VLC HowTo/Play on Zune

This page describes how to make your Video Files playable on a Zune.

Other "how to" pages

To play on this device, the file you copy to it needs to be of the correct format. This format is summarized below:

Video Codec	wmv2 (WMV), wmv3 (WMV)
Audio Codec	wma (wma)
Container	avi (AVI), asf (ASF)
Size	320x240, 320x180

To make the video the correct size, you can edit the preferences, or run vlc from a command prompt.

CLI Example

This is based on the cmd file from iPod. Don't forget to point %outdir% to your target directory. This will handle drag-and-drop batch conversion.

 @REM Remove the quotes from %1 variable for vlc paramters
 @SET infile=%1
 @SET infile=%infile:"=%
 @REM Strip directory paths from %1 ...
 @FOR /F "delims=" %%i in ("%infile%") do SET filename=%%~ni
 @SET outdir=e:\transcodes\
 @SET outfile=%outdir%%filename%.wmv
 "C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" -vvv "%infile%" :sout="#transcode{width=320, canvas-height=240, vcodec=WMV2, vb=768, acodec=WMA2, ab=128, samplerate=44100, channels=2}:standard{access=file,mux=asf,url=%outfile%}" vlc:quit

You have to attach the two last lines, they are separated for presentation purpose

This is a script to batch process all files of a certain type in the folder in is placed in to be compatible with the Zune.

for %%a in (*.mpg) do "C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" -I dummy -vvv "C:\<output_folder>\%%a" :sout="#transcode{width=320, canvas-height=240, vcodec=WMV2, vb=1024, acodec=wma2, ab=128, samplerate=44100, channels=2}:standard{access=file,mux=asf,dst=C:\<output_folder>\%%a.wmv}" vlc:quit

This will look for all .MPG files in a folder. You can change this to search for any type of file.

You need to change <output_folder> and/or the drive in both locations to where the output files will go.

DVD Example

This script will transcode a dvd into a wmv compatible for the zune software.

"C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" -I dummy -vvv --color dvdsimple:d:\ :sout="#transcode{width=320, canvas-height=240, vcodec=WMV2, vb=1024, acodec=wma2, ab=128, samplerate=44100, channels=2}:standard{access=file,mux=asf,dst=C:\<output_folder>\output.wmv}" vlc:quit

You need to change <output_folder> and/or the dvd drive location.

Special Note

As of VLC (0.8.6d) <01/01/2008>, the VLC client cannot transcode correctly to WMV3, the video codec that the Zune player natively requires. This is due to the fact that the new WMV3 codec does not open have an open source counterpart like WMV1/WMV2 does. VLC instead uses the Windows API to transcode and play WMV3 encoded videos. Transcoded videos to WMV3 will be lacking in quality and although sync flawlessly via the Zune software, they will restart the zune device after a few seconds of playback.

Therefore it is recommended/required to transcode into the WMV2 codec, and let the Zune software convert the video(s) into the required WMV3 codec for the Zune device.