape
Hawthorn Heights - If Only You Were Lonley
Panic! At the Disco - A Fever You Can't Sweat Out
Lily Allen - Smile (this one is my up and comer for 2007)

So I was cleaning out my photos over the holiday and I came across this gem. It is a photo of the first (hand built) PMC (then known as Media2Go) complete with the "final" UI.



It is hard to believe that was almost 4 years ago. It got me thinking, "I wonder where that unit is." Well, I had put it in a box and forgotten all about it. I pulled it out, charged it and guess what? Still works like a charm.

Every year I go to CES I always say I'm going to spend time walking the show floor. I never do. I really miss a lot of potential partners, which is a real shame. So, I have an idea. If you guys are going to CES, I want you to bring a digital camera. On Monday and Tuesday (the 8th and the 9th) I want you guys to take as many photos of products/companies that you think will make good Zune partners/products. Then upload them to Flickr (of your favorite photo sharing site) and send me a link by 6:00PM on Tuesday. What's in it for you you say? For the person who sends me the most photos of unique products and tells me which partners they are from, they will get a ticket to our very exclusive Zune party Tuesday night (sorry folks I've only got one). Is that enough incentive for you guys?

I've mentioned in the past that I've used DVRMS Toolbox to convert my DVR-MS files to MPEG and then I edit using a variety of tools to get it in the right format. Well, that particular product also promised to cut commercials out automatically. But, alas, I never was able to get that feature working for me. Well...I happened upon another version of the product from Media Made Easy. It even turns out that have a 10' UI (sort of). For whatever reason, the commercial editing feature in this version works for me (yeah!) Give it a try and let me know what you think.

So, I told you all that my wife was getting my pink Zune. What I didn't tell you is that she hates all technology. I joke with her and call her a Luddite all the time. She just started using email about a year and a half ago and really only checks it about once a week. Enough said.

Well, I gave her the Zune and a nice magenta case and she really liked it. We opened it up together and got her going. No issues with recognizing the device (the software was already installed). We upgraded the firmware without a hitch. We transferred her music onto the device. I added some albums I thought she'd like from my collection. I showed her how to use marketplace and downloaded a few albums. Transferred some photos of our son and changed the background. We even shared a track. It all worked like a charm. All in all, she's thrilled. More importantly, I got husband kudos for the gift!

After the post about dcut and the interest it received, I spent the last couple of days looking at other DVR-MS transcoding tools. I'm sure thre are lots of them. However, I only tried two of them this weekend. I did have some pretty good results.

If you are looking to simply compress existing DVR-MS files into Zune compatible WMV files, I was very impressed with the quality of M2Solutions product. I was really surprised to see that they support DVR-MS out of the box And the end product was very clean. I think the product pulls frames from the dshow filter and re-encodes them (thus using the already installed decoders). At any rate, I thought the end product was quite good.

For those who want to do editing of the files first, I'd recommend looking at AVS Video converter. I hadn't heard of it before, but it turns out is has a nifty GUI for editing files. It is a little steep on the learning curve and isn't as precise as other more professional editors, but is does allow you to set multiple entry and exit markers and then transcodes only the parts you want. The quality wasn't as nice at M2, but it was certainly watchable.

There you have it, two more solutions for getting you PVR content on your Zune.

So, you saw me inquire about silicon cases a few posts ago. I have a custom made silicon case prototype I'm going to give away to the person with the best Zune Christmas story. It could be sharing, accessories, gifts, playlists, etc. In 100 words or less, tell me what happened over the holidays. Pictures are welcome. I reserve the right to pick the best one and award the case to the story I deem the best example of "Zuneism."

UPDATE: OK, you can use more than 100 words if you want to.

Thanks to all of you who made this year a great year for me. I look forward to making 2007 even better!