- Okay gang, ya'll know me. I am a happy WP user, prefer MS services despite any silly disadvantages other people whine about, and while I am overall open minded about change, I am fan of MS quality. I am still rocking WP7, on my wifes hand-me-down HTC Titan 2 after my Samsung Focus S commited suicide on my plant's pavement.
Problem is, this thing has nailed my last nerve. It lags, doesn't load up web sites well, has stopped posting alarms from my calandar, radomly stops while playing music and podcasts, and recently it has started giving me a fault every time I try to look up directions on Bing maps.
Done. Boys and ladies, I am just done.
Here is the point: The only thing keeping me from making the leap to WP8 device is the horror stories of XBOX Music. I love the Zune service, happily pay for it every month. I want to continue to enjoy it. I am up between a Nokia 900 or a Nokia 820 (AT&T branded), and the Zune VS. XBOX Live debate is it. I want the upgrades if I am getting a different device anyways, but not at the expense of the synching mess that comes with XBOX Live.
So..... WP8 users: Give it to me straight. How do you like XBOX Music, is it really as bad as advertised, what are the main problems, and are there any advantages?Or, truthfully, is the problems overblown? I accept it is not as nice as Zune. Just want to know how bad it is as it's own service.
I am listening, and willing to be swayed. Thank-you for your support. You are all on my Christmas Card list already.08-27-2013 01:13 PMLike 0 - Moved to Xbox Music forum.
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snowmutt likes this.08-27-2013 01:23 PMLike 1 - Share
- Well for me, it leaves a lot to be desired. The biggest problem I have with it is it often refuses to play songs. I'll listen to an album and when its done, it won't play anything period. I have to back out of the app, play something in Spotify- pause that-then go back in and play another song or album. The metadata is often incorrect and overwrites what's previously there, causing me to have 1 album split into 2 with one of them just having a song or two on it. The windows app is pretty much garbage in my opinion, its much easier to just drag and drop.
All in all its not a deal breaker for me but it certainly feels like an alpha release at times.- Share
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snowmutt likes this.08-27-2013 01:34 PMLike 1 - Share
- It depends on how you use your music. Myself, I work solely from a local library. I ignore Xbox Music on my desktop 100% of the time. On my phone, it has a Zune-like interface (the PMP, not the desktop software), and I have 0 problems with using it. I just switched from the Zune desktop software to MusicBee (has MUCH better tagging), and I use that for music on my PC. I don't honestly understand the complaints about the Windows Phone interaction, as I have had no problems using it on my 920.
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snowmutt likes this.08-27-2013 03:11 PMLike 1 - Share
- I'm very happy with xbox music on WP8. I have a monthly subscription and lots of music on my W8 computer. So, it syncs many of my songs automatically to my phone and that works good. I mostly stream them to listen to music. I don't really do playlists, but with the latest update and upcoming updates to Win8, that problem is improved. If I need music on my phone, I use the WP software on my computer to copy it there and that works fine. I also download some albums from xbox music just to have them if I'm not connected to a network (which I almost always am). So to summarize, I used Zune and it was better, but Xbox now is very acceptable, at least for me.
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snowmutt likes this.08-27-2013 03:52 PMLike 1 - Share
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- I assume you mean the syncing? You can do it one of two ways:
1. There is Windows Phone software for the task. I have Windows 8, and it's a Metro app, not 100% what it is on other operating systems, but I expect that it is functionally similar. In the application, there is a plus sign, you lick it, choose "add music," and select the folders/files that you wish to include. It's not the prettiest software to use, but it is functionally sound.
2. Your PC will read a Windows Phone 8 device like an external drive. You can then go into My Computer, select the device, then drag-and-drop (or copy-and-paste) the music into the Music folder that is already within the device's directory.
It's a really effortless and painless process, nothing to worry about.- Share
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snowmutt likes this.08-27-2013 05:28 PMLike 1 - Share
- I love having access to all the music I want. That said, Xbox Music blows huge you know what when it comes to simple things like playlists. It is one thing that I never recommend to people. MS had the jump on all the others (Apple, Google, etc.) on all you can eat music on a phone. Instead of capitalizing, they have done zero with it.
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snowmutt likes this.08-27-2013 05:31 PMLike 1 - Share
- Playlists are a pain to make on the device. However, you can just get a .zpl to .wpl converter, make playlists in Zune (which is pretty easy), then convert and sync. It's not that much trouble.
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snowmutt likes this.08-27-2013 09:23 PMLike 1 - Share
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What do you mean a .zpl to .wpl converter? Those are files right?08-27-2013 10:24 PMLike 0 - Too much effort....WP8 is supposed to EASIER and FASTER right? Need a better solution...
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snowmutt likes this.08-27-2013 10:32 PMLike 1 - Share
- I don't really feel it is a setback, but can be annoying at times with the metadata not syncing correctly and/or how the Xbox music cloud is a POS in functionality when you have a 75+ GB music collection.
A) I stopped using the WP transfer app and started pushing out music through file explorer.
2) I use mediamonkey to properly tag my music now instead of using Zune or Xbox music
C) Whatever metadata that is not properly tagged, I use MPAtool -in the wp8 marketplace. WP7 did not support native code, so MPAtool could only be used when you have root privileges....or simply an unlocked phone with a custom rom.Last edited by xconomicron; 08-27-2013 at 11:39 PM.
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snowmutt likes this.08-27-2013 10:59 PMLike 1 - Share
- Sorry to inform you, but playlists for your collection won't sync to your WP8.
Unless you use a x86 Windows 8 computer/tablet... and that's only in theory, my Windows 8 PC is x64 so I can't confirm that.
It's a problem that MS is "working on". I've tried for months - every way you could think of to make it work, but nothing does.
You can make playlist manually on your phone and manually through file explorer when plugged into a PC but that's about it.- Share
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08-27-2013 11:01 PMLike 2 - Share
- I am actually starting to lean to just staying on WP7 until 8.1 rolls out next year in hopes all this just gets better. That was my first intinct. Guess will just see what price I can get what device in what condition. (Follow all that??) Really bums me out. WP8 is really showing improvements and the app selection and functions are really stepping up. I just use the music too much to play around with not being able to do what I want with it.
Geez, how did MS let this get past them, considering the ecosystem they are trying so hard to build? Music is a HUGE selling point. Makes no sense. I am not even that demanding....08-28-2013 12:53 PMLike 0 - Xbox music app is terrible its laggy, won't play song at all sometimes I don't understand how the music player was perfect on wp7 and now its awful on 8
Sent from my Nokia Lumia 928 using Tapatalk- Share
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snowmutt likes this.08-28-2013 03:31 PMLike 1 - Share
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- If you make a playlist within the Zune software, it a .zpl file (like how some images are .jpg or .png, and how a Word document is .doc or .docx). The .zpl is the file extension used by Zune. Windows Phone does not support .zpl playlists, but rather .wpl ones. You get a converter that will copy a .zpl file into a .wpl, then it can be synced. It takes a few seconds, not too bad to deal with.
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snowmutt likes this.08-28-2013 03:44 PMLike 1 - Share
- If you make a playlist within the Zune software, it a .zpl file (like how some images are .jpg or .png, and how a Word document is .doc or .docx). The .zpl is the file extension used by Zune. Windows Phone does not support .zpl playlists, but rather .wpl ones. You get a converter that will copy a .zpl file into a .wpl, then it can be synced. It takes a few seconds, not too bad to deal with.08-28-2013 06:19 PMLike 0
- ZplToWpl - Home
It's as simple as the dialog box shows. You choose a source and a destination (I use the same folder as the source AND destination), then tell it to work.- Share
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snowmutt likes this.08-28-2013 08:30 PMLike 1 - Share
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- Sorry to inform you, but playlists for your collection won't sync to your WP8.
Unless you use a x86 Windows 8 computer/tablet... and that's only in theory, my Windows 8 PC is x64 so I can't confirm that.
It's a problem that MS is "working on". I've tried for months - every way you could think of to make it work, but nothing does.
You can make playlist manually on your phone and manually through file explorer when plugged into a PC but that's about it.08-28-2013 10:42 PMLike 0 - If you only have one music device (i.e. just your phone and not phone + Zune HD) I'd recommend moving to WP8. Better hardware. Better games. Xbox music is fine in this situation and the GDR2 update did make some performance improvements on the phone.
Where Xbox music fails, hard, is there isn't a content management tool. I made the switch to the Lumia 928 and I love it over my Tropy. It's just annoying that I don't get the playlists, channels and music picks that made Zune superior to anything out there. It even acknowledged that a podcast had been played on my Zune HD and would remove it from my Trophy. All automagically. Without any wires.
I'm sure the fact that the Zune team moved into the much larger Xbox/Entertainment team had everything to do with who won the urinating contest that decided whose music app lived and whose died. Stupid corporate politics.- Share
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09-05-2013 02:38 PMLike 2 - Share
- If you only have one music device (i.e. just your phone and not phone + Zune HD) I'd recommend moving to WP8. Better hardware. Better games. Xbox music is fine in this situation and the GDR2 update did make some performance improvements on the phone.
Where Xbox music fails, hard, is there isn't a content management tool. I made the switch to the Lumia 928 and I love it over my Tropy. It's just annoying that I don't get the playlists, channels and music picks that made Zune superior to anything out there. It even acknowledged that a podcast had been played on my Zune HD and would remove it from my Trophy. All automagically. Without any wires.
I'm sure the fact that the Zune team moved into the much larger Xbox/Entertainment team had everything to do with who won the urinating contest that decided whose music app lived and whose died. Stupid corporate politics.09-10-2013 08:54 AMLike 0 - Here is my suggestion. DO NOT MOVE! It is not worth it until you have heard all the problems are fixed with XBOX music. I am a huge user of ZUNE. I have a home server with over 17,000 songs, we use a Win7 machine to manage and listen to the library. When I had a Windows Phone 7 it worked perfectly. When I went to Windows phone 8 I had NOTHING but problems. I purchased a Nokia 820 because it has an SD card just so I could put music on it. The first card I bought was a class 10 card and I could never get anything on it. Everyone said the card was to fast. I bought a class 4 card and then the songs constantly paused while I played them, I was told that was because the card was to slow. I called Nokia, they sent me a class 6 card, and it still skips, but only if I play it over Bluetooth.
Getting the songs on the device is a huge pain. Remember how nice it was with Zune, if you modify a playlist it would just add the new songs. You can forget that. I first started using Windows Media player, and sometimes playlists would come over and sometimes you would get a playlist with one song in it. When that happens you have to do a hard reset on your phone and start completely over with everything. I am fortunate to have some contacts at Microsoft(I worked there for 17 years) and I finally got so pissed I got a hold of the General Manager of Xbox Music and got 5 people on the phone to tell me what to do. They all said the same thing, that the best way to sync was to use the Windows8 sync tool. They were very apologetic about the problems and said lots of changes are coming in 8.1 that should fix all of these issues. I told them, they really need to be able to sync to the phone straight from the Xbox music app, I am not sure if they are going to do that or not.
The bottom line for me:
* If I play music over any Bluetooth device I get random 1 second pauses in songs
* If I add 1 new song to a playlist I have to add the whole playlist to the device again, it has no concept of syncing
* I edit playlists through Media player, because Xbox Music interface sucks.
* My album art on my phone is wrong 60% of the time.
I would just wait until you hear this is straight. I am extremely sorry that I ever upgraded. There is NOTHING on Windows Phone 8 that I think I could live without. But I sure miss my Zune.- Share
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snowmutt likes this.09-10-2013 12:58 PMLike 1 - Share
- Forum
- Microsoft Extras
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Okay, need a straight answer on XBOX Music problems....
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