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NVIDIA today issued a press release confirming its Tegra technology will be used in the soon-to-be released Zune HD

The Microsoft Zune HD, which will launch on September 15 and is available now for pre-order, is powered by the NVIDIA Tegra processor, NVIDIA confirmed today in a press release.

"Tegra provides the multimedia muscle in Zune HD," according to Michael Rayfield, NVIDIA mobile business GM.  "Users will love the device's new design, amazing multimedia features and HD video out capability.  Zune HD is a must-have for anyone looking for the best portable digital media player on the market."

The NVIDIA Tegra has eight independent processors, including an HD video processor, graphics processor, audio processor, and two ARM cores.  The hardware will help power video and audio for the device, which has a 3.3-inch OLED color display and supports up to 33 hours of music and 8.5 hours of video use.

It was widely believed the Zune HD would be powered by NVIDIA hardware, but today marks the first time NVIDIA or Microsoft publicly discussed the use of Tegra technology.

The latest Zune will be available with the 16GB version ($219.99) and 32 GB ($289.99), and is available in five colors, though only two colors are available in the pre-order.

Despite being compared continually to the popular Apple iPod -- which controls the MP3 player market -- Microsoft continues to state it is pleased with overall Zune sales.

"Today we're happy with the number of devices we've sold, and as we've said before, for Zune it's about the longer-term strategy and the multi-year vision for this business," a Microsoft official told CDFreaks last month.  “Increasingly, Zune’s focus is on areas where it is differentiating against the competition, such as the Zune Pass subscription service, which gives users access to millions of songs for the price of one CD a month and lets them keep 10 tracks a month to add to their permanent collection.”

Microsoft will likely take a similar approach with the Zune HD, but the company understands comparisons with the iPod Touch will continue.

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nice
By Gul Westfale on 8/17/09, Rating: 0
RE: nice
By lightfoot on 8/17/2009 5:41:46 PM , Rating: 5
What has my attention is the multi-touch web browsing. If it works as well as the iPod Touch or iPhone, MS will get my business. It's sad that now Microsoft seems slightly less evil than Apple.


RE: nice
By Gul Westfale on 8/17/2009 6:00:36 PM , Rating: 5
yes, before apple just seemed retarded, overpriced, underfeatured, and annoying.


RE: nice
By quiksilvr on 8/17/2009 7:46:31 PM , Rating: 2
Sad? I think its great! I was so worried that things would go downhill after Gates left but things turned up for the better in virtually all areas of their business structure.


RE: nice
By Samus on 8/17/09, Rating: -1
RE: nice
By dark matter on 8/17/2009 8:12:27 PM , Rating: 4
True, but that was mainly due to all the negative Apple fanboy bloggers (mainly due to poor drivers). Since Vista was released a lot negative press has hit Apple. (And lets not forget that more machines run Vista than their are Apple machines in the world put together, so it depends on what you call 'success' ;)

Apple is no longer the golden boy. Windows 7 is basically Vista with a new interface and streamlined code. Yet most of the blogging this time round has been in favour for Windows 7.


RE: nice
By Mitch101 on 8/17/2009 9:05:40 PM , Rating: 5
I happily ran Vista 64 and am now running Windows 7 Ultimate. Take below with a grain of salt because its not readily available to public yet but to give you an idea what I have seen so far that the review articles may not be saying.

1-It got EVERY component driver of my PC right from install. I did not have to find a single driver to download. (Razer mouse, Zune, Printer, Video Capture, HD Audio, ATI 3870 Video Card etc.) The most perfect OS install ever!

2-UAC is much less invasive to those who liked to complain about it. I rather liked it knowing which apps called home. But I don't find that to be a Microsoft flaw but developer applications being invasive. Windows just tells me which ones are doing it. I rather like UAC.

3-Some program installs you need to run as Administrator. This was mainly games like Quake 4. Once they are installed all is good. I have installed 18 games and none have had any issue running.

4-All the AV programs seem to be in beta currently. I installed Trend until NOD gets their Windows 7 AV going.

5-The Windows XP emulator. I installed it but have no idea what to do with it because everything so far is running under Windows 7. I guess I can install NOD here or AVG. I am tempted to see if I can get some legacy video capture cards to work with it but have since purchased newer ones.

6-Firefox runs in Windows 7 and so far I do not have the add on crash issues that I experienced with XP and Vista. Not sure why but firefox runs better on 7. I will say IE8 Runs much faster on 7 than Vista.

7-Fastest resume from hibernate I have ever experienced. Fast shutdown also.

8-I noticed it scheduled defrags for Wednesdays. I'm curious to see if it will do it from hibernation.

9-Desktop in the task bar works like a portable apps menu. No more show desktop its like a second start bar.

10-You have to install the live app to get stuff like Windows movie maker, Outlook e-mail connector for hotmail, etc. Some good stuff in there.

About the only thing I am confused about is removing USB devices. I haven't figured out if I need to stop them before unplugging them.

I wouldn't say its Vista with a new interface that would imply that Windows 7 is a minor upgrade. It certainly is a bigger step than that.

I don't believe there is anything bad someone can say about Windows 7 but I'm sure they will make it up if it supports their hate of anything Microsoft.


RE: nice
By nafhan on 8/18/2009 10:34:25 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
not readily available to public yet
If you hurry it's available from: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/get/dow...
quote:
Downloads will be available until August 20, 2009. After that, you can still install the RC and you can get a product key if you need one.

I think you need a Windows Live ID or something, which is free.


RE: nice
By InvertMe on 8/17/2009 9:08:15 PM , Rating: 3
Negativity around Vista is typically from people who don't know any better. Or who used NVida cards for the first year.... But I won't get into that.


RE: nice
By knutjb on 8/18/2009 2:42:13 PM , Rating: 2
My daughter has preferred Zune over iPods for some time. She had friends with both and played with them. She didn't like the iPod. The iPod isn't perfect and was way over priced and I hated having iTunes, it wanted to download stuff I didn't want at every update.

The only problems I had with Vista, first was early ATI drivers that only caused problems in games and was for a couple of months when SP1 came out, and the rest turned out to be caused by Norton AV, once I switched to G Data those minor annoyances, mostly with my wireless adapter, went away. It's operated without a glitch, I can't say that about my inlaws iMac it's pretty flaky. There were too many websites I needed to access that didn't like Safari. It wasn't mine to tinker with.


RE: nice
By Helbore on 8/18/2009 4:10:10 PM , Rating: 3
I had Vista and used an Nvidia card in the first year. Yes, it was rubbish.

Fortunately, I'm not so stupid as to blame Microsoft for something that was Nvidia's fault. Unfortunately, I also seemed to be in a minority.

Aside from that, never had an issue with Vista. In fact, the ONLY issue I've really had with Vista is that I work in IT and idiot end-users can't get their heads round it not looking just like XP (I even had one guy fail to understand what the "start button" was on Vista, because it didn't have start written on it - but he did have a terminal case of moronitis)


RE: nice
By 3minence on 8/19/2009 9:45:31 AM , Rating: 1
Vista had 3 problems:

1. Poor drivers. This was the biggest problem and it was NOT an MS problem. MS made development copies of Vista available long before release. The hardware manufacturers, especially ATI & Nvidia, sat on their butts. Many companies wanted to upgrade to Vista but when they saw the list of hardware and software they would have to replace they declined to proceed.

2. Office 2007. Many people got Office 2007 with Vista. They ended up hating the Ribbon Bar and and blamed Vista for that. I had a number of clients demand I put XP & Office 2003 back on their PCs because they hated the Office Ribbon Bar.

3. Vista had problems. It was slower than XP on the same hardware, it had bugs, and it didn't offer any killer reason to upgrade. It was more secure, but you still needed Anti-Virus, Anti-Spam, etc. This was MSs fault. Especially in the runup to release it seemed every other week you read about another major feature that was being dropped from Vista.

Vista has become a good OS, but Win 7 is a great OS. It repairs a lot of damage done by Vista, both deserved and undeserved.


RE: nice
By omnicronx on 8/18/2009 12:58:48 PM , Rating: 2
I was very skeptical about the browser that would be released with the Zune HD as original reports said it would resemble what is currently found in WM6.5. Well apparently this could not be more incorrect as from the videos and pictures I have seen this browser is pretty amazing and at least matches what the iPod/Phone has to offer (can't really get a handle on how fast it is from the few videos released). I will say that the preproduction ZuneHD's did not have flash support, so we will see if that changes upon release although it seems doubtful.


RE: nice
By keitaro on 8/17/2009 6:00:52 PM , Rating: 2
Even if it was, would you want to go there? After all, the anti-DRM people out there would rather shop at iTMS or Amazon for their music needs, even if it doesn't have a subscription model.

The paper specs looks nice and one thing that may have an advantage over the iPod Touch is HD Radio. I pretty much wouldn't care if all the Zune HD does is play music and do a little of something else. I mean, if I needed a mobile device that does a lot of things, an iPhone or Blackberry would suffice.


RE: nice
By imaheadcase on 8/17/2009 6:24:53 PM , Rating: 5
quote:
this device is looking nicer and nicer... hopefully it won't be tied to an online music store or be too DRM-heavy.


Zunes are not tied to online music stores or DRM heavy. You been off the internet for a long time or something? :P


RE: nice
By Gul Westfale on 8/17/09, Rating: -1
RE: nice
By Motoman on 8/17/2009 7:57:53 PM , Rating: 5
...I never thought I'd see the day when I'd be relieved to see "Microsoft" labeled on a device...but with all of Apple's recent shenanigans...it would seem that they are clearly the lesser of two evils.


RE: nice
By Gul Westfale on 8/17/2009 9:35:48 PM , Rating: 4
sad, isn't it? you used to buy the best device out there, now you buy the least worst. it's like going to the polls...


RE: nice
By Motoman on 8/18/2009 11:56:04 AM , Rating: 2
..."son, every election is a choice between a giant douche and a turd sandwich."


music reproduction quality.
By dark matter on 8/17/2009 8:15:25 PM , Rating: 3
at the time of this post, not one person has asked it "SOUNDS" better than the iPOd.

Quite remarkable considering what we are discussing.




RE: music reproduction quality.
By keitaro on 8/17/2009 8:32:16 PM , Rating: 4
Sounds? The people who uses these players are ones who don't factor in sound quality that much. Even I don't bother to hear the difference. If I want superior audio quality, I'd be listening my music on a $5000 receiver with $2000 speaker set. You're going to be listening to audio while on the move, where there are a lot of outside noise that will likely permeate in.


RE: music reproduction quality.
By InvertMe on 8/17/2009 9:12:43 PM , Rating: 5
iPods IMO are the worst sounding of the top brands of MP3 players. Creative, Zune, Cowon, Samsung and Sony all sound better.

So for me unless Apple does a major revamp of their hardware I don't even consider them contenders in the sound quality department. Maybe that's why no one asked.


RE: music reproduction quality.
By MadMan007 on 8/17/2009 9:32:33 PM , Rating: 2
Didn't you know, SQ is dead. People would rather have a media player that can do 7241 things merely 'ok' rather than like, play media really well.


RE: music reproduction quality.
By Omega215D on 8/18/2009 4:30:27 AM , Rating: 2
Because it's a given that it'll sound better than an iPod, and knowing MS they won't replace what was working on their previous Zunes. The last gen of Zunes sounded quite nice even though it had no EQ.

If a company can get sound quality right in a $60 player then Apple clearly has problems getting the basics right.


By Alexstarfire on 8/18/2009 2:15:31 PM , Rating: 2
Apple has always had trouble getting the basics right.


Graphically speaking
By tviceman on 8/17/2009 5:58:01 PM , Rating: 2
Will this device be more powerful than the ipod phone/touch?




RE: Graphically speaking
By Gul Westfale on 8/17/2009 6:01:58 PM , Rating: 2
um, a $300 device with a 3 inch screen.. ever heard of the PSP?


RE: Graphically speaking
By messyunkempt on 8/17/2009 6:07:22 PM , Rating: 3
You mean the psp with the 32 gig storage space and the music subscription model? ermm nope.

actually, just noticed you qualified your redundant comparison with the 'graphically speaking' header.

my bad.


RE: Graphically speaking
By ClownPuncher on 8/17/2009 6:53:03 PM , Rating: 4
3.3 inch OLED screen!


RE: Graphically speaking
By mfed3 on 8/17/2009 6:04:26 PM , Rating: 2
many times faster, are u serious...it has 8 cores and nvidia gpus


App Store?
By MrX8503 on 8/17/2009 10:17:07 PM , Rating: 2
The Zune HD hardware wise is impressive. Whats even more impressive is that the 16GB costs less than the 8GB ipod touch, but there is one thing that I cannot stress enough; an App Store.

Every MP3 manufacturer out there had a chance to grab some of the pie before the App store, but now with 60,000 apps, IMO that is a force to be reckoned with.

Apple is on a run away freight train with their iPhone/Touch and I am baffled to see that even corporate giants like MS are fumbling on getting something similar released. Hopefully the Microsoft Marketplace will be their calling.

Just like the very first "Personal Computer", PC's did not become widely adopted until that "killer app" was developed. MS needs that killer app.




RE: App Store?
By RandomFool on 8/17/2009 11:01:03 PM , Rating: 3
Keep in mind many of those 60k apps are completely useless things like the fart application or demo version of full apps.

Apple definitely has an advantage with the app stores but should the Zune HD sell reasonably well I belive that most of the useful apps will get ported over.


RE: App Store?
By MrX8503 on 8/17/2009 11:07:54 PM , Rating: 3
Although it is true that those 60k apps are mostly useless, it has been leagues better than anything else out there as far as implementation.

WinMo has been around for ages and still doesn't have anything close to this. There is seriously something wrong when I'm seeing job postings for "iphone SDK". That is the kind of support MS needs.

The sad part is that I don't see an alternative to the app store on the horizon. So it could still be a few years on top of the few years the App store has already been out.


RE: App Store?
By Flunk on 8/18/2009 12:21:39 AM , Rating: 3
Windows Mobile has a great selection of applications that span a much wider range of solutions than the "60k" iPhone apps. You're also not restricted to only one retailer so prices are low, quite often free.

The app store may be easy but there is a lot more functionality available for Windows Mobile.


RE: App Store?
By Alexstarfire on 8/18/2009 2:18:34 PM , Rating: 2
SHHHHH, the Apple fanboys might hear you and learn the truth. If they do I might have no one to "argue" with on here anymore.


Subscription
By dagamer34 on 8/17/2009 5:53:38 PM , Rating: 2
Now if only Apple would come out with a subscription service that lets you keep 10 songs a month for $14.99 like the Zune Pass, I'd be ALL OVER THAT.




RE: Subscription
By lightfoot on 8/17/2009 6:18:02 PM , Rating: 2
...or you could just use Microsoft's service.

Oh wait, you're using an iPod aren't you? No soup for you!


Is this the new PS3 slim?
By sigmatau on 8/17/2009 6:20:32 PM , Rating: 2
What with 8 cores and Nvidia gpu.... sounds like something new from Sony!

Too bad MS seems to be implementing the hardware a little better. (sarcasm)




RE: Is this the new PS3 slim?
By Flunk on 8/18/2009 12:24:20 AM , Rating: 2
Please don't talk about processor hardware again, you obviously have no idea what you're talking about. Number of "cores" doesn't mean much. You can't compare the Cell and Tegra they're worlds apart in size, function, power usage, everything.


Maybe I'll care...
By bobvodka on 8/17/2009 8:50:43 PM , Rating: 2
... if they release it in the UK.

I'm sure the device is great and all that, but when it comes to music/personal media outside of North America, well Apple are laughing all the way to the bank.




RE: Maybe I'll care...
By tygrus on 8/17/09, Rating: -1
RE: Maybe I'll care...
By Alexstarfire on 8/18/2009 2:21:38 PM , Rating: 1
You know, I was going to say something, but after rereading your post I'll just leave you looking like the moronic newb. Use Google my friend, it makes you look less stupid.


Let Non-US people buy pls
By InternetGeek on 8/17/2009 9:21:14 PM , Rating: 2
This is an awesome device...




8 Processors?
By psonice on 8/18/2009 11:37:55 AM , Rating: 2
Apart from the fact that it's a little misleading (technically, there are probably 8 processors, but they're not CPUs - there will be a single chip, with the CPU, GPU etc. on it) what are they? 5 are listed in the article (2 CPU cores - and are we talking 2 CPU cores or CPU + FPU?, GPU, audio processor, video decoder).

What are the other 3? Power management unit? Memory management unit? The little processor that manages charging the battery??

I wonder how many 'processors' an iphone would have if you measured it this way, with all the extra radio stuff. Not that apple would ever tell anyone, even if it had 100.




Microsoft and Nvidia?
By prenox on 8/18/2009 11:39:45 AM , Rating: 2
I thought that Microsoft said they weren't going to do business with Nvidia again after they wouldn't work with them on lowering costs with the original xbox.




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Capacity
By strikeback03 on 8/18/09, Rating: 0
"Spreading the rumors, it's very easy because the people who write about Apple want that story, and you can claim its credible because you spoke to someone at Apple." -- Investment guru Jim Cramer

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