re: TELL US HOW YOU USE AUTO/SMART PLAYLISTS...so we do it the way you want in future releases!

One other constructive comment:

I did not like how "hidden" the autoplaylist function was in the V1 ZMP software. I understand that's a throwback to WMP in some respects.

I can't have been the only person in the world who defended the Zune on forums because people thought it didn't have an autoplaylist function.  Likewise, the number of Zune reviews which list "no autoplaylist" as a con. Or even the existing Zune owners who never realised the functionality was there in the first place.

Please make the autoplaylist function more prominent.  Like, click the "Create new playlist" button: "Drag and drop songs here, or [Create Auto Playlist]" prominent.

 

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Meow. And G'day from Australia. ;)

The auto playlists should be available on the device, not just the library.  Having top rated, top played, recently added would all be good ideas.

I know, as an ex-ipod user, that the playlists are very convienent.  Also something to think about- being able to play songs off the device when attached to your computer that aren't in the library..

(Why not, I'll edit my doublepost into something else constructive. Then I'll be done).

One thing I liked about WMP/ZMP autoplaylists was the sheer insanity of the means with which you could filter songs.  So many filters!

I'll be the first to admit that it could be daunting at times - perhaps some of the filters should be under an 'advanced' tag so that people can easily get to the typical "Play Count", "Rating", "Date Added" and so on without being frightened off.

But it was reassuring and exciting to know that, if you so wished, you could create a playlist based around nearly any obscure methodology you could imagine. Is the word "Werewolf" in the Copyright information and was the song recorded during a full moon, for example. ;)

Or in short:  Less daunting and more "friendly" would be good, but retaining access to the 'power filters' would keep people happy.

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Meow. And G'day from Australia. ;)

Hello. I'm glad to hear that the team is aware of the unwise action of removing the auto-playlist feature.

Essentially, how I want to use the auto playlist feature is exactly how it was set up before. It was perfect.

I listen to my Zune via AUTO-PLAYLISTS ONLY, here are the auto-playlists I had in the previous software.

* New
(New stuff, "Richard, remember you added some new tunes, here they are")

* Unrated
(To be rated and filtered to my respective playlists)

* 5 Star
(Self explanatory, songs I've rated 5 stars/ most loved songs)

* Favourate ::insert genre here::
(4 or greater stars: these playlists are primarily what I listen to, it's my shuffle mode.)

* Most played
(to filter the songs that I play the most, because sometimes it's hard to decide between 4 & 5 star rated songs. This helps.)

* Unplayed
(All the songs I am yet to play on my zune)

* To Delete
( Less than 2 stars.. self explanatory)

Let me conclude by saying that if auto-playlists are not re-introduced by the time my Zune 30 dies, I will be getting a player that can actually manage music properly, ala, iProduct. I have been a loyal & proud Zune owner from 2006, the latest removal of features (Star Ratings / Auto-Playlists / Mass Meta Data Editing) have however made my Zune experience unfriendly, and restrictive.... contrary to your new slogan "You Make it You"

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Richard | Zune 80 - 83rd member on Zune Forums.

http://animorphsforum.com & http://zunejamaica.com

Here is how I was going to sync my Zune the moment it was unpacked (I have ~ 30GB of music and had to fit the goods on 8GB):

• All user-rated 4 or 5 star music
• All albums recently added (to my WMP library)
• All songs that had been played more than once

From there I was going to see how much space was left, maybe do a random selection of the rest of the music (or do all auto-rated 4+ content).

Here is how I am doing it now:

• In WMP, create an auto playlist that has the above.
• In WMP, create a new playlist, copy the items from the auto playlist, save as M3U
• In Zune, open M3U playlist
• Copy items to device

Here are the appalling things I've discovered:

• Obvious: No Auto-Playlist support!
• No support for .wpl (I have at least 10 or so collections of music that I now have to save a second time as M3U)
• All WMP library information is lost (when sorting albums by date added, it's inverse alphabetical according to directory structure)
• Date Added
• Playcount I'm sure
• What's this heart thing? There's a difference between 4 and 5 star in my WMP library. Don't hide it!
• Zune won't allow me to add more than will sync?
• Holy Flipping Cow!
• I don't care if I'm trying to sync 16 GB. Sync the first 8 GB and tell me the rest won't sync. Don't just not sync anything!

Auto playlists was the one feature I thought the Zune 1 software was missing. Imagine my surprise to find out it actually had it, and then my annoyance that the Zune 2 software didn't have it.

On my iPod before, I had "Smart Playlists" that had things like, songs I hadn't listerned to in the past 3/6 months. Stuff that I'd played the most, things I'd played the least. A playlist for things I hadn't rated yet.

Also, with other mp3 tags, I'd created lists called Coffee and Cocoa, which had either fast or slow music, and was orignialy based on what I'd put int he comment tag, but later the grouping tag.

While the love/hate rating might be good for some people, it would be nice to at least have the option to use the 5 star ratings as before. I had playlists based on that 4 or 5 stars. Even one on 1 star.

For some of my playlists, I'd taken advice from the guys over at Smartplaylists.com they know some good ideas on playlists

I personally used auto playlists to keep tracks such as comedy bits and lectures from playing while I was working.  They tend to break the rythm I work with.  So filtering genres and artists out of the playlist would be very useful to me.  It would also be very cool to be able to sync the contents of an auto playlist to my Zune, not necessarily the list itself just whats in it.

I used it primarily for:

-Top Rated (basically 4 and 5 stars)

-"Fresh" Tracks (Added within last 7 days and less then 3 play counts)

-Unrated Tracks (The part of my library "I've been meaning to get to")

...I created other auto-playlists, the ability to tweak the lists is nice, but these were the 3 primary uses.

Thanks guys

I used Auto/Smart Playlists to group my music by decade (The 60's/The 70's/The 80's/The 90's/2000 and beyond), recently added, by rating and other things, but I can't look at them because the old Zune software is gone. ;)


The grouping by decade was great though for using the zune at parties. It helped tailor the music to the crowd....

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Thanks, StreetChariot (XBL/Zune) SharingIsGood.com - Your place to discover new bands and artists on your Zune.

I used auto playlists to group songs by genre and rating, though the 5-stars method isn't totally mandatory for me personally.  Since I am a musician, I used the genre to delineate which songs I was listening to for entertainment purposes and which I was listening to for lyrics-writing purposes.  It helped to have a "raw" or "unwritten" playlist with higher ratings on the songs I needed to finish sooner.

I was also about to start using the "mood" feature to create smart playlists for various moods, especially "sleepy"  ...you know... for sleeping purposes.

I used the smart playlists for syncing 10 GBs of unrated, 5 GB of 5 stars, 5 GB of 3+ stars over 30 days since last played. The rest of the space was for video and podcasts.
How about adding a :) to the <3, </3 and _. I like it but don't love it rating.
And I find it ironic that you can rate the users and posts on the forums with 1-5 stars.

My main purpose was to create lists that included and excluded exactly what I wanted.  The main things that I excluded were genres like Comedy, Christmas, Childrens, etc.  Things that I only want to listed to on special occasions and do not want included on my Zune year round.

Next, is ensuring that all of my newly added music and pictures get included.  I use "last 6 months" for most of these and exclude the previously mentioned catagories.

This is definitely an advanced user function, but a beloved one!