Zune AReviews

Zune Video Converters

 

You just bought your Zune.  And this weekend, you are all fired up to play video files on it on that long journey to your grandma's cottage.  You have all those DVD movies and MTV videos and they'd make a great divertissement on that long 8-hour cross-country bus ride.

I had the same expectations when I had my first iPod Video and then a Zune.  But hold on.  You need some software tools on your PC to have those DVD files play right on the Zune. Be ready with it and make sure you know how to go about it.  Either that or you pay for the videos that will work with your Zune.  Not really my cup of tea, though.  I prefer to do it myself.

It's really quite easy once you get the hang of it.  You just have to do a bit of research.  It's just takes some time to do it.  But the rewards are there.  I remember downloading my first converted DVD video file on the iPod and when it started playing, I was on cloud 9.

If you already have those video files that play on the iPod, chances are they should play on your Zune.  Like what I did.  For a long while, I had a few select DVD files converted to the MPEG4 format that plays on the iPod video.  They played on my Sony Ericsson P990i cellphone as well.  And they play on the Zune as well.

But if you're a novice in this, download some video conversion software on the net.  There are quite a few freeware and shareware and software you can put on trial for free.  Be wary though that many trial conversion software can only process 5 minutes of video or less.  They'd be fine with some short MTVs, but definitely not on animation shorts or full-length movies. 

Bear in mind that Zune supports only the MPEG 4, the Windows-proprietary WMV and the H.264 video formats.  Nothing else.  So your Zune won't recognize those downloaded AVI, Real Player and YouTube Flash video files, your cellphone 3GP files, and those VOB files ripped from your DVDs.  You need a video converter to make them play on the Zune. 

Moreover, you need to do some settings on your video converter. Even if Zune recognizes the file format, if the video is too large or its bitrate too high for its processor to handle, you still won't see anything or at best see the video in unsightly choppy movements.  Make sure the video conversion is set to 240 x 320 resolution with video bitrates at less than 800kbps.  You could experiment of course, setting it slightly higher and then upload to your Zune and see if it plays properly.  This can be quite ceremoniously tedious, but it can pay off with better quality videos. 

The better alternative is really to download a Zune-certified or approved video converter that's meant to convert supported video files into the one best suited to play in a Zune. The Zune Video Converter has a free download you can try out from this site http://www.zunevideoconverter.com/