re: Can we have the 5 star rating system back, please?

When putting a zune vs. an Ipod they are both largely the same in major areas ie. storage, video ability. So it often will come down to the small things such as ability to have integration with websites such as last.fm or Pandora or an audio book website. Yes, Zune has its own social but it is nowhere near the level that sites like last.fm are at. The rating system has a huge affect on an individual’s ability to manage play list which for some is an important feature to them. So making a play list more difficult does not attract consumers. The reason for switching from a rating system to the simple like/dislike system was extremely strange. The idea that part of the reason for the switch was because there was no universal meaning to the star rankings was a horrible decision. The great thing about the ranking system is that it is universal and can fit the needs of many individuals. Maybe the like/dislike system works when you only have a few songs but when you have thousands of songs which are ranked at like it is a complete waste.

 

Even in the aspect of the international market the selling of the marketing was done horribly. Who sells a product in another country only to have that product work partially well if you had purchased the Zune in the United States you would have received the full services offered for the Zune i.e. the marketplace? Yes, it can take some time in order to offer the ability to purchase music and videos because of legal requirements. But what was the logic that somebody who purchased the Zune outside of the United States would be unable to even access the marketplace for something like podcast. Even the Xbox 360 which is a great basic system but lacks the basics such built-in wireless support or free online gaming. However, this has not stopped consumers from purchasing the Xbox 360 over the PS3.

I agree we need the 5 star rating system.   If the idea was to make it more simple for the average user, then great, give me a button to push that is the "advanced mode" whereby I can have more granularity in ratings. I've gone so far as to put my star ratings into the Id tags (in the comment field) so that I can have my ratings bound to the file metadata.  This allows me to recover my ratings in any media player I find myself using.  Of course this doesn't work with the zune because autoplaylists don't allow me access to all the metadata.  Either expand the functionality of autoplaylists giving access and manipulation on all fields in metadata, or give me a five star rating system.  Keep both with a "simple" and an "advanced mode".  

I don't have time to meticulously create custom playlists song by song, the heart system drastically reduces my ability to use my zune, and the lack of comprehensive fields in autoplaylist creation limits my ability to have a workaround for asinine design decisions.

I wish Microsoft would have gone a bit outside the box with the Zune, instead of slavishly following Apple's ipod decisions.  I love the industrial design of the Zune and the UI is awesome, but by following exactly what Apple is doing you not only limit my ability to use the Zune in a power user capacity, you invite comparison to the Ipod where it becomes painfully obvious the lack of feature parity between the two devices.  If you're going to copy Apple's ecosystem, at least copy all the features ITunes offers(while leaving behind ITunes horrible UI and unintelligible layout)

 MoldingDelusion wrote:

1- The great thing about the ranking system is that it is universal and can fit the needs of many individuals...

2-...Even in the aspect of the international market the selling of the marketing was done horribly. Who sells a product in another country only to have that product work partially well if you had purchased the Zune in the United States you would have received the full services offered for the Zune i.e. the marketplace? Yes, it can take some time in order to offer the ability to purchase music and videos because of legal requirements. But what was the logic that somebody who purchased the Zune outside of the United States would be unable to even access the marketplace for something like podcast. Even the Xbox 360 which is a great basic system but lacks the basics such built-in wireless support or free online gaming. However, this has not stopped consumers from purchasing the Xbox 360 over the PS3.

1- Hmm? This thread alone and the comments contained in it prove that everyone used a different way.

2- The X360 came out before either the Wii or the PS3 and therefore was allowed to "set the rules." WiFi and free gaming came with the release of the latter consoles. It's also worth noting that Xbox Live is the most successful service of the the online gaming experiences. Outside of that tidbit of info, I have no idea what you're talking about. It sounds like you're trying to respond to what I said but it also sounds like a rant/argument to a problem I didn't present.

 wheat108 wrote:

I wish Microsoft would have gone a bit outside the box with the Zune, instead of slavishly following Apple's ipod decisions.  I love the industrial design of the Zune and the UI is awesome, but by following exactly what Apple is doing you not only limit my ability to use the Zune in a power user capacity, you invite comparison to the Ipod where it becomes painfully obvious the lack of feature parity between the two devices.  If you're going to copy Apple's ecosystem, at least copy all the features ITunes offers(while leaving behind ITunes horrible UI and unintelligible layout)

All this and not any actual backing.

this made me rage so incredibly hard when i first started using the zune software. why the hell isn't there a way to import playlists and ratings from itunes? that's your main competitor, right? and, assuming you're looking to grow your user base, there should be a great amount of consideration given to easing the transition from an itunes-managed music collection to a zune-managed music collection.

i'm actually considering ebaying my zune and looking out for an ipod simply because i'm going to have to re-rate my music collection, and i can't easily import playlists from itunes.

1. The great thing with a ranking system is that it does not box individuals in but allows individuals to use the system in a wide range of ways. I assume the whole point of selling a product is to reach as many consumers as possible and ensure current users are happy. Why the change from a 5 star ranking system to a 2 heart system? The rating system is largely based on ID3v2 tag which uses a number range to allow individuals to rank songs. Why the attempt to go against the standard format despite previously using the ranking system? The benefit of a ranking system based on 2 hearts is that it allows for easier removal of songs an individual does not like. A 5 heart ranking system allows a great ability for individuals to create autoplaylist and potentially the same ease in removing unwanted songs as the heart ranking system. Would it be that difficult to offer users the ability to decide what kind of system they would like instead of forcing a ranking system which offers less flexibility and functionality?

2. My post was a general complaint directed at Microsoft releasing some very good products but these products often miss some very basic things. Never gave any indication that my post was directed towards you. Selling the Zune outside of the United States is a great idea but it hurts Microsoft that individuals who own a Zune outside of the United States have no access to the Zune Marketplace. If the Zune social is going to be pushed ahead of other similar sites; it does confuse some individuals why the Xbox 360 will have integration with last.fm but not the Zune? If I am outside of the United States why would you purchase a Zune if you are going to be unable to use all of the services Zune users in the United States receive?

 

 

I totally agree.  A 5-star rating is good.  I would still have a "broken heart" rating to keep that track from syncing (after you tick the option in the Zune software sync options menu) as well as the "heart" rating to indicate a favourite.

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"We did win, didn't we?"

"No, but if we think fast enough, we just might live to lie about it."

 MoldingDelusion wrote:

Maybe the like/dislike system works when you only have a few songs but when you have thousands of songs which are ranked at like it is a complete waste.

I have 12,000 songs in my collection and i find the heart system much easier to manage them with.

 Sunerom wrote:

 MoldingDelusion wrote:

Maybe the like/dislike system works when you only have a few songs but when you have thousands of songs which are ranked at like it is a complete waste.

I have 12,000 songs in my collection and i find the heart system much easier to manage them with.

I envy you then.  I'm pushing 11,000 songs with 7,000 being in the same genre and I find my smart playlists to be rather dumb.  The current system works just not as well as I'd like it to.

What I don't understand is why people are against having 5 stars.  Its not like proponents of the heart system will loose any functionality.  They can just as easily rate every thing 1 and 5 or 1 and anything greater than 1.  Where as people wanting more granularity are seriously lacking functionality.

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"If its too loud, your too old"

The whole Zune software makes you feel dumb after using it.  I hate to say it but it's true.

When I used to use iTunes, it's a little awkward but it did what you wanted it to do.  You had control over Smart Playlists and could have multiple criteria such as Not Played in 6 weeks, Rated 3-5 stars, Album title contains "Greatest Hits", and was added within the last 7 weeks.

Zune doesn't really let you create multiple playlists and then create a smart playlist that can contain other smart playlists.

The Heart/Broken Heart is not a good idea.  This is how I feel.  When you're trying to view your Zune on a TV, how hard is it to see the difference between the two symbols on a smaller TV set?  It takes a second or two to see.

We should be given a choice between systems.  Some people don't need the granularity of 5 stars, but some of us do.  This is like the argument for Self-Serve gas in NJ.  People who don't like getting out of the cars to pump the gas don't want to change it while people who hate waiting for a slow cashier and would rather stick a credit card in and leave within 2 minutes are forced to use something they don't want.  With allowing self-serve, you COULD have both.  Otherwise, you feel like you're in a Vonnegut jr. book where everyone who is smart is made stupid to make everyone equal.

If your development team doesn't want to make the rating system both, chances are you're never going to do it.  It's been over a year since I've had my Zune and I thought the rating system was stupid then as I do now.  Give us what we want or we'll jump ship to something that has some market share.  You can't act like Apple until you have that market share.  Open up the player to work in other media browsers and open up the rating system.  If it weren't for the deep pocket of Microsoft, I'm afraid the Zune would've died a long time ago.  It's sad to say, but it's really true.  You have a good product crippled by bad software.

 

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My Zune 30 is not only still having a good run, but it's now grown up into a Zune 60 running for twice as long of a run..

 Ii DeadMan iI wrote:

 Sunerom wrote:

 MoldingDelusion wrote:

Maybe the like/dislike system works when you only have a few songs but when you have thousands of songs which are ranked at like it is a complete waste.

I have 12,000 songs in my collection and i find the heart system much easier to manage them with.

I envy you then.  I'm pushing 11,000 songs with 7,000 being in the same genre and I find my smart playlists to be rather dumb.  The current system works just not as well as I'd like it to.

What I don't understand is why people are against having 5 stars.  Its not like proponents of the heart system will loose any functionality.  They can just as easily rate every thing 1 and 5 or 1 and anything greater than 1.  Where as people wanting more granularity are seriously lacking functionality.

I'll reiterate something i brought out earlier but no one seemed to comment on:

90% of the time i use my zune, it's while i'm driving. the other times im walking around. in either case (especially on the road) it's much easier to rate my songs with only three possibilites, as opposed to six. in fact, being that the software is dedicated to the device, and i imagine almost EVERYBODY uses their device in conjunction with some other activity most of the time (why have a portable mp3 player if you're sitting down all the time you listen to it?) this may very well be why they chose to go with a scaled back ratings system.

but more importantly, and i know you disagree with this, i personally find a five star rating system to be overly convoluted. i thought i'd hate it at first, but i've grown to see the streamlined nature of it. when i boil it down, i either like a song enough to want to hear it in a playlist somewhere down the road, or i don't. i don't really see the need for more gradation than that. after all, i never made playlists of the songs that i "liked" or "liked more" when i used WMP.

for what it's worth, though, i agree that many people want the old system back, and i understand their reasons, which are valid. i agree they should afford us the choice. but if i had to choose, i would keep the hearts.

 Sunerom wrote:

I'll reiterate something i brought out earlier but no one seemed to comment on:

90% of the time i use my zune, it's while i'm driving. the other times im walking around. in either case (especially on the road) it's much easier to rate my songs with only three possibilites, as opposed to six. in fact, being that the software is dedicated to the device, and i imagine almost EVERYBODY uses their device in conjunction with some other activity most of the time (why have a portable mp3 player if you're sitting down all the time you listen to it?) this may very well be why they chose to go with a scaled back ratings system.

Fair enough.  I too use mine mostly for driving.  That's a valid argument but I think it could be solved by flicking the pad up or down to rate a song.  Press the center button, press rating, and flick it up or down, or just press up or down.   That's a viable option, I'm sure there are others.  Even without that you wouldn't have to go through all 6 states everytime.  You could just as easily rate everything 1 and 2 stars.  It only becomes an inconvenience to you if you want to go from 2 to 1.   Where as I find the whole system an inconvenience for me.

 Sunerom wrote:

but more importantly, and i know you disagree with this, i personally find a five star rating system to be overly convoluted. i thought i'd hate it at first, but i've grown to see the streamlined nature of it. when i boil it down, i either like a song enough to want to hear it in a playlist somewhere down the road, or i don't. i don't really see the need for more gradation than that. after all, i never made playlists of the songs that i "liked" or "liked more" when i used WMP.

Your right, I do disagree, but I do understand how some, probably most people, wouldn't need all the stars.  To no surprise to you I'm sure, I find the heart system overly simplistic.  My biggest problem is exactly as you described.  I don't get to make those playlists.  Effectively a greatest hits playlist.  That's my biggest peeve.

 Sunerom wrote:

for what it's worth, though, i agree that many people want the old system back, and i understand their reasons, which are valid. i agree they should afford us the choice. but if i had to choose, i would keep the hearts.

I agree that a choice would be optimal.  It would at least make everyone happy.  I know it been suggested on here plenty of times before that a good compromise would be one more state.  Which would make me content at least.

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"If its too loud, your too old"

That's a pretty good way to keep your music organized. I think i might start using it.