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Along with Zune HD, Microsoft has also released the new Zune 4.0 software with new features and a bunch of enhancements for Windows 7 based PC. Zune Marketplace service catalog will be available even through the browser. At a price of $14.99 (Rs. 720 approx.) users will be able to access Zune Marketplace library of six million songs for streaming full albums and video.
Apart from feature additions, major enhancements have been added to the Zune 4.0 software to work better on Windows 7 operating systems. There are several new features included in the Zune 4.0 of which Smart DJ is one of the most interesting ones. Just like Apple's Genius feature, Zune's Smart DJ feature automatically creates a playlist from the music on the device, user's library on PC and even the Zune Marketplace online.
Create a Smart DJ mix by a right-click on a song, artist or album. Once Smart DJ Mix is created, music from the user's collection as well as Zune Marketplace is pulled for playing. Songs from Zune Marketplace will appear as 'Suggested' if the user owns Zune Pass or else the songs would be grayed out. The Smart DJ Mix queue can be saved as playlist from the 'Edit Playlist' setting.
Mini Player Mode allows keeping the Zune 4.0 player on the desktop while browsing or working on other applications. Also, the playback controls can be added to the taskbar by a right-click on the taskbar>Toolbars>Zune.
Quickplay option allows pinning up to six items, which include music and videos in the user's collection. It's like a quick access key to the content and also shows recently played multimedia. Windows 7 has a Jump list option that gives a small pane of 'bookmarked' items and thus Quickplay items of the Zune player can be viewed. Also, Taskbar preview can be seen by hovering the mouse over the tab on the Windows 7 taskbar.
Besides speed and navigation improvements, Microsoft has also added Apps Catalog to download apps from the Zune Marketplace to the PC. Users can also stream or download audio as well as video podcasts from Zune.net.
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