AfterDawn: News

Interview reveals Zune HD pricing, other details

Speaking with an anonymous Microsoft engineer, NeoWin has reported a few interesting new facts about the upcoming Zune HD media device, including pricing, which has not yet been officially revealed.

During the interview the source claims that the Zune HD is the best media device the company has ever made and that with the right marketing it can sell twice as well as previous Zunes, which continue to struggle and have almost lost all marketing support from the software giant.



More notably, the source says "the Zune team is working hard to get all the licensing agreements in order" to bring movies to the Zune marketplace, including 720p HD films.

Finally, the source adds that there will be two launch sizes for the Zune HD, 16GB and 32GB, with a 64GB most likely coming later. The device will begin shipping in "early September" and the smaller capacity 16GB model version will retail for "$249 -$280."

You can read the whole interview here: Interview with the Zune source

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 26 Jun 2009 17:36

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• 11 comments

• Bluevoid

  Awesome! So with cutting edge codecs being used on these films, a decent bit rate for 720 will still be around 3000-4000kbps AT LEAST plus a gimped 128kbps for audio. Lets do that math.
  
  3628kbps(3500avg video + 128 audio) x 5400secs (90min) = 19591200bits = 2448900bytes = 2.5GB per movies (at least)
  
  Not to mention movies these days are an average of about 105 minutes long rather than 90. So we're really looking at a minimum of 2GB for a short movie with lots of compression and up to 4-5GB if its a long movie with less compression.
  
  So the 16GB model after formatting and not holding any music or pictures will hold you somewhere from 3-7 movies. Great plan guys! I think they rushed this idea out just to try to get a 1up on Apple, rather than waiting for storage costs and capabilities to catch up. Sorry, you need a movable parts HDD with at least 120GB to make this device a success. Microsoft is going to have a lot of pissed off customers when they put their favorite trilogy in the device and realize it's full.

  26.6.2009 18:02 #1

• supasonic

  Originally posted by Bluevoid:
  So the 16GB model after formatting and not holding any music or pictures will hold you somewhere from 3-7 movies. Great plan guys! I think they rushed this idea out just to try to get a 1up on Apple, rather than waiting for storage costs and capabilities to catch up. Sorry, you need a movable parts HDD with at least 120GB to make this device a success. Microsoft is going to have a lot of pissed off customers when they put their favorite trilogy in the device and realize it's full.Who in the hell is gonna wanna watch a full 720p video on this screen? Standard resolution vids work perfectly fine and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference on this screen at all. But if the hardware can output 720p video like they say then I don't see why you don't just get a xbox 360 which can do 1080p, its bigger than the zune but it would be a cheaper solution for displaying HD video to a external video reciever(aka pseudo scientific term for HDTV).

  26.6.2009 18:59 #2

• marchyno

  I have Zune 80 GB but I'm waiting to buy Zune HD ......minimum 64GB

  26.6.2009 19:14 #3

• blueboy09

  While this is good for many people, I would like to see a 120GB hard drive version. But I think that bluevoid is right: there's no need to see 720p video on the small screen bc u will not c no difference at all, period. Only on a HDTV will you see it and that with a specialized over-priced cable, and i don't see alot of people doing this either. You already have DVD players that up-convert home-burned video on a disc to view on a HDTV anyways, but that's just my opoinion . . .

  26.6.2009 19:48 #4

• Bluevoid

  Remembering back the first mp3 player I ever saw was 64mb. Essentially a 1cd system. The only advantages over a CD player was it's size and the battery life. Few people bought that, but it was an important step. I think we have found ourselves in a similar situation here. I would say that 95% of the people that buy this thing will purchase less than five HD movies (unless microsoft allows the movies to come a portable and non portable format). They will find that HD movies eat the HDD, but SD movies (while looking the same on the zune) take up far less (1GB).
  
  What I don't understand is why Apple and MS insist on pushing SSD on customers without a real HDD alternative. I thought the touch was awesome. Decent sized videos on the go? Great! Then I head 32GBs only and said "No thanks, I'll wait". Same thing here. Good for MS, they made a product with features we may want to purchase. Then they didn't provide enough storage. That's like making a flying car that goes 5000 miles an hour, but has a 2 gallon gas tank. Sorry, epic fail.

  26.6.2009 20:24 #5

• Hyasuma

  what is the point? 720p on a small screen? normal resolution would be fine, and again, there is no different languages that you can select, put some asian songs on there, it be all scribbles just like the original crap zunes that Microsoft came out with, but yet, the magnetic ear set are still pretty cool. I rather get an ipod anyways.

  26.6.2009 23:22 #6

• dragnandy

  ok, guys, the screen is NOT 720p. it can PLAY 720p videos on that screen, and you can get video-out at 720p. but your not going to be watching videos at 720p on the zuneHD screen.
  
  @hyasuma, there is going to be foreign language support. well i dont know if you can select your own language, but you wont have those funny scribbles and boxes.
  http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/...to-the-zune.php

  27.6.2009 02:14 #7

• Brandar1

  Originally posted by marchyno: I have Zune 80 GB but I'm waiting to buy Zune HD ......minimum 64GB
  I LOVE my old G1 30GB model, but I'll probably upgrade to the 120 instead of the HD simply because of the gross lack of memory on the new one. Seems like they would know better than to release a device touting "HD" when all they have is a thumb drive's worth of media storage.

  27.6.2009 14:20 #8

• xnmalletx

  Originally posted by Hyasuma: what is the point? 720p on a small screen? normal resolution would be fine, and again, there is no different languages that you can select, put some asian songs on there, it be all scribbles just like the original crap zunes that Microsoft came out with, but yet, the magnetic ear set are still pretty cool. I rather get an ipod anyways.
  Really? I got the original zune 30GB and I love it. I would appreciate it if these "fanboy" comments stop. I mean if it wasn't for Zune, Sansa, Creative Zen, and many other companies then Apple would be able to jack their prices up sky high. I mean sure the ipod is good but you have to give the other companies credit for even trying. Its the same thing with linux and apple's OS taking on Microsoft. COMPETITION IS GOOD for the consumer. I picked the zune because EVERYBODY has an ipod. I'm sorry I like diversity. Life would be kind of boring if everyone owned the same products, wouldn't it.

  1.7.2009 01:02 #9

• Bluevoid

  Originally posted by dragnandy: ok, guys, the screen is NOT 720p. it can PLAY 720p videos on that screen, and you can get video-out at 720p. but your not going to be watching videos at 720p on the zuneHD screen.Who cares about the screen. You will still have to store them in the storage device if you want to connect to an HD television. That's the point here. Everyone is going OOOooooo AAaaaah about it using HD, and MS is making a big deal about it too. Then they put a grain of sand worth of storage in it and say "Get ready to buy a new one when we release the ZuneHD that actually stores the videos and not just plays them!"
  
  Eat it MS, if you wanted to compete then you need to actually take some market share not set yourself up to resell to your imaginary customers. Resell strategy only works for Apple right now.

  1.7.2009 21:52 #10

• OFI

  Originally posted by dragnandy: ok, guys, the screen is NOT 720p. it can PLAY 720p videos on that screen, and you can get video-out at 720p. but you're not going to be watching videos at 720p on the zuneHD screen.THANK YOU!
  
  Every ZuneHD thread online you can put money on there being various comments from people who COMPLETELY miss the point.
  
  As Bluevoid said though for that to work properly you really do need a much larger HDD, 16GB is just a waste of time. Even if you forget HD movies that's still only around 40 HD music videos without any other files.. I dread to think of the price of the 64GB especially outside of the USA (if they remember the rest of the world this time round)
  Stop mucking about and go back to HDDs and put out some serious competitive pricing.

  2.7.2009 12:55 #11