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uhhhhh all the songs i've purchased from itunes i've burned then re-ripped onto my mac as mp3s making them completely DRM free.. i can play them on any device that supports mp3s..

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So I guess you used a time machine and verified that this device is poor in quality? It's not out yet and you say it has no quality....

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Microsoft - Due to unforeseen circumstances this product will only be released Xmas 2007.

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lol.....the typical Microsoft mentality - "I am rich and i will run over you by giving more candies away".

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[quote]" Am I the only one that interprets this is as: "Microsoft will scan your hard drive for third party content". Talk about scary![/quote]Then don't buy this player.

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Good point, and it would be interesting to know why the competition doesn't include AAC support on "play for sure" players...Is it because of pressure from Microsoft? Why does the XBox 360 include AAC support from MS itself, but just about no MS sponsored portable digital music player does? My guess is that because the 360 is a closed platform MS can control, it's a different kind of market for them, they can look like the good guys by providing AAC support, without risking much. The audio content delivered on the 360 will be WMA only anyway.If they are really doing this to facilitate switching from the iPod to their players and to "free people from the evil Apple lock-in", why don't they eliminate the chore of re-ripping entire CD collections by supporting AAC on their "iPod killer" and/or suggesting AAC support to their licensees? Like GoodBrain pointed out, the great majority of music found in portable player is either in MP3 or AAC, ripped from CDs or from "other" sources.It could potentially bring more switchers and cost MS much less money than this "provide free WMA DRM'ed versions of FairPlay tunes you have". So why doesn't MS doesn't embrace AAC for portable music players?Because if AAC was playable on 95% of players including the iPod, that would make it the de-facto standard for unprotected music, which is what people have in majority. AAC would become the true successor to MP3 like it was intended to be (AAC is as open as MP3). People would rip their collections to AAC to be sure it would be playable on both the iPod and the competition, while having a better quality than MP3. More and more .m4a files would show up on p2p. Pretty soon AAC would become the new audio standard for non-protected compressed music.Microsoft uses the DRM excuse to not support unDRMed AAC: "Why would we support AAC? Apple doesn't want to license Fairplay!".They simply don't want AAC to become the standard, because they don't control it, they cannot tie it to their dominant OS and other proprietary platforms and impose all sorts of things on consumers.The big difference between WMA and AAC is that AAC is not tied to any OS/platform, while WMA is tied to an OS that has around 95% of the market.

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Apple deserves real competition. Bring it on MS.

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MS you better have a 60 gig hd in that unit.You better support more file types than wma.You better have a good battery life.You better take it easy on the drm crap.I like the my ipod. i use iTumes but I never buy from the iTumes store. I use media moneky <a class="user" href="http://www.mediamonkey.com/&quot;&gt;http://www.mediamonkey.com/&lt;/a&gt; to add and remove files from my pod.In order to win Microsoft you have to be better, cute-er and cheaper and more feature rich than the Ipod.Just giving me free copy's of my "purchased" music is not going to win me over.Just adding power hungry wifi is not a good first start.You know the how you manage and move your music on this device will suck.Microsoft is always Media company's first consumers last.

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"and the day I can have all of my music on a portable player, my computer, and stream it to my 360 (unhindered) hooked up to my stereo and TV, I will be a happy man."I've been doing this for years, it's called using mp3s in WinAmp, on my iPod and on my Xbox with XBMC :)

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Zune came out today, and no such feature exists.It's really too bad.

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I am not at all surprised, and I wished I'd seen this "story" beforehand.The fact of the matter is this:MicroSoft were never going to be allowed to give that music away.Why? Because to distribute an artist's music, you need an agreement with them (or their label), IN ADDITION to paying them royalties. They have to permit you to distribute the music, before you can legally do so.That is what took so long with the iTunes Music Store - each time they open in a new country, they have to negotiate agreements with all the major labels. Those negotiations were difficult and long, but at the end, Apple had something no-one else, before or since, has: agreements with the major labels to distribute their content online.And MicroSoft just wanders in to this marketplace, and assumes it'd be "OK" if they started selling music they weren't permitted to do so. Morons.

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So... Host is down.

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