Zune HD 4.5 Firmware Here

[Ayepecks]

Just plug in your player and you'll be prompted for an update in the Zune software's device screen on your PC.

I just downloaded it... it is way more snappy (the interface, the Internet, media playback, everything), and I know that's not my imagination.

Update's main features:

- Smart DJ

- Expanded codec support

- Marketplace on TV support

[Guest xiphi]

Really?! *plugs in his zune hd*

[Andrew Lyle Global Moderator]

Woot! Finally:

[Guest xiphi]

So far, Smart DJ doesn't seem to work. Keeps telling me to sync more songs, but I have 3286 on the device. Seems they've changed some animations, and added 1 or 2 new options.

Edit: Had to plug it back in and synch up for Smart DJ to work. Weird.

[George P Global Moderator]

Good to hear they got more performance out of it. That's a good sign for things to come.

[ViperAFK]

So does it play xvid now?

[Guest xiphi]

So does it play xvid now?

Been able to since the last Software update, but now since the Zune HD natively supports Xvid, there's no transcoding involved.

[Andrew Lyle Global Moderator]

So does it play xvid now?

Yup :D

[ViperAFK]

Awesome.

[ObiWanToby]

Been able to since the last Software update, but now since the Zune HD natively supports Xvid, there's no transcoding involved.

How is transcoding supporting playing xvid? Your statement is contradictory. Anything can play everything with transcoding.

This native support is pretty bold for Microsoft. .mov support with Windows Media Player in Windows 7 along with Zune software...xvid support for the 360 and the Zune...

This is great stuff.

[Dark_ph0enix]

If this thing played H.264 MKVs I'd totally buy one.

[TDQuiksilver]

Awesome. Thanks! (Y)

[~Johnny]

You can also now save entire webpages as pictures directly to your device, and save images off the internet into your collection :)

[Electric Jolt]

Awesome, I'm not seeing ads on loading apps and closing apps has a new transition. Definitely seems to be doing the best it can to load apps quickly and close them quickly too. :D

[TDQuiksilver]

Awesome, I'm not seeing ads on loading apps and closing apps has a new transition. Definitely seems to be doing the best it can to load apps quickly and close them quickly too. :D

Yes, performance has definitely improved.

[Guest xiphi]

How is transcoding supporting playing xvid? Your statement is contradictory. Anything can play everything with transcoding.

How is it contradictory? Did you not read my entire post?

[Ayepecks]

I haven't seen a change log, but here's the changes I've noticed:

• Improved performance
  
• Addition of Smart DJ
  
• Expanded codec support (including both DivX and XviD)
  
• Marketplace now viewable when connected to TV
  
• Addition of screen capture feature when browsing Internet (leave finger on page)
  
• Ability to sort Internet favorites by name
  
• Ability to rename Internet favorites
  
• Introduction ads removed from apps
  

[Guest xiphi]

Here's a more extensive change log:

- Smart DJ

- Native AVI and XVID support

- Marketplace on TV-Out

- Picks on-device

- Overall performance increases. Faster thumbnail loading and smoother animations.

- Faster, better browser. Large web pages that would previously have crashed the browser now load, you can zoom in further on images without blurring, and tap-to-zoom works better.

- You can now sort your favorites by date added or alphabetically.

- It now warns you that deleting your browser history takes forever.

- In artist view, you can now play all albums or songs, or add them to now playing.

- In the marketplace, you can see more than 3 of an artist's top songs.

- Playlists now have a transparent background in Quickplay.

- You can re-name favorites in the browser.

- You can save images or pictures of entire web pages to the device via the browser.

Accelerometer use in the browser is even faster (didn't think it was possible), again rotating near instantly with the movement.

App exit transitions are now vaguely similar to iPhone OS's.

Fonts in the network viewer are now in the correct capitalization.

When transitioning from the Music, Videos, Pictures, Marketplace, Social, Podcasts, and Apps main menus to the universal main menu, the previous stutters in the transitions are now much less pronounced and much smoother.

Overall scrolling performance has less stitches and as noted above, thumbnails of pretty much anything load faster.

In-App performance: Twitter runs overall much smoother, but there are still performance hitches.

Facebook is also much smoother and scrolling has less stutter. Horizontal transitions are also faster and smoother as well.

The zune can take screenshots in the browser.

No more ads before games.

I also noticed that the Zune will use other background pictures for the artist and is no longer one background picture

Can now connect to networks with hidden SSID. Comes up as "Hidden Network" and lets you define the SSID once you select it.

Still no WPA2 or WPA Enterprise support

Source: http://gizmodo.com/comment/21383780

[Bubbabyte]

good job MS, thanks for forgetting about those with older zunes. AGAIN!!

[trip21]

Is their a way to roll back to the 4.3 firmware I think video playback was much better in it.

[George P Global Moderator]

good job MS, thanks for forgetting about those with older zunes. AGAIN!!

Older Zunes don't have the hardware to keep up with the HD and more advanced features. MS did a very good job supporting the original Zune 30 for as long as it did. People should be happy, they coudl've killed off support for older gen with each new one like Apple tends to do with it's iPods.

Looking at the list posted above, those are some very solid updates for a x.1 update more or less (4.3 to 4.5).

[Kirkburn]

good job MS, thanks for forgetting about those with older zunes. AGAIN!!

If I'm reading Wikipedia correctly, they were last updated at the end of January. That's hardly much time ago.

[zivan56]

Since the 1st gen Zunes are basically no longer supported, the least that Microsoft could do would be to disable the bootloader code signature check on them so rockbox can be run on it. Since its basically a Gigabeat S with a WiFi module, rockbox should run with only minor modifications.

[Bubbabyte]

If I'm reading Wikipedia correctly, they were last updated at the end of January. That's hardly much time ago.

I'm guessing you don't own a zune other than the HD version. Because if you did, you'd know that the last firmware update is bugged and is causing alot of people problems. If you read the zune forums you will see that alot of people are experiencing these major bugs, alot of "conspiracy theorists" on the forums tend to believe MS crippled the older zunes in hopes people would upgrade to an HD. Seems farfetched, however the have yet to address the issues and continue to support the zune HD. I currently own 2 zune 30's and 1 zune 120, and all have the same issue since last update. When i say it's a major issue, it is. The glitch/bug whatever you want to call it, will leave a dummy file on the zune in place of something you've deleted, so say you have a Greenday album on your zune, you delete it thru zune player, unplug zune, and the zune still shows a dummy greenday album, which when you play it will give you an error, and in some cases will cause zune to restart. Now imagine the greenday album is 10 videos that you just deleted, now you can see how this may be a problem. Only fix, as of right now, is to erase zune contents and upload all your stuff to it again. Zune 120 is still one of the most powerful mp3 players you can buy, yet they've tossed it aside like it's nothing.

[Guest xiphi]

I've yet to see any complaints about the latest firmware on the older Zunes. I know quite a handful of people with them, too.