Microsoft announces Zune HD

Yes, the Zune HD is in fact very real. Microsoft confirmed yesterday the existence of the Zune HD as well as several enhancements coming to the Xbox LIVE Marketplace related to the Zune. First off, let’s briefly talk about the new Zune media player.

The Zune HD is a touch-screen enabled portable media player device capable of outputting 720p HD videos to an external display (HD monitor or HDTV display). The player itself will downscale any HD movies to fit its 480 x 272 resolution display. Speaking of the display, the unit features a 3.3 inch OLED screen with a 16:9 widescreen format.

On the musical front, the Zune HD is the first player to come with a built-in HD Radio tuner. Users will be able to tune into their favorite local HD Radio channels (assuming they can get any) and also receive additional meta information transmitted within the HD Radio signal.

On the app front, the Zune HD features a built-in web browser optimized for multi-touch functionality. It’s not clear if this is basically just another version of Internet Explorer but I’m sure we’ll find out shortly (at E3 probably).

Other niceties include a touch-screen based QWERTY keyboard and a built-in accelerometer.

One the service front, Microsoft announced that the Zune “brand experience would be extended to the Xbox LIVE Video Marketplace.” Does this mean the Zune will replace the Video Marketplace ? It’s not entirely clear.. or is this simply another network within the Video Marketplace – except one targeted to Zune users? We hope Microsoft has finally decided to unify the video portion of the marketplace but again – details won’t be revealed until E3 rolls around the corner.

No word on pricing but expect the Zune HD sometime this fall.. Anyone actually excited about this player??