I need Zune Pass 101

[Blacklac]

So I just finished my free trial. I have a few questions.

Can music only be streamed if you select each song? (Not using SmartDJ for now). Can you just listen to "channels" based off Genre, like Slacker? This service seems very Pandora-like as you pick a song and SmartDJ finds similar songs based off it.

Can SmartDJ be tuned like Pandora or Slacker? It works fine for music saved to my phone, but once it starts streaming, I tends to stray away from my tastes immediately.

I really don't understand the "Playlist" and/or Mixtapes, either.

If anyone could shed some light for me, I would appreciate it.

 

[Verkunder]

Four year Zune Pass user here, lemme handle this

When selecting music on the phone via Marketplace, clicking the album art will play everything on that album.

Downloading a Channel via the Zune software will add a weekly auto-updating playlist of a certain genre (Indie rock, electronic, etc).

Smart DJ uses an artist and plays music from similar artists, not necessarily similar genre. For instance, both Band A and Band B may be categorized as "country," but may not sound very similar (a full band as opposed to a single female singer type situation). Unfortunately you can't really alter Smart DJ beyond picking another starting artist.

You have the option within Settings (on the phone) for Music + Video to turn off songs from the Marketplace (streaming) when using Smart DJ.

Playlists from the Marketplace portion of the software are purely playlists with a theme, or a person that picked the songs. I'm not familiar with what Mixtapes you're talking about.

 

[HeyCori]

Also, if you use Smart DJ then do it from the Marketplace and not the Zune app. You get a much better selection of music.

 

[Judge_Daniel]

Also, if you use Smart DJ then do it from the Marketplace and not the Zune app. You get a much better selection of music.

Agreed. If you use it from the Zune App, it almost completely chooses music that you already have with a few streaming tracks thrown in, but when you choose it from the Marketplace there is a much better balance.

 

[Blacklac]

Thanks for the help guys.

So how do you download a Channel?

 

[Fallen Cpt Jack]

Thanks for the help guys.

So how do you download a Channel?

I do it by opening up the Zune software on my PC, clicking "Marketplace" and then "Channels". From there, I find a channel I like and subscribe to it. You can then sync that content to your WP.

 

[Blacklac]

Ahh. Thanks for that.