Asa Zune and Windows Media Center owner I have been eagerly awaiting the new Zune software with its promise of improvedRecorded TV and podcast support. As the upgrade is available on Zune.net todayI downloaded it and kicked the install off.

Afterabout 10 minutes the software was installed and it was up and running, the newUI is a vast improvement over the old version. It looks like a completerewrite, which is good as the v1 software was basically a customized version of Windows Media Player.

The rebirth of Zune

OnceI connected my Zune to the PC, the software asked me to update the firmware to2.2, which took about 5 minutes. The device then rebooted a couple of times - Ididn't have to touch the Zune at all.

One nice touch is the way it handles connectingyour Zune to a second PC. In the v1 software, it asked you every time if youwanted to connect as a 'guest'. In the new version, you can tell the softwareto always connect it this way. I use my Zune on my UMPC, as well as my MediaCenter PC, and it was a pain to keep telling the original software to grant it guest status.

Theuser interface on the Zune device has also been improved; it's clearer and seemsfaster. The music experience seems the same, except that when browsing an Artist's tracks youcan see their albums on a carousel at the top of the device. Pictures now giveyou a count on the pictures in a folder. I'm sure I will find other minor changes as I continue using it.

New Podcast support

Podcastsupport is one feature that I was really looking forward too. With the v1software I had been struggling to find an elegant way of downloading andsyncing podcasts to the Zune.

I ended up using Doppler to download the shows, then a monitoredfolder to do the syncing. I found most of the time I ended up syncing itmyself. The other problem was ctually finding the shows on the Zune once they had downloaded. Some podcasters don't tag their shows up as Podcasts, so they end up in with therest of my music.

This all changes in the v2 software. Podcasting gets its ownsection in the device and in the software. Much like iTunes, you can subscribeto a podcast RSS feed and the Zune software downloads the latest three shows automatically for you. You can then pick what you want it to do with the other shows.

I do like thesyncing options. You can tell the Zune software to sync unplayed episodes, allepisodes, the first unplayed or not to sync at all. I've set it to syncunplayed shows, so hopefully it will keep track of what I have listened to andonly sync the new ones. This setting is specific to the podcast, so differentfeeds can have different syncing options.

Connecting to Media Center

NextI looked at Media Center support. Inthe videos section of the software I could see my recorded TV shows, so all I hadto do was right click on the show , select Sync, and watch as it copied the show tomy Zune. There must be some transcoding going on here, as it took about 20 minutes tosync a 30 minute TV show. During that time the Zune software was hitting theCPU pretty hard.

The size of the TV show in Media Center was 1.08GB and on theZune it was 429MB. The quality of the video is good, but it looks like thereis some motion blur. I will have to play with it some more to be able get amore detailed impression. Ihaven't looked at auto syncing any TV content yet.

Overall, I'm very impressed with the new Zune software and firmware. TheWindows software is a million miles away from the old software and the syncingoptions are far better. Basically the whole package now works for me they wayI want it to, with TV support, podcasts, wireless syncing and the other newfeatures.

And all this was on my three month-old V1 Zune 30. Well done to Microsoftfor not abandoning the original device and supporting the early adopter.