I used auto play list to generate never played, never rated, recent additions, random top 40 of five stars, all music with > 3 stars.
The v1 auto play list generator/editor is good enough.
Zuning from Singapore!
I used it with the ratings, mostly with how many plays songs had, and weekdays/weekend plays etc. Then created playlists with those, dUH
Really hope they fix their "product"... ~ V-A-C
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss
I have to say, extremely disappointed this and the 5 star rating system were not carried over into the new software client. I was planning on purchasing another Zune 2.0 this holiday, but will probably skip with these features gone from the software.
How I used Auto-Playlists:
I would love to see auto-playlists that could create upbeat music similar to a song I select. Example: I want to create a workout playlist. I select a song with a tempo I like (say Eminem - Without Me) and I can get other songs in my library (better yet on marketplace) that have a similar tempo. Urge played around with this with their online playlists.
Please bring both of these things back as my enjoyment and hopeful social nature of Zune was dependent on these features. Instead of getting rid of these I fugred you would be trying to build a community around these features that the advanced users love. Sharing playlists and yes autoplaylists, viewing community ratings, community most played songs, new artists that others have downloaded who have ratings similar to yours, etc...
WOW you realy did go backwards.
Used the Auto Playlist to filter out music - for example exclude xmas music from the full sync
All music downloaded from ZMP
Sort - filter music by year.
I would like to be able to add a song to a playlist while listening to it on my Zune. For instance, if I'm listening to my Zune and think "this would be a great workout song", I'd like to be able to do that on the Zune as it strikes me.
Similarly, it would be great to be able to apply custom defined tags to songs. I see that the rating system has gone from 5 stars to a range of 3 hearts. Although I agree that 5 isn't always necessary, being able to distinguish as (1) remove, (2) indifferent, (3) like, and (4) REALLY love would be great. This is an example where being able to have a custom tag to apply and categorize music while on the Zune would be great. With the thousands of songs on my Zune, especially through Zune Pass, I use the Zune to review and categorize my music on the go (who has time to sit down and just listen to music for the sake of rating). Given this, the Zune HAS to become a smart device that enables users on the go to record categorization, preferences, etc.
Thanks for moving the device forward. It's exciting what's happening with this product!
I used auto playlists together with the 5-star ratings to determine what would be synched, and what I would play - and that may depend who is listening. The old way of configuraing which play lists to sync in what precedence was a boon, especially if you have 2 or more different capacity devices. For instance, I might want to sync all music except "1 Star" with my Zune 30, but limit only 4- and 5-star songs of a particular genre to a Zune 4 or 8. Auto lists work best with the ability to tag your music in some way on the fly. In the old sofftware, I used the star ratings and genre. The heart/broken-heart rating is useless for this. You have managed to make it so hard to edit genre that this too won't suffice either. I would be happy if you kept heart/broken-heart and supplemented it with 5-star or some other multi-state tagging method. For me, 1-star didn't always mean I hated the song, just that I didn't want to sync it for whatever reason - it may be a duplicate between a best-of or live album that was already being synced from a studio album, as an example. I notice there is now a "never sync" tag which coulkd be used for this purpose, but that only seems to work if the music has already been selected to sync. If I apply it to a song not in the current sync list nothing changes. A bug perhaps?
Starting from scratch, rather than using WMP as a base, may have seemed a good idea, but I can't help but think you have thrown the baby out with the bath water.
MagpieMDP
Ctitanic UMPC Tips