StreetDeck DOES support Zune!

terrygold · 12-18-2006, 08:30 PM

I've been really enjoying my new Zune, and I installed the Zune software on my Infill T3 yesterday. I have a Zune Pass, so I can download anything in the Zune library (about 2 million tracks) to three different computers and two Zune devices. Just to prove that it was working I downloaded an album to the Infill. I almost posted yesterday to see if anyone had tried to integrate the Zune software to StreetDeck . . .

Tonight I was driving home and selected Music in StreetDeck, and I was surprised to see the album that I downloaded in the Zune software show up in StreetDeck. Not only did it show up, it played! Now that I think about it, it makes sense because you can play tracks downloaded via Zune in the Windows Media player. This is great!

I've written about my experience with the Zune and the Zune Pass subscription service here. It isn't for everybody, but I'm loving it especially now that I've found it works with StreetDeck. Thanks guys!

polo6979 · 12-19-2006, 05:54 AM

Have you tried importing your playlist?

sharpmat007 · 12-19-2006, 04:49 PM

Playlist support is compatible with wmp so should work seamless between zune and streetdeck.

polo6979 · 12-19-2006, 09:43 PM

how could we get it to recognize the device itself? now that would be awesome.

terrygold · 12-20-2006, 11:00 AM

I only had a few minutes to play with the playlists. I copied the files into the playlist directory, and the Zune software could open them, but I wasn't able to get it to download the tracks. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. It's going to be a day or two before I can get back to it, but if you have ideas let me know and I'll try it out.

I'll also plug the Zune into the Infill and see what happens. I would expect to be able to connect it as a Guest, but I don't know if that would mean that I could listen to the music on the device.

polo6979 · 12-20-2006, 01:39 PM

Since there is a hack out for the zune to be seen as an external drive... we may be able to import them from the zune. I will play around with it this weekend.

terrygold · 12-21-2006, 01:02 AM

I'm still not back to my FJ (it's in Denver - maybe Friday) but I did just load the Zune software on my laptop and I've made another discovery.

When I plug my Zune into the laptop, I'm prompted to either wipe the device and reload or to connect as a guest. Since my home machine is my main machine with my music library, I choose Guest.

The Zune Pass will work on three computers, so I'm able to download new music onto the laptop and then sync it to the Zune device, which is nice I think. I also use www.foldershare.com to keep a folder sync'd across my home machine, my laptop and the FJ Car Computer. At home I have a podcatcher running, dropping new podcasts into a directory that is sync'd across all three machines. The Zune software monitors this directory. So now even though I'm not at home, I can listen to my podcasts on any of my three machines or I can drag the podcast onto the Zune and have it sync to the device.

Here's what I can't do, or don't know how to do. I don't see a way to move content OFF OF THE ZUNE, onto my laptop. Since I have a Zune Pass, it isn't a big deal. I also can't play music that is on the Zune, on my laptop. I guess if I really wanted to play music from the Zune on my car computer, I'd just plug in the audio connection.

With the Zune Pass I'll just download whatever I want onto the FJ Car Computer and I won't even try to keep it in sync with my home machine or my laptop. With the foldershare and podcatcher, I can easily listen to my podcasts from any machine.

I really like the way this is working, especially since it is in effect integrated with StreetDeck since Zune tracks will play under Windows Media. I'm happy to answer any questions or try other experiments.