Zune users: A n00b needs your help :)

[phaxmohdem]

Hey all, I just bought a lightly used Zune 8GB for cheap, Today I downloaded the software for it from Microsoft (133 friggin MB's) installed it and tried to use it.

I was really hoping that the Zune would just pop up as a flash drive, like all my other past MP3 players did, and I could simply drag and drop files to and from it. Unfortunately it does not.

I cannot figure this software out... I don't want it to play my files, I have other apps I'm used to for that... I just want to copy files from my pc to the player. After a while I figured out how to sync some songs onto it, but I'm at a loss for video.

All the videos I want to put on there are XVID (.AVI) dvd rips I've performed using DVD::Rip in Ubuntu... however I cannot simply drag and drop them into the Zune software. IT wouldn't do anything... so I fired up ffmpeg and did a simple convert of one movie to a .WMV file. (Syntax used: ffmpeg -i mymovie.avi mymovie.wmv ) This time when I dragged the file over the Zune software, the little "+" mouse cursor popped up like it wanted to accept it, however nothing happened. No syncing, no error message nothing... Repeated attempts concluded with the same results.

Is there a video converter (or anything actually useful) hidden somewhere in that massive 133MB garbage heap of a program I downloaded? Anybody know how to properly convert my movies to sync up with this thing?

I'm trying to like this thing, it has a quality feel to it and the interface is nice, but it just doesn't want to play my media... which I thought was its whole reason to exist

 

[Baked]

I haven't done any AVI > WMV conversions, I just download WMV videos directly from the video sites, so can't help you there. Zune's pretty picky on what video format it plays, so I don't bother converting videos on my own.

As for syncing videos and music, there are 2 tabs you need to familiarize yourself with. Collection and Device. Collection is what's on your computer, Device is what's on the Zune. Before you sync music and videos to Zune, you need to add them to your Collection 1st. After that's done, you can select individual files or select all, then right click and select Sync to Zune (or name you gave the Zune). Or you can click on Device then the big sync button underneath the Zune player picture.

In Settings, you can appoint which folders you want Zune to check and add files from automatically. I think there's an option to automate syncing when you start the Zune software in windows too, but I turned that off.

 

[phaxmohdem]

Thanks for the relply... the interface is a little less intuitive than I'd like, but I can get used to it. I guess would anybody happen to know the proper ffmpeg flags to comvert my files to something the Zune likes, or even an app that'll do it (cheap or free preferably)

 

[Baked]

np, took me a few tries to get used to the syncing part, everything's smooth once you get the hang of it. It's a good thing a lot of adult entertainment sites offer their videos in both QT (for iPod) and WMV (for Zune). I wouldn't know where else to get videos to fill my Zune otherwise. Certainly don't have the patience and time to wait for video conversion.

I found this guide on AVI > WMV, might wanna give it a try.

 

[phaxmohdem]

Thanks for the link. I actually just hit on a format using ffmpeg that works, and is hella better quality than the wmv's I was seeing. Good ol h.264 MP4's seem to work very well.

For those who want to know, here are the ffmpeg flags I used at the command line. (I actually just made a batch file out of it, so I can just change the file names, and run the batch file.)

ffmpeg -y -i INPUTFILENAME.XXX -f mp4 -threads 2 -ab 128k -vcodec libx264 -coder 0 -vlevel 13 -s 320x240 -aspect 4:3 OUTPUTFILENAME.XXX

Took me 1 min 13 seconds - to encode a 4.36 minute DV-AVI to that format on my 6000+.... not that shabby I guess.
(edit) Took me 17 min 27 seconds - to encode a 105.24 minute VXID-AVI copy of "Hackers" on the same rig

(If only there were a GPGPU port of ffmpeg now...)

 

[hans030390]

What is up with people not being able to understand the Zune software? It took me all of 5 minutes to figure out.

I was planning on actually answering your question, but it seems like that's already been done.

 

[tw1164]

The zune software will transcode the media files for you. You don't *need* a 3rd party app. If you're set on using a 3rd party app, I would suggest MeGui.