Zune

Last updated November 7, 2007

The Zune is a portable media player created by Microsoft to compete with Apple's iPod. It isn't as "open" and flexible as my Creative Zen Vision:M, but the large screen, button layout, and easy-to-navigate user interface makes the Zune a very decent portable media player.

WALLPAPER

Customizing the look of the Zune is as easy as syncing a wallpaper image and displaying it. Here are some of my wallpapers.

Woodstock 69	Vista	Lost In Space Robot
VTTBOTS - Seaview	Hexworld	The Prisoner (# 6)
Italian Job	Red Saturn	Field
Grapes	Raindrops	Raindrops on Leaves

MEDIA ENCODING

The Zune only supports .wmv format for video and .wma & .mp3 formats for audio. There are a few essential tools that Zune owners will need to encode their own videos optimized for Zune playback:

DVD Decrypter (freeware). This tool will extract the files from a commercial DVD and copy them to a computer harddrive.
Windows Media Encoder (freeware). This is Microsoft's official tool for encoding .wmv files. This is by far the best and most versatile tool for generating Zune videos.
Zune Video Profile for Windows Media Encoder (freeware). This is a profile that I created that is optimized for generating Zune videos.
Zune Video Encoding Guide. Step-by-step guide to convert DVDs to PMC/Zune Videos. This process absolutely generates the best quality videos and eliminates the need for the desktop Zune software or WMP to re-encode the video when syncing. Using this process, videos will simply be copied to the device...very quickly.

Fun Stuff

Listen to "Hooked on Paisonics"
Visit the B.A.Goomba Store
SPI Dawn of the Dead boardgame
Cadaco's All-Star Baseball Game

Neat Links

Engadget
Free Download a Day
Give Away of the Day
SlashDot
Woot!