video out quality?

[jmslew1]

Im getting ready to buy a zune but before I purchase one I wanted to know how good the the quality is on video out.
Is it dvd quality or close? Does video out support different resolutions?
And can you navigate the zune via the video out and turn off the lcd screen to conserve power? or at least the backlight?

Sorry for the questions. I have played with this in the store and love it but these are some things that I could not tell. I would use the video out for a couple movies a shift (i do shift work 24/48).

and finally what is the battery life if you only listen to FM radio? Has anyone tried that?

Thanks
whooda

[poxtomod]

I believe that the resolution is something like 240-330 horizontal lines maximum for RCA hookups. Only Svideo and all others conections can display DVD 480 lines of resolution and up.
I have encoded some videos and am beginning to think that to conserve space on the Zune the software automatically encodes video to a very small size, Like I said though not sure. I have tried a couple of diiferent encoders on TV shows as well as movies, and have not been happy.
My tv upconverts and is a 52" projection screen, so I believe a smaller tv it would probably look okay. oh yeah I have to also mention it hooked into my xbox 360 to view the video.

[zunologist]

If video out is your MAIN concern, you might want to (sadly) consider an iPod.

Both the iPod and Zune offer 320x240 pixel resolution.
But the Zune has a bigger screen...
I've compared the exact same file (an episode of Fox's 24) side by side with my girlfriend's video iPod... and even though the res is the same, the Zune's bigger screen makes a HUGE difference, and makes it much nicer to watch.
If you're going to view videos on your device... I highly recommend the Zune.

The iPod (somehow) bumps up the resolution for video out, to 640x480.
The Zune does not.

I did a comparison and noticed that the iPod's video has much nicer resolution on a TV than the Zune, because the Zune keeps the video-out at 320x240.
So if you're going to use the video-out function a lot... unfortunately I have to recommend the iPod.

I use my device 99% un-hooked to a tv though, so although video-out is a nice feature to have, it's not one that I base a purchase on.
But that's just me.

Hope this helps.

[cello]

I will say this though ....

The Zune will output the menu and UI to the TV, something the ipod does not.

That alone makes the TV-out on the Zune better.

[Neurothustra]

Let me preface this by saying that I love my Zune and it was money well spent.

I was excited by the prospect of playing movies running off the Zune. Finally, I could watch all this machinima I download on my TV instead of my monitor. After watching the playback, it looked like poorly compressed video. While Zune will resample your video to the WMV format, at 320x240, if you have a video conversion utility, you can do that yourself - which I did. Zune doesn't seem to mind what bitrate your video is at so long as it's WMV and 320x240. However, no matter how high the bitrate I still couldn't get the videos took look decent, no matter how hard I tried, it looks very pixellated.

[greg3d]

No matter what the bitrate, the output rez of 320x240 will make it look pixelated.

Hopefully this will get changed (if possible) with firmware so it can upconvert it to 640x480, or at the very least allow native 640x480 vids.

[poxtomod]

This goes out to the guy that said that the iPod could transmit 640x480 lines of resolution, what is the method of connection that has to be made to the tv. I am not aware iPod video cables using Svideo, Component, Hdmi or Dvi which would be necessary to display Dvd resolution. Yes 640x480 is Dvd resolution. Composite(RCA) plus using only the yellow for video max out at about 240 lines of resolution.