Advice on Video for Zune

[zuneballa]

I just got a Zune 80 and am looking for advice on video;

I have heard around 500 KBS is the best for file size / battery life. (The movies I have converted I have converted at 512kbs and 30fps WMV.)

Well, I am not worried to much about file size with the 80 gig.

But would a higher bit rate actually decrease battery life? If so, by how much? Would I see a big big difference in how long the battery lasted if I pushed the bitrate up to 1 to 1.5? (and how much better would the picture look if I bumped it up also?)

Also, do you guys force your movies to 320x240? Or do you keep the original aspect (most of the time it ends up 320x192)? If you force it to 320x240 does the picture get skewed at all?

Thanks all for your help

[surfer13134]

You will not see a difference.

[zuneballa]

I won't see a different between 500 Kbs and the higher bitrates?

Ok good, didn't feel like re-converting the ones I have done

[xdaytime]

You shouldn't see a difference since the smaller screen size.

[Man.]

500kbs that seems weak I normally go for 700kbs.

[runtohell121]

just sound difference if you set it high kbps and stuff.. but video.. not much difference.

[zuneballa]

I have another question and figured I would just asked it here instead of starting a new thread:

When synching video to the Zune, will it say converting no matter what when it is doing it? Or if I see "Converting insertvideofilenamehere.wmv" that means it is doing a conversion while it is moving it down to the Zune.

If so, anybody know why? The files are WMV files, 320x240 (usually 320x192 actually). 512Kbps, 30 FPS with Audio as 128 Kbps.

Any ideas on what I might look for?

Thanks!

[runtohell121]

hmm.. resize your vid, zune must be 320x240 no matter what i think..

[zuneballa]

If I force it to 320x240 won't the picture (for widescreen format) be warped since it will be stretched?

[Chiups]

No because 320x240 is the native resolution for the Zune.

[zuneballa]

I understand that 320x240 is the native screen size for the zune.

But 320x240 is not widescreen. That is a full screen resolution. So if you take a widescreen video and force it to a full screen aspect ratio, it will be stretched... correct?

If you take a widescreen DVD and play it on a standard TV and remove the letterboxes and stretch the picture to fit, it's going to look goofy, I don't see how that is different here.

Perhaps I am just missing something.

[runtohell121]

yes, it should be stretched, just put the setting on video when you convert into 4:3 ratio.

[Zuneary Bypass]

exactly, 4:3. also, you want 25fps on the encoding. i'm not positive, but on the 30s any higher than 25 and it started getting choppy.

[jackluo923]

NO.. putting the video to 320x240 wont' stretch the video if you do it correctly. The most important thing is that when you convert, choose the appropriet aspect of ratio, eg. 4:3 or 16:9.

You'll notice difference in video quality when you compare 500kbit/s vs 1500kbit/s. The color reproduction on the latter would be more accurate and there would also be more colors in the video.

What i mean is with 500kbit/s, a video might have poor quality just like a poor quality JPEG picture. 1500kbit/s video definetly looks a lot more smooth, detailed, and original than the 500kbit/s video. If you have enough space for highiest quality video, put it on your zune, if not, adjust your quality.

Using a highier bitrate video will decrease the battery life of the zune. Eg. a 500kbit/s video might last 4 hours while 1.5mbit/s video might only last 3.5 hours. (these numbers are only guestimate, not real figure).