Mix 11 is Killing me!

I have just added Mix 11 to my podcasts and it is taking forever to put the sessions on my Zune HD. Okay, I know, these are huge files, but the quality is worth it. My issues are with how the Zune software handles large collections of large files. This is a two sided issue. On one side you need to download to the PC and on the other side you need to download from the PC to the Zune HD. The critical problem on the first is a time window and on the the second, a space problem.

I have mentioned this in the past, the user should be able to specify the number of simultaneous downloads. If you have a time constraint, for example sitting at a hotspot and you only have fifteen minutes to download., you want as much completed as possible. So that means one at a time. It does not make sense to have a time contraint and have to kill four downloads at the 99% mark when you could have downloaded at least three if they were done one at a time.

On the transfer to the Zune, it is possible to have more content than the 32Gs allowed. That is one of the reasons, the WP7 phone will not be making my Zune HD obsolete. It just does not have the space. For the last fifteen minutes, the zune software has been saying it is Syncing:68% and Now Syncing 3 items. So, do I unplug my Zune HD to listen to the content and free up some space or wait till it says 2 items? In other words, is the current syning file almost complete or just started? Yes, Mix11 has more content than will fit on a Zune HD!

When I first had my Zune HD, I had to go through several sessions of subscribing to podcasts and running out of space and then having to delete the content and resubscribe one at a time. As the material was listened to and space was freed up, then new subscriptions could be added.

So Zune team, can we get a means for limiting the number of simultaneous downloads and in addition to the overall Syncing indicator, a progress indicator of the currently syncing file. Of course, I could ask that the Mix sessions be short and be done at low def, but I do not want to go there.

John Marshall… Visio MVP       Visio.MVPs.org