" know some of you probably got a Zune for the holidays and there are a lot of great programs now that will encode your videos for a variety of portable media players. I've used many many of these applications in the last year or so, some of them free, some not so free. But when it comes down to it, for the Zune it is hard to beat the free Windows Media Encoder 9. What sets WME apart from many of the other applications I've tried can be seen in the photo [below]; WME will suck up all the cores you want to throw at it, meaning I can encode in a fraction of the time of some of the other products I've used.
Once you get WME installed, run it from Start > Windows Media > Windows Media.
Go ahead and click New Session, then select Custom Session and OK.
This will put you in the Session Properties box, in the "Source from" section, you want to choose File.
Now click that browse button right under it and select the file you want to encode.
Go back to the top and click the "Output" tab, uncheck "Pull from encoder' and select "Encode to file", picking the name and location to put it (probably your [username]\Videos directory).
Now click the Compression tab, change the "Destination" dropdown to "File download (computer playback)", change "Video" dropdown to "DVD quality video (1Mbps VBR)", and change the "Audio" dropdown to "CD quality audio CBR".
If you want to spend video quality on being able to put more videos on your Zune, you can click the edit button to the right of Destination and lower your bit rates, change size to 320x240, and audio to 128k.
Click Apply, click "Start Encoding", then sit back and watch it fly through your video. " By ACE
Just think of this as a more advanced method which will output better result than Ace's method.
Caution: not recommended by novice/beginner/computer illiterate users
Requirements:
-Genuine copy of Windows 2000, Windows Xp or Windows Vista, 32bit or 64bit.
-Must have internet access (preferably highspeed)
-Fairly recent computer.
-min: 1GHz CPU , 128mb ram (32bit) , 512mb ram (64bit)
-preferably multicore cpu to take advantage
-Codecs such as DIVX for more supported formats
Links that you should know:
1) The download links:
a) 32bit
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en
b) 64bit
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en
3) Zune superhighquality
format template from Skydrive
http://cid-2fedd1342ad58911.skydrive...ng%20templates
Steps towards successful installtion:
1) You should know how to do it. Just follow on screen instructions.
How exactly do I encode video? :confused:
1) punch in the shortcut: windows key + R
2) Type in the run window: wmenc.exe (you can skip .exe if you're too lazy)
3) Select Custom Session and click OK! ; ) So far so good? The harder part will be next
4) Find out the exact video properties, eg framerates, resolutions, codecs, formats. You can find these information out by using a program called " Media Info" which can be downloaded
here.
5) Select appropriate zune superhighquality template from the above link or create your own. You can also PM me or ask me on MSN and i'll make a custom template for you. Custom template will usually make the video quality better than a general template.
6) Name your source. The default name is Source 1, but you can change it to the title of your movie for easier identification.
7) Choose "file" as your source.
8) Browse your file. If the file successfully imported, then variables will appear beside Type: and Size:. If it doesn't successfully import, that means you don't have the right codec.
I recommend DIVX codec as it'll decode almost all .avi formats.
FFDshow codec will also work.
DIVX is very good because it supports SSE4 and multithreading.
The media files supported by WME are .asf, .avi, .mpg, .wma. .AVI file is a container containing codecs. These codecs can be .MPEG4(mp4), MPEG2 (DVD), H26x, FLV, etc. As long as you have a codec such as DIVX, you can import it and encode it to .wmv.
If you have the appropriate decoder, it's possible to convert any format to .wmv videos.
9) Do not add more than one source to this program for converting movie from a file. This is not the method to do batch encoding. You'll need to use windows media batch encoder to convert many videos at a time. There is a windows media batch encoder included in the "windows media encoder software development kit".
The WME SDK can be downloaded
here.
10) Click Output Tab. If you have remote storage, please check "push to server" to your own specifications. If you're converting to local harddrive check "Archive to file". Uncheck pull codec from server.
To archive to file, click browse for a place to save. Do not check limit by size and limit by duration. Check Index file if you have lots of videos and want to speed up search function in windows. Leave "Warn on low disk" as default.
11) Click Compression tab. Click Edit. Import a template. CLick Ok
12)Click attributes tab. Fill in Title, Author, Description.
13) Click the square button under the x (close) to scroll. Click advanced tab. Edit the identification name to the title of your movie. The default name is WMEncoderxxxxx.
14) Apply Shortcut: Control + A
15) Apply shorcut: Control + Shift + E
16) Wait. If you want to do something else and your computer is lagging, do the following:
a) Apply shorcut: Control + Alt + Delete
b) Click Process Tab
c) Find WMEnc
d) Right Click WMEnc
e) Click Assign affinity
f) If you have a quadcore computer such as Intel Qxxxx or AMD Phenom 9xxxx, uncheck core 3. Click OK. Find the application you want to use, assign that process's affinity to core 3. Assign Taskmgr.exe affinity also to core 3. Do not close TASKmgr.exe or the taskmanager itself.
17)After encoding, open zune software, find the encoded file, drag and drop.
18) If you want to save space on your harddrive. Make sure your encoded file isn't in one of the zune's monitored folders. Drag and drop music to your zune collection and sync. After you're done syncing, delete the video from your computer. That's all you don't have to forget the device and use it as "guest".
Just incase you didn't get why this method is up to 4 times faster than 99% of other converting method, i'll tell you. Windows Media Encoder is multithreaded and will utilize all of your cpu power. Programs such as Super(r) is single threaded and will only use one of your CPU core for converting. 4x the cores = almost 4 times the speed when you're using windows media encoder.
How to encode super highquality zune video up to 4 times faster!
