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Sure, everyone knows that you can sync Napster and Rhapsody music subscription tracks to your Tilt.  Microsoft, in setting up their Zune ecosphere, tightly integrated the Zune Marketplace and its subscription service, Zune Pass, to their digital audio player.  But as has been reported elsewhere, you can also sync Zune Pass subscription tracks to other, PlaysforSure DRM-compatible MP3 players.  This also works for the Tilt.  Check it out after the break.

Why would this be useful?  Well, I came from owning a Zune, and my wife has one as well.  We love the Zune Pass “all you can eat” service- it’s more economical and great for discovering new music.  But when I got my Tilt, I decided to just carry around one device- and placing an 8GB microSD card in the Tilt enabled me to do just that.  But I was also hooked on the Zune Pass music subscription service, and I wasn’t going to pay an additional $15 for Napster for just my device.  Thankfully, I had found an article that discussed syncing Zune Pass songs to a non-Zune device using Windows Media Player.  This allowed for my wife and I to maintain a common library of music.

I tested it, and it worked great.  My setup is a Windows Vista Home Premium PC with Windows Media Player 11.

Here is the gist of what you need to do:

• Open Windows Media Player.  Right-click on the band across the top where the Now Playing, Library, etc. buttons are.  On the menu that pops up, go to Tools, then Options….
• In the Options dialog box, click on the Library tab, and then the Monitor Folders… button.
• Here, you’ll want to add the folder where your Zune Pass subscriptions are downloaded and then click OK. 
  
• Now, allow the Zune Pass songs to be added to your library (if the scan process doesn’t start automatically, press F3 and click OK again).
• After the songs have been added, go ahead and play a few songs in Windows Media Player to verify that they will work.
• Create a playlist in Windows Media Player and add to it the Zune Pass songs you want to sync to your Tilt.
• Connect your Tilt to your PC through the USB cable.
• Windows Media Player will pop up a dialog box asking you to set up the device.  NOTE:  Windows Media Player will see your microSD card as a separate “device” from your Tilt’s internal memory.  Make sure you set up the correct “device” by verifying the memory size in the dialog box (the below graphic is just for demonstration purposes).  Name the device and click Finish.
  
• Click on the Sync button at the top of Windows Media Player.  On the left, you’ll now see your Tilt (under whatever name you gave it).  Right-click on it and select Set Up Sync….
  
• Under the dialog box, check off “Sync this device automatically” and add/remove whatever playlists you want to sync with your Tilt. Then click Finish.
  
• If it doesn’t start, click on the Start Sync button on the right-side of the window to begin syncing music to your Tilt.

And there you have it.  Are any of you already using this trick?  Do any of you use music subscription services, and if so, which one?  Let us know!

Doug Smith (301 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook