What are you talking about? The SSD was one of the few parts that needed to be ordered specifically because the connector was so rare. And yeah, it's not special being able to hook up a rechargeable battery to a device that originally had a rechargeable battery. Ill-informed comment.
@@encycl07pedia- YEAH SO RARE...."Internally, nearly all hard drives use ZIF tape to connect their circuit board to their platter motor. ZIF tape connections are also heavily used in the design of the iPod range of portable media players, not just for the hard drive but also for other connections from the main circuit board. Three types of ZIF connectors are known to exist on 1.8 inch PATA drives. ZIF-24, ZIF-40, and ZIF-50 have 24, 40, and 50 pins respectively." Ill informed malevolent reply to non malevolent comment.
@@FeralRabbit Just because a three-prong plug is common for hooking up electrical devices to wall sockets doesn't mean you usually find the same three-prong plug on a motherboard. Solder is pretty common, too. That doesn't mean most companies releasing SSDs or HDDs ship them with a few exposed wires and expect users to solder them to the mobo, either.
Microsoft has really good hardware, however they usually suffer from sort of a too little too late type of thing with all of their products. They hop onto trends too late, and usually with some major lacking aspect of strange design choice that just ruins the products potential
There's an app for Android called Z Player which is a music player app that clones the Zune UI. It's quite an old app now though and doesn't get many updates, I think I started using it back in 2012.
This video popped up in my recommended and I was surprised that it doesn't have many views. The production is really good and everything overall. In my opinion, keep using those songs on your videos. To me, it gives a vibe like if Dankpods was a technician.
Got me through highschool also man! I remember when I first got mine i stayed up all night organizing my library and adding album art and movies. Had the whole school geeked to see that
As a Zune user who used one of these until it literally broke and immediately replaced it in high school, we were the best. I still use my Zune HD to this day! Actually am currently doing research into getting my 120gb Zune working again, HDD crapped out on me and then I just let the battery sit until it could no long hold a charge. But no more, it is time!
same thing happened to me - 80gb drive died and it's been in a drawer for over a decade :( loved it while it was working though. very tempted to do the drive and battery swap...
I never had an original Zune, but I had a Zune HD that was my absolute favorite media device until I got into Windows Phone. I love that you breathed some new life into that old device, and it really makes me miss that Zune software.
@@AttackOnTyler The interface they created with the Zune HD that wound up becoming the Windows Phone interface was just so cool too. Like the idea of going "in" when you clicked on a menu item, so instead of a generic Back button, you clicked back "up" to the slightly out of focus menu that you were previously in. It felt so fluid, smooth, and natural to use.
Going to be doing these upgrades. Just ordered a new SSD, 3000mah battery, and the wireless charging. Now if only I could source a new screen as mine has gotten a little beaten up over the years. Still glad to have this little piece of nostalgia, and the upgrade from 30gb to 128gb is going to be a game changer. I really wish I was as skilled as you to add the bluetooth transmitter, but that takes a certain level of modification I don't feel confident in doing myself.
If you're adding bluetooth functionality, make sure to add 5v dc to dc isolator at the output of voltage regulator. This will make the audio clear through bluetooth.
I loved my OG Zune, but the battery life became less and less so I eventually repurposed the drive into a portable USB drive and got a Zune mini and later an HD, both of which I still have. Awesome to see you giving the OG a new life! The shot of the Zune software was a huge trip down memory lane too, lol. So much better than iTunes, imo.
I still have my Zune Originals Zune 80 and it still works perfectly. It has never been opened up and has yet to be upgraded. Microsoft got a solid product here from Toshiba.
This is funny because I got my old zune out a couple of days ago and went down a rabbit hole for 2-3 hours figuring out how to get it to work on Windows 10. Works perfectly just like it did when I got it 2007, synced most of my music library to it 😄 But this…. this is AWESOME! I would love to mod my Zune like that but I’m afraid I would mess it up lol.
@@charlesdoesmore5488 still love mine. I really enjoy the Zune HD layout and design. I keep a lookout on my phone for a similar experience, but so far no luck.
@nack323 the price was about the same as the iPad at the time, but it had double the screen so movies were better, the iPhone destroyed this device. O If the zune was the phone that Microsoft made and put better effort into apps this would still be around.
I was a day 1 Zune adopter lol. I had the 80GB large (for its time) color screen. I remember spending late nights downloading sketchy full length pirated movies from Limewire to watch on my Zune. I had like 8-10 full movies on mine. I think it was just a little ahead of it's time.
I had one of these back in the days growing up, honestly i always preferred this over the ipod cause i didn't had to deal with itunes nonsense with videos/mp3 format conversion etc. It was just a drop and go for mp3/mp4 songs and videos. Finally TH-cam algorithm recommends something good especially a throwback.
This was really well made! As a lot of other people have pointed out, there's clearly some of Dankpods influence in this video (the music you used and opening shot specifically), but I think you have a really interesting channel identity here! As someone who's been trying to build my own channel over the last year, I feel like you've already had some really high quality videos and your projects are very interesting. Here's to getting monetized!
Hell yeah brother! I still run my Zune HD to this day, the battery still holds a a charge for days and I get about 6+ hours of play time. Love these MP3 players!
Amazing work!!! I just dug up my Zune and it still works but the battery is shot. You should be getting a lot of views now the Guardians 3 is out and Star-Lord has traded in his Walkman for a Zune!
Just came back from watching Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3, and I can confirm Zune is the new meta, just threw my iPod like Andy did with Woody, because this is the new and "cool" nostalgic gadget! BTW it's so weird I got recommended this video after watching a movie that featured this gadget, it's like if I were carrying a surveilance device with me all the time.
I remember wanting this so bad when I was in school. Problem was, they weren't easily available in our part of the world. Had to settle for an iPod instead. It's great to see new life being birthed from something from almost a couple decades ago. Great quality video!
Yep, same for me. In Singapore at the time, the best options were either an iPod classic or a Zen (2007), if I recall correctly. The closest I got was that I had the Zune desktop theme installed on my older laptop running Windows XP that I normally used to run some old software that didn't work on Vista (I hadn't yet heard of virtualisation at the time).
Always wanted a Zune, love the way the UI looked on it, sadly never owned one. My go to media player back in college in about 2005 was a Sony MZ-NH600 HI-MD MiniDisc player, with a remote it was awesome even if I had to carry a few discs considering you could only store so many MP3s on each disc. I was then gifted a 2nd gen iPod Shuffle and moved to a 4th gen Nano. Would love one now.
@@wolframsv2527 Booo, leave Frank alone! 🤣 I take it y'all don't encounter too many Australians. From an Aussie perspective, I find DankPods genuine and knowledgable, and his larakin attitude makes him approachable and easy to listen to, like he's spinning a yarn the whole time.
I didn't have an mp3 player until I was 20 or so. In 2004 I worked a summer job painting and mowing lawns, and I only had an old Nokia phone with 32 MB of storage. It held like 7 songs which I was too lazy to replace, so I played the same songs every day at work for a month. Forty Foot Echo and Breaking Benjamin were my selected artists, and I never grew tired of them, still haven't. A few years later I bought an Ipod Nano with 8 GB of storage, a revolutionary upgrade compared to the old Nokia. Ended up buying an adapter cable for the CD player in my car, so the iPod could be used there instead when my phone took over as a music device on the go.
This was a lot of fun to watch! I love seeing old tech upgraded and made useful again! My MP3 contant companion was the OG mass-market MP3 player, the Diamond Rio PMP300 that I got in 1998. It had 32MB (yes, you read that right) of onboard memory that was good for about 8-10 songs at 128kbps, and the single AA battery lasted maybe 8-10 hours? I loved that thing and carried it daily for years! It did have expandable storage through a SmartMedia slot (precursor to SD cards), and I did eventually add a 64MB card. It also had a TERRIBLE battery flap design where the only thing that phsically connected the battery flap to the rest of the device was the soldered joint that also connected the battery. It broke regularly and I had to dissasmble and re-solder it every few months. I finally replaced my Rio when I got my Sony Clié PDA in 2003. It was the end of era - the Rio was the only dedicated MP3 player I owned.
Ah, a fellow PMP300 user! I still have two of them, the original black one, and the special edition 64MB translucent green version! I have a question for you... have you tried any bigger smartmedia cards in it? I know they made bigger sizes than 64MB (I want to say I've seen them up to 128, maybe 256 MB), d you think those bigger cards would work too? I've been wanting to mess with them again and upgrade the storage but don't want to waste my money on rare cards if they won't work.
@@FinalManaTrigger I used to lust over the special edition one! Especially before I got the SmartMedia card. Sadly I never got a chance to try a bigger card - by the time I could have afforded a 128MB, I had switched to MemoryStick for my Sony Clié. By that point, the battery door was so battered from dozens of repairs, that I scrapped the poor thing alltogether.
The media player I had the holds the biggest place in my heart might surprise you. I had a Nintendo DS lite with an R4 flashcart. The DS was completely custom with a clear plastic shell replacement. It played games, music, and movies, all drag and drop (provided they were in the right format). I used it as my main media player through high school and college. Always envied the Zune though, yours looks amazing now! Fantastic job.
I have a SanDisk MP3 Player (it can also play wav, 16 bit flac, and more) and I still use it sometimes. It seems to have no problems with large microSD cards and the battery is still ok.
I have my zune hd set up with a dock on my main stereo system. I still use it regularly. Also have the orignal zune in white. Still works perfectly. These mods are great! Breathes new life into the device. Zune for life!
At first I was going to make a "We have Dank Pods at home" joke, but that would be an insult to the quality and effort put into this video. You make me want to find a Zune and mod it myself! Great work.
Man this takes me back. I used to have a Zune 80, and I loved that little guy. Used it throughout High School and a few years after until the battery completely died. I need to see if I still have it in a drawer somewhere.
I have a Zune HD from 2010 still full of 2000’s metalcore and other stuff I was listening to in high school. It still works beautifully and is still awesome
The Zune was the best piece of hardware Microsoft ever made. I had two and loved them.. like seriously used one til about 2014 lol. Never had an iPod, went strait to an iPhone 5c then iPhone 11
What a great video! I'd seen Zune, etc., storage drive swaps before, but your solution for the Qi charging and particularly the BT antenna were absolutely ingenious! I can see why you chose the early Zune 30 GB devices rather than the more popular Zune 80, given the tight fit; I'm a bit sad I sold mine to fund a custom-engraved Zune HD (which I still have, and works as a incredibly compact and intuitive MP3 player, though its file form support is limited). It was definitely never as popular as the iPod, but I do remember Zunes became the second most popular PMD/PMP brand, ousting Creative, but that was no doubt due to the general culling of the device market sadly (with D-Link, Archos, etc., gradually leaving, alongside Microsoft and Apple); it does seem like Creative is the last surviving inexpensive mass-market PMP manufacturer (their devices seem far more popular than Sony and the more high-end manufacturers putting out players that cost as much, or more, than smart phones), giving them the last laugh.
I REALLY LIKE THIS KIND OF VIDEOS (PEOPLE BUILDING SMALL THINGS, PAINTINGS, DRAWINGS, GADGETS LIKE IN THE NOLAN MOVIES), I APPRECIATE THAT YOU TAKE THE TROUBLE TO PREPARE THEM, WITH SUCH QUALITY AND DEDICATION.
I remember waiting in line at 4am at toys r us for one on black Friday years ago. I had the brown one and it was one of my favorite mp3 devices. You just made it ten times better awesome job!
very satisfying. It's good to see capacity could be expanded without effort, unlike some ipods. And the compatibility with ipod batteries also ensures years of spares. The fact that bluetooth can be activated via software blew me away.
Awesome! The only upgrade I to my 30GB Zune (which I use everyday) is add a bluetooth transmitter to the headphone jack. Have to manually plug the transmitter in each time, but it works better than wired earbuds.
Dude. I absolutely loved my zunes. Had the black/blue one and had one of the minis, and then the black HD touchscreen model. It was way easier to use and looked cooler than the Ipod of the day IMO
Excellent video, I have been wanting to do this exact mod but with USB c too and an sd card to cf adapter rather than SSD for larger cheaper storage whilst being even more power efficient, however Zunes in aus are tough to get and very expensive and when they are listed unfortunately
"this thing got me through high school" SAME! only i had the 2nd gen zune, still to this day, i LOVED those headphones, the magnetic backs were FAR more useful than i ever thought they would be. and after i hacked mine it was even better.
my first mp3 player was an IRiver H320, thought it was so cool because it had FM radio built in as well. Dumped so many of my CDs onto that thing. Ahh memories.
The one problem with this video? No chapters. It's a shame, but otherwise this was an incredibly helpful video! Thank you very much for appreciating the Zune as much as me. lol
I just busted out my old, same model, Zune because I wanted to replace it's battery after I had stumbled on a video of someone doing so. I've been learning and messing with SBC's recently so (hopefully) all that should come in handy replicating your process here. Feel like it will be a good learning experience too regardless of how it turns out in the end
Those mods are amazing dude. You've turned obsolete tech into good hardware again. Always great when electronics get repurposed or upgraded instead of thrown away, and that zune in it's current state looks like something I'd unironically buy.
Over here in Europe, at least in germany, we've never had the Zune. I've heard of it, but never really looked into it. Interesting device with some pretty cool modifications^^
I miss my old Creative MuVo TX. It was so innovative how the mp3 player itself was a USB stick and you plugged it into a battery compartment to use portable. Nothing ever compared to that awesome little device for me. I miss it dearly.
I had a ipod, kept crashing. Turned it in for service, got a new. Same issues. I bought a zune and man it was amazing! Updated playlists automaticly via wifi when I downloaded new music on my desktop. Great UI, never broke. Loved my zune!
@@MadModLabs was a really cool video 🙂 If I knew where my zune was, and if I knew anything about electronics I'd probably do the same thing. I miss having a dedicated MP3 player
Wow man, I didn't think I would miss this device this much. I think my dad's zune and his HTC touch was the two devices that got me into tech the most!
I used to have a 30GB in high school before my mom got me the 120GB. I was able to rip a bunch of DVDs and put them in the device. My friends would get jealous of the huge display (at the time).
I never knew about this device and I never needed one (nor do I now), but after seeing this I want to build one myself just for the sake of doing it. Amazing mod, great device, and the best part is the quality of the content you’ve made, it really got me inspired!
Back in the day my favorite media player was a 3000 model Sony PSP. Games, music videos, music, could use it as a picture viewer when I swapped in a memory card from my Sony digital camera. AND I had the video output cord to use it with a tv. Loved it.
I had a zune in high school. When the first one broke, RadioShack no longer had them in stock to replace under my 2 year warranty. So they wrote me a check for the price of the zune I had bought... and by that time, the largest capacity zune was the same price on newegg. Only mp3 players I ever owned, but I loved them.
Nice work! Maybe I will use this video as a template to upgrade my 80gb Zune to a larger SSD and bluetooth ability. I always preferred the Zune over Ipods.
Your artists list at 0:33 gives me so much joy. You must've been a scene kid back in high school just like me lol. Alesana was one of my all time favorites too
This is motivation to dig out my Zune HD. Beautiful device, and fantastic software for playing music. I have no idea where the cable ended up though...
The Zune HD was awesome! I had to buy a new cable before starting this project. I was glad to see they are still making 3rd party cables. I just grabbed a cheap one: amzn.to/43Jk7qH Thanks for watching!
![BOWKYLION - วิงวอน (ex-change) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cLdnZWDaO-w/mqdefault.jpg)
Thanks for watching and Subscribing!
Do you do commissions??
@@mariovsquez I don't usually do commissions. If you have a special request, feel free to hit me up on Twitter or Discord!
@@MadModLabs i don't do discord or Twitter
How else can I contact you?
@@mariovsquez you could send me a message on Twitch
@@MadModLabs message sent on twitch
lol love the dankpods theme feels very much like a alternate dimension if the zune was more popular than the ipod 😂😂
Thanks for watching! I love Dankpods. After deciding to work on an MP3 player, I just had to pay homage to his signature video format.
Even the 1 grit and the pkcells 🤣 10/10
Any idea on pricing?
I thought this was dankpod for a good second lol
And it is so amazing.
The battery and ssd simply plugging into original ports is crazy to me. But it shows how ahead and underrated the zune was. I miss my zune now 😢
other than the firmware instantly recognizing it, I think that just shows how little has changed in terms of hardware connectors for electronics
The battery connector is just 2 pins lol, if it ain't broke don't fix it.
What are you talking about? The SSD was one of the few parts that needed to be ordered specifically because the connector was so rare. And yeah, it's not special being able to hook up a rechargeable battery to a device that originally had a rechargeable battery. Ill-informed comment.
@@encycl07pedia- YEAH SO RARE...."Internally, nearly all hard drives use ZIF tape to connect their circuit board to their platter motor. ZIF tape connections are also heavily used in the design of the iPod range of portable media players, not just for the hard drive but also for other connections from the main circuit board. Three types of ZIF connectors are known to exist on 1.8 inch PATA drives. ZIF-24, ZIF-40, and ZIF-50 have 24, 40, and 50 pins respectively." Ill informed malevolent reply to non malevolent comment.
@@FeralRabbit Just because a three-prong plug is common for hooking up electrical devices to wall sockets doesn't mean you usually find the same three-prong plug on a motherboard. Solder is pretty common, too. That doesn't mean most companies releasing SSDs or HDDs ship them with a few exposed wires and expect users to solder them to the mobo, either.
Always loved the Zune's UI - thought it was way better than the iPod
Same goes for Windows Phone, which had a UI built around that design language. Best cellphones I ever had. I miss this era of Microsoft so much
@@fieldroaster21 Agreed the N800 was a great phone imagine a 2023 compact smartphone of this quality.
Microsoft has really good hardware, however they usually suffer from sort of a too little too late type of thing with all of their products. They hop onto trends too late, and usually with some major lacking aspect of strange design choice that just ruins the products potential
not only that but also teh early days of of apple forcing people to use there file type that basically couldn't be turned back once converted
There's an app for Android called Z Player which is a music player app that clones the Zune UI.
It's quite an old app now though and doesn't get many updates, I think I started using it back in 2012.
They lost the war, but they looked better.
This video popped up in my recommended and I was surprised that it doesn't have many views. The production is really good and everything overall.
In my opinion, keep using those songs on your videos. To me, it gives a vibe like if Dankpods was a technician.
I subscribed and liked....
100k views is not that many views ?
@@pavy415 This comment was made 5 months ago, obviously the view count has increased
Got me through highschool also man! I remember when I first got mine i stayed up all night organizing my library and adding album art and movies. Had the whole school geeked to see that
As a Zune user who used one of these until it literally broke and immediately replaced it in high school, we were the best. I still use my Zune HD to this day! Actually am currently doing research into getting my 120gb Zune working again, HDD crapped out on me and then I just let the battery sit until it could no long hold a charge. But no more, it is time!
Let’s gooo
Miss my Zine HD and it’s incredible interface.
same thing happened to me - 80gb drive died and it's been in a drawer for over a decade :( loved it while it was working though. very tempted to do the drive and battery swap...
just get a ZIFF to CF adapter and put a compact flash drive in it.
We were the best? Narcissistic much?
Portable music players like this are obsolete and pointless. My $16 watch can play music.
bro i still have my zune! loved that thing. the tiny ipod guys hated me cause i was watching movies while they were just listening to music.
Hmm... a windows version of DankPods, well this seems fun!
I never had an original Zune, but I had a Zune HD that was my absolute favorite media device until I got into Windows Phone. I love that you breathed some new life into that old device, and it really makes me miss that Zune software.
Thanks for watching!
you and me both! I still reminisce the days of simple UI and controls. I still think it was the better product. Live tiles were great
@@AttackOnTyler The interface they created with the Zune HD that wound up becoming the Windows Phone interface was just so cool too. Like the idea of going "in" when you clicked on a menu item, so instead of a generic Back button, you clicked back "up" to the slightly out of focus menu that you were previously in. It felt so fluid, smooth, and natural to use.
Still miss windows phone. It was amazing how much was integrated directly into the Os. Didn’t really need to have too many apps.
Southern Dankpods just dropped.
Love seeing these kinds of mods that you can't tell it's upgraded until you show it off. Keep up the good work.
Thanks for watching!
As someone who has seen dankpods do iPod mods I think it's possible to do an SD card board mod like on the iPod with the zune
Going to be doing these upgrades. Just ordered a new SSD, 3000mah battery, and the wireless charging.
Now if only I could source a new screen as mine has gotten a little beaten up over the years. Still glad to have this little piece of nostalgia, and the upgrade from 30gb to 128gb is going to be a game changer.
I really wish I was as skilled as you to add the bluetooth transmitter, but that takes a certain level of modification I don't feel confident in doing myself.
If you're adding bluetooth functionality, make sure to add 5v dc to dc isolator at the output of voltage regulator. This will make the audio clear through bluetooth.
@@WarriorRev6300link by chance?
I loved my OG Zune, but the battery life became less and less so I eventually repurposed the drive into a portable USB drive and got a Zune mini and later an HD, both of which I still have. Awesome to see you giving the OG a new life! The shot of the Zune software was a huge trip down memory lane too, lol. So much better than iTunes, imo.
I still have my Zune Originals Zune 80 and it still works perfectly. It has never been opened up and has yet to be upgraded. Microsoft got a solid product here from Toshiba.
The Zune UI till this days still looks good.
Still rocking the Zune!! Had it since the release and for free since it was my Dad’s
This is funny because I got my old zune out a couple of days ago and went down a rabbit hole for 2-3 hours figuring out how to get it to work on Windows 10. Works perfectly just like it did when I got it 2007, synced most of my music library to it 😄
But this…. this is AWESOME! I would love to mod my Zune like that but I’m afraid I would mess it up lol.
I'm glad my site help you revived your awesome Zune! I would love to try these mods on one of my many Zunes but dang that looks like a lot of work. :)
That music library made my phone feel as though it were looking in a mirror.
I had a creative zen muvo in high school. I loved how small it was and also used it as a storage drive to move files around.
I love my Zune. I typically listen to music on my iPhone now but listening on Zune was (and still is) a great experience.
Thanks for watching!
Do more for Zune it deserves a comeback!
@@charlesdoesmore5488 I loved it, I thought it was better than the ipod.
@@charleschudley4661it was better. The problem was the price i think
MP3 players are a bit pointless these days and are a novelty to us nerds. Simply a relic of the past.
@@charlesdoesmore5488 still love mine. I really enjoy the Zune HD layout and design. I keep a lookout on my phone for a similar experience, but so far no luck.
@nack323 the price was about the same as the iPad at the time, but it had double the screen so movies were better, the iPhone destroyed this device. O
If the zune was the phone that Microsoft made and put better effort into apps this would still be around.
I was a day 1 Zune adopter lol. I had the 80GB large (for its time) color screen. I remember spending late nights downloading sketchy full length pirated movies from Limewire to watch on my Zune. I had like 8-10 full movies on mine. I think it was just a little ahead of it's time.
Thanks for this! I have had all the parts for all these mods for months but haven't started yet. Going to use this as a starting point and guide
Awesome! let me know if you have any questions 👍
I had one of these back in the days growing up, honestly i always preferred this over the ipod cause i didn't had to deal with itunes nonsense with videos/mp3 format conversion etc. It was just a drop and go for mp3/mp4 songs and videos. Finally TH-cam algorithm recommends something good especially a throwback.
Thanks for watching!
This was really well made! As a lot of other people have pointed out, there's clearly some of Dankpods influence in this video (the music you used and opening shot specifically), but I think you have a really interesting channel identity here! As someone who's been trying to build my own channel over the last year, I feel like you've already had some really high quality videos and your projects are very interesting.
Here's to getting monetized!
Thank you! Good luck with your channel as well!
Hell yeah brother! I still run my Zune HD to this day, the battery still holds a a charge for days and I get about 6+ hours of play time. Love these MP3 players!
Amazing work!!! I just dug up my Zune and it still works but the battery is shot. You should be getting a lot of views now the Guardians 3 is out and Star-Lord has traded in his Walkman for a Zune!
Having my Zune playlists back would make me so happy
Just came back from watching Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3, and I can confirm Zune is the new meta, just threw my iPod like Andy did with Woody, because this is the new and "cool" nostalgic gadget!
BTW it's so weird I got recommended this video after watching a movie that featured this gadget, it's like if I were carrying a surveilance device with me all the time.
I was so surprised to see the Zune in that movie. It was playing music wirelessly too! Thanks for watching!
@@MadModLabs it was also in vol 2 too
That is mad commitment to such an old device. Great mods!
I got my Sony minidisk - it's still rocking in 2023
Thanks for watching!
I remember wanting this so bad when I was in school. Problem was, they weren't easily available in our part of the world. Had to settle for an iPod instead.
It's great to see new life being birthed from something from almost a couple decades ago. Great quality video!
Yep, same for me. In Singapore at the time, the best options were either an iPod classic or a Zen (2007), if I recall correctly.
The closest I got was that I had the Zune desktop theme installed on my older laptop running Windows XP that I normally used to run some old software that didn't work on Vista (I hadn't yet heard of virtualisation at the time).
Always wanted a Zune, love the way the UI looked on it, sadly never owned one.
My go to media player back in college in about 2005 was a Sony MZ-NH600 HI-MD MiniDisc player, with a remote it was awesome even if I had to carry a few discs considering you could only store so many MP3s on each disc. I was then gifted a 2nd gen iPod Shuffle and moved to a 4th gen Nano.
Would love one now.
This just feels like a more technical, approachable DankPods
It feels like I'm listening to someone that knows what they're talking about for once
@@wolframsv2527 Booo, leave Frank alone! 🤣 I take it y'all don't encounter too many Australians. From an Aussie perspective, I find DankPods genuine and knowledgable, and his larakin attitude makes him approachable and easy to listen to, like he's spinning a yarn the whole time.
I didn't have an mp3 player until I was 20 or so. In 2004 I worked a summer job painting and mowing lawns, and I only had an old Nokia phone with 32 MB of storage. It held like 7 songs which I was too lazy to replace, so I played the same songs every day at work for a month. Forty Foot Echo and Breaking Benjamin were my selected artists, and I never grew tired of them, still haven't.
A few years later I bought an Ipod Nano with 8 GB of storage, a revolutionary upgrade compared to the old Nokia. Ended up buying an adapter cable for the CD player in my car, so the iPod could be used there instead when my phone took over as a music device on the go.
This was a lot of fun to watch! I love seeing old tech upgraded and made useful again!
My MP3 contant companion was the OG mass-market MP3 player, the Diamond Rio PMP300 that I got in 1998. It had 32MB (yes, you read that right) of onboard memory that was good for about 8-10 songs at 128kbps, and the single AA battery lasted maybe 8-10 hours? I loved that thing and carried it daily for years! It did have expandable storage through a SmartMedia slot (precursor to SD cards), and I did eventually add a 64MB card. It also had a TERRIBLE battery flap design where the only thing that phsically connected the battery flap to the rest of the device was the soldered joint that also connected the battery. It broke regularly and I had to dissasmble and re-solder it every few months.
I finally replaced my Rio when I got my Sony Clié PDA in 2003. It was the end of era - the Rio was the only dedicated MP3 player I owned.
Ah, a fellow PMP300 user! I still have two of them, the original black one, and the special edition 64MB translucent green version! I have a question for you... have you tried any bigger smartmedia cards in it? I know they made bigger sizes than 64MB (I want to say I've seen them up to 128, maybe 256 MB), d you think those bigger cards would work too? I've been wanting to mess with them again and upgrade the storage but don't want to waste my money on rare cards if they won't work.
@@FinalManaTrigger I used to lust over the special edition one! Especially before I got the SmartMedia card. Sadly I never got a chance to try a bigger card - by the time I could have afforded a 128MB, I had switched to MemoryStick for my Sony Clié. By that point, the battery door was so battered from dozens of repairs, that I scrapped the poor thing alltogether.
The media player I had the holds the biggest place in my heart might surprise you. I had a Nintendo DS lite with an R4 flashcart. The DS was completely custom with a clear plastic shell replacement. It played games, music, and movies, all drag and drop (provided they were in the right format). I used it as my main media player through high school and college. Always envied the Zune though, yours looks amazing now! Fantastic job.
The DS is an amazing piece of hardware. Thanks for watching!
I had a Zune, it was ahead of its time in some ways. Wish MS would've marketed it more aggressively.
Breathing new life into old hardware with an SSD is a good idea in itself. But what you put on top of that is just awesome!
I have the Zune 80gb. Trying to replace the battery in a few days. Awesome video man!
I wish I still had either of my zunes. I might get one and do these mods!
@MadModLabs guess what i got today. gonna do these mods
I have a SanDisk MP3 Player (it can also play wav, 16 bit flac, and more) and I still use it sometimes. It seems to have no problems with large microSD cards and the battery is still ok.
Having a FLAC player is nice!
I have my zune hd set up with a dock on my main stereo system. I still use it regularly. Also have the orignal zune in white. Still works perfectly. These mods are great! Breathes new life into the device. Zune for life!
Thanks for watching!
Oh man what a brilliant find. I don’t think I’ll ever do this but I love watching talented people such as yourself modding things out. Great video!
Thanks for watching!
At first I was going to make a "We have Dank Pods at home" joke, but that would be an insult to the quality and effort put into this video. You make me want to find a Zune and mod it myself! Great work.
Thank you so much for the kind words and thanks for watching!
Man this takes me back. I used to have a Zune 80, and I loved that little guy. Used it throughout High School and a few years after until the battery completely died. I need to see if I still have it in a drawer somewhere.
I have a Zune HD from 2010 still full of 2000’s metalcore and other stuff I was listening to in high school. It still works beautifully and is still awesome
Love me some 2000s metalcore!
I didn't have a lot of general music, but I had Killswitch Engage. Still listen to them, their older stuff mostly.
The Zune was the best piece of hardware Microsoft ever made. I had two and loved them.. like seriously used one til about 2014 lol. Never had an iPod, went strait to an iPhone 5c then iPhone 11
Lovely video. I liked how thorough you were with the disassembly process. Thank you lots!
Thank you for watching!
This is such a good video, great work man
What a great video! I'd seen Zune, etc., storage drive swaps before, but your solution for the Qi charging and particularly the BT antenna were absolutely ingenious! I can see why you chose the early Zune 30 GB devices rather than the more popular Zune 80, given the tight fit; I'm a bit sad I sold mine to fund a custom-engraved Zune HD (which I still have, and works as a incredibly compact and intuitive MP3 player, though its file form support is limited). It was definitely never as popular as the iPod, but I do remember Zunes became the second most popular PMD/PMP brand, ousting Creative, but that was no doubt due to the general culling of the device market sadly (with D-Link, Archos, etc., gradually leaving, alongside Microsoft and Apple); it does seem like Creative is the last surviving inexpensive mass-market PMP manufacturer (their devices seem far more popular than Sony and the more high-end manufacturers putting out players that cost as much, or more, than smart phones), giving them the last laugh.
Some of those Creative devices were really nice. Thanks for watching!
I REALLY LIKE THIS KIND OF VIDEOS (PEOPLE BUILDING SMALL THINGS, PAINTINGS, DRAWINGS, GADGETS LIKE IN THE NOLAN MOVIES), I APPRECIATE THAT YOU TAKE THE TROUBLE TO PREPARE THEM, WITH SUCH QUALITY AND DEDICATION.
I remember waiting in line at 4am at toys r us for one on black Friday years ago. I had the brown one and it was one of my favorite mp3 devices. You just made it ten times better awesome job!
Thanks for watching!
You turned old gold into platinum. This tutorial is everything. Much appreciated.
That was my first mp3 player as a kid. I loved it. Things back then lasted forever.
very satisfying. It's good to see capacity could be expanded without effort, unlike some ipods. And the compatibility with ipod batteries also ensures years of spares. The fact that bluetooth can be activated via software blew me away.
Thanks for watching!
Zune is now canon in Guardians of the galaxy 3. 😅
This is video is awesome. Just fired up my old Zune. I'll probably stick to a simple battery replacement but this is inspiring!
Awesome! The only upgrade I to my 30GB Zune (which I use everyday) is add a bluetooth transmitter to the headphone jack. Have to manually plug the transmitter in each time, but it works better than wired earbuds.
Dude. I absolutely loved my zunes. Had the black/blue one and had one of the minis, and then the black HD touchscreen model. It was way easier to use and looked cooler than the Ipod of the day IMO
Excellent video, I have been wanting to do this exact mod but with USB c too and an sd card to cf adapter rather than SSD for larger cheaper storage whilst being even more power efficient, however Zunes in aus are tough to get and very expensive and when they are listed unfortunately
USB C would be such a great addition. I thought about trying to make one of the adapters that converts the 24-pin to type-c.
Man I miss my old Zune. Mine got me through Highschool as well. I think I got it for Christmas in 06.
@DankPods...? Is that you? Who's Ollie? What happened to Frank?!?
This was sick. I owned all the zune models and loved their desktop software. RIP Zune
so cool that people out there archive software. Man where would we be without these awesome people!
I loved my zune, sadly the battery eventually died... but it worked great for many years
"this thing got me through high school"
SAME! only i had the 2nd gen zune, still to this day, i LOVED those headphones, the magnetic backs were FAR more useful than i ever thought they would be. and after i hacked mine it was even better.
I smell some Dankpods here 🐽
my first mp3 player was an IRiver H320, thought it was so cool because it had FM radio built in as well. Dumped so many of my CDs onto that thing. Ahh memories.
The one problem with this video? No chapters. It's a shame, but otherwise this was an incredibly helpful video! Thank you very much for appreciating the Zune as much as me. lol
has chapters now!
It's not a shame if you don't watch youtube on a fucking phone...
@@Alcoholic_Nerd A majority of people watch from a phone
@@TheIronSnowMan8D Yea, sad for them.
I just busted out my old, same model, Zune because I wanted to replace it's battery after I had stumbled on a video of someone doing so. I've been learning and messing with SBC's recently so (hopefully) all that should come in handy replicating your process here. Feel like it will be a good learning experience too regardless of how it turns out in the end
Those mods are amazing dude. You've turned obsolete tech into good hardware again. Always great when electronics get repurposed or upgraded instead of thrown away, and that zune in it's current state looks like something I'd unironically buy.
Thank you so much for your positive and encouraging comment!
@@MadModLabs It's deserved. Hope your channel gets the attention it deserves. Certainly quality content here. 👍
I used to have a zune so watching this was a walk down memory lane. I used to love that thing.
Thanks for watching!
15:55 i love your music taste, especially seeing the I See Stars 3-D Album here. God tier.
I had a Sansa Fuze? something like that. Old reliable died being ran over by a car
Admittedly a lot of these mods are over my head but at the same time…straight to my heart ❤
I originally watched for the zune, but then your music taste took me down memory lane. Thank you for this.
Thanks for watching!
Over here in Europe, at least in germany, we've never had the Zune. I've heard of it, but never really looked into it. Interesting device with some pretty cool modifications^^
I miss my old Creative MuVo TX. It was so innovative how the mp3 player itself was a USB stick and you plugged it into a battery compartment to use portable. Nothing ever compared to that awesome little device for me. I miss it dearly.
The old Creative players were so cool. Thanks for watching!
I had a ipod, kept crashing. Turned it in for service, got a new. Same issues.
I bought a zune and man it was amazing! Updated playlists automaticly via wifi when I downloaded new music on my desktop.
Great UI, never broke. Loved my zune!
Thanks for watching!
@@MadModLabs was a really cool video 🙂
If I knew where my zune was, and if I knew anything about electronics I'd probably do the same thing. I miss having a dedicated MP3 player
Nice hack! Now I gotta find my old Zune in storage. I really love the Zune back in the day.
Nah, you're not weird. I still carry around my 160 GB iPod and love it.
I had the brown zune when I was in middle school. I was pretty happy with it. I sold it eventually, but I still have my zune HD 32.
Nice upgrade man! Also like the music choices you got there with Devil Wears Prada, All That Remains, and Attack Attack.
Wow man, I didn't think I would miss this device this much. I think my dad's zune and his HTC touch was the two devices that got me into tech the most!
HTC had some awesome devices. I was always a big fan and I loved my EVO 3D
I used to have a 30GB in high school before my mom got me the 120GB. I was able to rip a bunch of DVDs and put them in the device. My friends would get jealous of the huge display (at the time).
I loved my creative nomad zen jukebox extra, it was big but man it came in clutch everytime without fail.
I never knew about this device and I never needed one (nor do I now), but after seeing this I want to build one myself just for the sake of doing it. Amazing mod, great device, and the best part is the quality of the content you’ve made, it really got me inspired!
Thanks so much for watching!
Back in the day my favorite media player was a 3000 model Sony PSP. Games, music videos, music, could use it as a picture viewer when I swapped in a memory card from my Sony digital camera. AND I had the video output cord to use it with a tv. Loved it.
I love the PSP. Thanks for watching!
Forgotten product, almost no one cared. Love to see what this is about after all these years
I had a zune in high school. When the first one broke, RadioShack no longer had them in stock to replace under my 2 year warranty. So they wrote me a check for the price of the zune I had bought... and by that time, the largest capacity zune was the same price on newegg.
Only mp3 players I ever owned, but I loved them.
I have so many memories with a zune. It was the first tech I ever worked on and fixed
what in the multiverse is this dankpods variation
Nice work! Maybe I will use this video as a template to upgrade my 80gb Zune to a larger SSD and bluetooth ability. I always preferred the Zune over Ipods.
Your artists list at 0:33 gives me so much joy. You must've been a scene kid back in high school just like me lol. Alesana was one of my all time favorites too
This so dope, the SSD and battery upgrades alone would be worth it for me. Might have to tackle this in the future
All the scenary full of dankpods references, and slangs from him i love it
Thanks for watching!
wait what? your voice when you said "Zuuunee" was so convincing that I for a second thought "Wait is that Dank pods??!"
This is motivation to dig out my Zune HD.
Beautiful device, and fantastic software for playing music.
I have no idea where the cable ended up though...
The Zune HD was awesome! I had to buy a new cable before starting this project. I was glad to see they are still making 3rd party cables. I just grabbed a cheap one: amzn.to/43Jk7qH
Thanks for watching!