"Battlestar Galactica" et al on Zune e-store

NBC got snippy with Apple and pulled all its TV shows from the iTunes Store not long ago. Now it has begun selling episodes of "Battlestar Galactica" and other programs on Microsoft's rival Zune Marketplace e-store.

This new Zune Marketplace content is part of an update today to Zune players, which compete with Apple's iPods, and the Zune desktop software for Windows.

Along with NBC Universal content (including "BG" and "Eureka" from Sci Fi Channel), the new Zune Video Store has material from MTV, Turner Broadcasting and others.

Once I heard about this, I spent the better part of a day trying to download the the awesome second-season "Pegasus" episode of "BG," but I kept getting an error message.

I finally succeeded and put the episode on a couple of Zunes. But now I can't get the video to play on either device. Hmmm.

Regardless, the iTunes Store has a lot more stuff -- including Hollywood movies, as well as many more TV shows than the Zune store offers. Video looks nicer on Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch because of a bigger, cinema-style display.

Zune, you still have a long way to go.

Update: Three Battlestar Galactica episodes now appear to be playing normally on my Zunes after syncing or re-syncing to the devices.

The apparent solution to my problem: I need to wait until the download progress bar in the PC software switches from "100 percent" to "In Collection" before attempting a sync to a Zune.