HBO on Zune

I was able to successfully record a movie on my PC and watch it on my Zune. t was not easy. I noticed by accident that I get the analog HBO channel when searching Media Center for the Hulk. When I recorded a movie in Media Center it put rights management on the file. I could not play it in any other software but Media Center, and I could not sync it.

Next up was to try the WinTV software that came with my Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1250. WinTV records in .mpg format, which the Zune and the Zune desktop application do not recognize. I used Daniusoft Zune Video Converter to convert the .mpg file to a .mp4 file (should also work with iPods).

It worked. I was able to record/convert/sync Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix from HBO and watch it on my Zune 80.

TV on Zune… and Zune on TV

I recorded some TV shows with my Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1250 equipped PC. I synced them as well as a bunch of movies I ripped with DVDFab Platinum and took my Zune 80 to the coast. I bought a generic camcorder cable from Radio Shack and hooked the Zune up to the TV in the condo we rented.

All when really well. I had to plug the red plug on the camcorder cable into the yellow socket on the TV, but other than that it worked perfectly. And it was a lot cheaper than the Zune video kits.

I did notice one problem. The volume level on movies was very low, barely at conversation level. I fired up DVDFab and sure enough it had a volume adjustment. I set it to 250% and I am re-riping my movie collection.

Since I won’t be hooking the Zune up to a TV often I am not going to purchase the video kit with remote. It is an attractive idea, but I can’t justify the cost at this time.

Media Center and the Zune

I recently finished rebuilding my desktop PC. I added a Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1250 TV Tuner card. I setup Vista’s Media Center to record TV shows. I love it, but… there are two major drawbacks.

1. The file format and size from Media Center is unique and large.
2. The Zune software converts the files before syncing them.

Consequentially, it takes a long time to sync Media Center TV shows with the Zune. I may have to use the software that came with the Hauppauge WinTV to record shows.

finished…

well… i finished loading all my music on my zune. the total is 4,234 songs. to get started on new music i also purchased my first song from the zune marketplace. of course, that didn’t go perfectly smoothly. don’t get me wrong, it was easy to buy the song and it showed up perfectly on my zune 80. however, i selected matchbox twenty’s latest hit, these hard times. all my previous matchbox music i had already standardized as matchbox 20. since i didn’t want the group listed twice i editing the tag information on all my old songs to coordinate with the new song.

almost full

i am almost finished filling my zune. i hit 4,072 songs. however, i am cheating. i have a large collection of beatles songs. i have a few beatle’s CDs including the red and blue CDs as well as beatles 1. i wanted to “recreate” as many of the original albums as i could. i managed to create 15 albums i did not already have. granted many of these albums are incomplete, but they look cool when scrolling through them on the zune. how does this effects my goal of 4,000 songs on my zune… because to create those albums i was putting songs on my zune twice, once for the CDs i own and again for the original albums i faked. i figure at lest 70 duplicates there.

i still have to do some clean up in other areas then i will start going through my wife’s music to see what i want to put on the zune. i should have no trouble hitting 4,000 unique songs on my zune, but these last few are going to take more time then it did to get my entire collection of classic rock on my zune.

Monster FM Transmitter

my wife got me a monster FM transmitter for my zune. it had the zune logo on the package, but i can’t find it on their web site. it is closest to this one that is for generic mp3 player, but it has the control/display of this one for the ipod. mine uses the mini headphone jack and allows you to select the FM frequency you want to use. because of this the device cannot power or charge the zune. darn! i would have liked that because i would set the screen on full time while plugged so i could always see the album art.

this unit performs extremely well. i have only heard some strange sound on a couple of songs. it has worked in three cars so far, so i don’t see any compatibility issues.

the price of mine was $29.99 at target. monster’s web site lists the two above at $49.95 and $79.95, respectively. i don’t know why that is. i just got a new car (07 335i) which has an auxiliary jack, so i will be looking for a mini headphone to auxiliary cable to leave in the bimmer, and i will leave the FM transmitter in our acura MDX.

recommended!

btw… i am still going through all my music. i am up to the r’s at the moment. i have been working a lot of overtime the last few weeks and it is hard to get time to play with the music. at least i have over 3,300 songs to listen to. still hoping to hit that magic 4,000 songs on my zune.

i love my zune

i am still working on my music collection. i am still on the g’s. but i just love this device. i finished watching star trek II the wrath of khan over three lunches at my desk. i have listened to so much music i barely knew i had. granted, i am mostly rediscovering how much i really like some of the CDs i own… in other words i am really into classic rock right now.

i have listened to more music in the last few weeks than i had in months. having an entire CD collection on a device that is as easy to browse as this is unbelievable. just today i have listened to my all the don henley & glenn frey song i have and listened to paul mccartney’s all the best album. it’s great.

i have absolutely no regret about getting the zune 80 over the ipod touch or the ipod classic.

have you been zuned?

over 3,000 songs

i just went over 3,000 songs on my zune 80. 3,012 to be exact. i have just finished processing the f’s. i actually deleted an album. i edited 2 songs from foreigner’s inside information CD and changed them to their records CD. then i deleted the inside information CD. i will probably do this more as time goes one.

bryan adams complete

well, i did have to re-rip my bryan adams so far so good CD in the zune software. once i did this it was easy to add the 4 downloaded songs i have to create a super album of 18 songs instead of the original 14 songs. cool!

migrating downloads

with my entire CD collection on my zune 80 i am in the process of migrating downloaded music. i am going alphabetically and just finished the c’s. i had a significant amount of trouble with bryan adams. i have his so far so good CD, but when i try to add 4 downloaded songs to that CD to build a super album, it doesn’t work.

i started using mp3tag to edit the id3 tag information. no matter what i do the zune desktop application sees the songs from the CD as being from various artists. what’s really bizarre is that the 4 additional songs it sees correctly as being from bryan adams. so my zune sees 2 so far so good CDs, one by bryan adams with 4 songs and another with 14 songs by various artists. windows media player combines the songs into one CD with no trouble, but the zune software just sucks. i am going to try re-ripping the CD in the zune application, instead of media player and see if that helps.