I’m sure most of you are already aware that the Zune came out a few days ago. I had several reservations, however, I went to Walmart to play with one and most of those reservations were absolved, I was very impressed with it. The device has a great feel to it and was a lot smaller than I thought it would be. Most people criticize that it’s not as small as the current 5G iPod with video, but considering the fact that the Zune comes pretty close in size while add built-in wireless and a FM Tuner in its first generation, I think it’s pretty remarkable. I ordered my Zune from Costco and it should be delivered by the time I get home for Thanksgiving.

I was playing around with the software a bit and it doesn’t support Xvid or Divx video codecs, they can’t even be imported into your video library in the Zune software. This means that you will be unable to transcode and send them to the Zune automatically, but don’t worry because there is an easy workaround. I’ve been using Canopus Procoder 2 for awhile now to transcode for video editing purposes. The program proves to be very effective for converting videos for the Zune, allowing you to batch process files, pause transcoding, and even create profiles for reusing. In addition, all the aspect ratios are dealt with correctly with the same profile setting, so it provides pretty efficient one-click process with great quality. Converting an Xvid clip to Windows Media Video (WMV) went at about 0.5x real-time on my desktop (AMD 64 3500+ with 3 GB of RAM). While it’s not the fastest method, the batch process will allow you to transcode a bunch of stuff overnight, so it’s really not that big of a concern.

Click here to download the profile I created and you can import it directly into Canopus. Just extract the file fdst_Zune.cpf to C:\Documents and Settings\User\Application Data\Canopus\ProCoder 2\User Presets and use it will be available from within Canopus.