2 posts tagged “zune”

To rip DVD content (e.g. movies) for use on a portable media player (like a Zune, Pocket PC, or whatever), I use Pocket DVD Studio from PQ-DVD.  I originally got it from Handango for my HP iPaq.  (Handango's interface isn't really suited for zunes, though -- it's better for smart phones or devices running windows mobile.)

It looks like PQ-DVD has since made a Zune-specific version, too:
http://www.pqdvd.com/dvd-to-zune-converter.html

It costs somewhere around $30.

Here's how it works (my version anyway):

1) Start the software.

2) Put a DVD into your DVD-ROM drive.  If the program (Pocket DVD Studio) doesn't automatically load it, click the "Open" button and tell select your DVD-ROM drive.  It will then open the DVD to the main menu.

3) Set resolution, etc.:
    a) If you're ripping for a small format (e.g. for Zune-sized playback), the "Standard" resolution should be selected.          This is 320x240 for a "full screen" crop.
    b) For the quality slider, I usually keep it at least 3/4 to the right (or all the way to the right).  When ripping cartoon-type videos, it's more important to keep this all the way to the right.  This is because the gradients present in a photographic-like image can hide the imperfections better than a cartoon-like image that has very sharp edges (e.g. the dark line drawn around a cartoon character).
    c) (skip the Video line with the - and + buttons for now.)
    d) I typically set the Audio to the one that says "Better than FM quality".  Use the + and - buttons for Audio to adjust this as you like (better quality will yield larger files).

4) Adjust the output settings:
    a) Open Options -> Output Settings
    b) For windows-based playback (on a Zune or Pocket PC, for example) an output format of WMV works well.
    c) Frame rate: movies are typically recorded at 24 frames per second and TV shows are typically recorded at 30 fps.  If ripping for a small player (like 320x240), to keep file sizes down, I typically rip movies at 20 fps.  You might notice a little bit of jerkyness on playback, but with that small of a video, it isn't too bad.  Cartoons can be ripped at 15 fps without being very jerky (for cartoons, the video quality is more important than frame rate).  A typical movie file ends up being between 300 and 450 MB with these settings.
    d) Set the output file.  It will pick a default filename that you can always rename later otherwise.
    e) Click OK to exit out of the Output Settings.

5) Click the "play" option from the DVD's menu.  Then when it starts playing, click pause.  You may need to drag the slider back to the 0:00 position (back to the very start).  Here you may want to verify the Crop you're using.  If the movie is "letterboxed" you might want to select the letterbox crop rectangle so you're not recording the blank areas and your file will be smaller.  However, if you do this make sure the move doesn't have any subtitles that will fall within the unrecorded area -- sometimes there might be 2 lines of subtitles where one falls within the recorded area overlayed on the frame and the other is outside in the black.

6) Once the slider is back to 0:00, click the "Record it" button.  This will automatically un-pause the movie and start recording.  It will record at faster than normal playback speed and the audio will be off.  A feature length movie might take 20 minutes to an hour or so I guess, depending on your computer, etc.  Incidentally, if you're recording at a larger resolution like for playback on your computer monitor or whatever (640x480 for example, which is typical TV resolution), it will take much longer to record.  Actually, once when I was trying to get a pretty high quality recording at a high resolution, my computer's cpu kept overheating and I kept having to pause the recording to let it cool down.  I don't think that's normal though.

7) When the recording's done, a dialog box will popup telling you so.  You can then rename or move the file however you like.  If you double-click the file it should play in Windows Media Player on your computer.

8) To load the video into your Zune collection, just copy/move the file to a folder that your Zune software is monitoring for video files and it will find it the next time it checks (it should be automatic).

9) After the Zune software finds the files and loads them into your collection, just drag them to the Zune device icon in the lower left like you do to sync any other files to your zune.

The new Zunes from Microsoft are out (as of yesterday).  They're a little cleaner and shinier than the first generation ones.  They have a bunch of new features and there's a new version of the Zune marketplace and software, too.

I recently ordered a 1st gen. zune and according to the FedEx site, it's at my house right now, so I'll be playing with it tonight.  It's one of the infamous brown ones.  I ordered it because apparently the brown ones didn't sell very well and I bought it for about $90 (for the 30 GB model).  The other ones were still closer to $200.  You can get the new 80 GB ones for $250 (but they don't have brown ones anymore).  However, as I write this, Amazon is currently out of stock.

Probably the coolest part of the new hardware is the new touchpad.  You can use it as a regular touch pad and press the different parts to navigate.  But it's also touch-sensitive and you can flick your finger across it to scroll through your songs (or whatever media you're browsing at the time).

The Zune marketplace (the equivalent of the iTunes store for iPods) has been completely re-written.  The zune software was originally based on Windows Media Player.  The new version doesn't seem as mature.  There are a lot of things that you should be able to customize, but can't (at least not yet -- I'm sure Microsoft will be making a ton of updates to this over the next several months).  The software now has built in support for podcasts, too.  What's Up with Tech isn't listed yet, but should be soon.  The user interface of the zune site (zune.net) and of the zune software/marketplace/whatever isn't as intuitive as it could be.  One of my main complaints is that they break some primary rules of usability.  They try to be cute with their naming conventions instead of naming the links what they actually are so that people can figure out where they should click.  They should read Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think".  Another complaint is that I can't edit all the values of the ID3 tags for my MP3's.  For example, you can't specify the mood for the song.  I use that a lot when choosing songs for a party, etc.  I'll still probably keep using MusicMatch for that reason.  Also, instead of having 10 or even 5 gradations for "preference" for you songs, all you can do is say that you like it or not (yes or no), represented by a full heart icon or a broken heart shaped icon (the previous version of the zune software let you specify the number of stars (1-5)).

I had some flaky performance on my computer with the new zune software, too.  Every once in a while, like when switching between certain programs (I had Photoshop running) the zune software would all of a sudden pop to the front and/or it would flicker a lot.  I'm sure most of these issues will get worked out by Microsoft very quickly (especially the bugs as opposed to the missing features).

One cool part of the new software is the now playing screen (the image below).  However, I still wish there were more features.  For example, whenever I see the now playing screen, I want to click on the album art to get more information (you can't).  Or I wish I could see the album art bigger (throughout the app), but not possible.  By looking at the image you get a feel for the music in my collection.

Another good thing about the new software-based features is that they're supposed to be backward portable to the 1st gen devices (which is a big part of why I bought one of the old ones, knowing that the new ones were coming out).  I'll let you know how it goes.