The Zune HD will support surround sound
By Ben Drawbaugh 
posted Aug 26th 2009 11:47AM
posted Aug 26th 2009 11:47AM
We were just complaining on the Engadget HD podcast that the Zune HD wasn't that HD because it couldn't encode broadcast HD content in the US. Then today a listener chimed in to let us know that the latest version of Microsoft Expression Encoder 3 that ships with Expression Studio 3.0 ($600) includes a few profiles for the Zune HD. While both included profiles output HD, one is specifically intended to be used with the AV Dock and thus is set to output WMA 5.1 surround sound. We did a little digging and while it does appear that Expression Encoder 3 will accept a WTV file containing MPEG2 and AC3 as input, who really wants to pony up $600 to convert their TV shows -- especially when you can use DVRMSToolBox for free. But hey, at least one team at Microsoft gets this whole HD thing.
[Thanks, Enoch!]
Ill take what I can get...
Interesting news. The Zune HD won't support HDTV recorded in Media Center? That's extremely disappointing. However, the Zune HD will redeem itself if Zune's software can transcode my h.264 AVC MKV's to WMVHD. (Snow balls chance in hell?)
I just can't win. Why can't the pirates encode in standard h.264? They seems to be able to do everything else better than legitimate industries. Does anyone know of software that can reliably transcode h.264 AVC MKV's to WMVHD?
xilisoft is what i use
I'm sure it WILL. Maybe at launch it just wont. Dont flip out, Microsoft adds support for a lot of things after the product comes out, juts look at the xbox 360
I just installed ES3 and will have to play around with this feature.
Might be time to screw around with converting MPEG-2+DD-5.1 to WMV+WMA-5.1 again.
I had no idea anyone actually used the Olive theme in windows. Bleh!
So why can't Zune transcode AC3 to wmv 5.1?
From what I understand, Microsoft would have to pay more money to license the AC-3 decoder, or something along those lines. Probably an issue distributing it with the trial version...
They are doing that already with Windows 7. Why not just throw it into Zune as well?
I have no idea what y'all are talking about. Whatever happened to just watching TV?
I love me some DVR as much as the next guy.
However, between the in-show ads that take up half the screen, and the generally piss poor P/AQ of HD programming in the US, I don't really see recordings as being worth the bother of xcoding.
Ok cool, how about supporting OS X? I can't be the only Macophile who would love to replace their iPod with a Zune HD.
Just so you know, Microsofts Dreamspark site allows students to download Expression Studio 3 for free, with a valid license. While not a perfect solution for everybody, that ought to take the pain out of having an easy solution with MS approved converting profile for quite a few people.
NB the Dreamspark edition of Expression ENcoder doesn't have the codecs in for royalty reasons but the version that comes with MSDN subscriptions does. We haven't made any announcements about a standalone version of encoder with full CODEC set at this point. Keep an eye on http://blogs.msdn.com/expressionencoder/ for more info and please send us your feedback.
James Clarke (Expression Encoder team)