Makayama Releases Movie Studio for Zune 1.0

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.makayama.com/dvdtozune.html' target='_blank'>http://www.makayama.com/dvdtozune.html</a><br /><br /></div><em>&quot;Makayama introduces 2 new software packages Makayama Interactive today introduces Movie Studio for Zune&reg; and Mobile TV Center for Zune&reg;. Two innovative software packages that allow Zune-users to watch any movie, video or TV show on the Microsoft Zune device. With Movie Studio for Zune&reg;, only two clicks are needed to put a DVD, (home)video or YouTube content on the Zune. Mobile TV Center for Zune&reg; is a Windows Media Center extension that allows automatic recording, conversion and transfer of TV-shows to the Zune. Movie Studio for Zune&reg; can be installed on a Windows computer, users select a DVD, or any video file from their PC and the the software turns it into a compressed movie file, which will play on the provided video player on the Zune, with stereo sound. Subtitled and foreign language DVDs are also supported. Movie Studio for Zune&reg; not only provides direct DVD-to-Zune transfers, it also support FLV files, the video format used on YouTube. A menu item connects to a website that allows downloading of YouTube content. The software also supports video in numerous other formats (AVI, MPEG, DivX, XVID, VOB, ASF, WMV) on all drives (harddrive, CD, DVD, removable) and encodes it to Zune compatible WMV-files. The software runs on Windows XP/NT/2000/Vista. The online download price is USD 29.95 (EUR 24.95) ex. local tax.&quot;</em><br /><br /><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/zt/2007/makayama-zune-movie-studio-jan4.jpg" alt="" /><br /><br />I've been waiting for some of the reputable companies in the video conversion marketplace to release Zune video conversion software, it it looks like my wait is over: Makayama has been making video conversion software for quite a while now, and I've heard good things about their product (I haven't tried it lately myself). The $29.95 USD price point is reasonable, assuming it does all it says it can - the addition of transcoding YouTube content is very cool as well. There's a <a href="http://www.makayama.com/dvdtozune.html" target="_blank">free trial available</a> - I've asked for a copy, so I'll let you know what I think when I check it out.

[malbert69]

I would love to know how this product handles the Title markings for the WMV files, as Zune uses the information in the Title META field when it lists it's video files.

I am currently using MyTV ToGo to transcode TV shows from my MCE into a Zune compatable WMV file. I use the Pocket PC setting and it works great - except that MyTv ToGo only places the series name in the Title field. This means I have 10 files on my Zune all marked as "30 Rock". How annoying!

[Mexico]

Makayama is really, REALLY bad. One of the very few companies I take the time to warn people about. Buggy software, non-existent customer service.

DVD Catalyst is much better.

I feel bad wasting my first post on them, but people need to know.

Mex

[Jason Dunn]

Makayama is really, REALLY bad. One of the very few companies I take the time to warn people about. Buggy software, non-existent customer service.

Hrm. Well, they sent me a review copy, so I'll take a look and see how it behaves for me. :)

[MarxMarvelous]

One thing to consider in your review: does the app correctly tag movies so that they show up under the "Movies" category on the Zune? (If it is not tagged correctly, it only shows up under "All Videos".)

None of the applications I have tried to date do it correctly (Xilisoft, M2Convert). Finally, I found a freeware program on the Internet that does WM attributes and applied the metadata myself.

[Mexico]

Hrm. Well, they sent me a review copy, so I'll take a look and see how it behaves for me. :)

I honestly wish you good luck, and hope you never need customer support from them. Read some of the feedback they got at places like Handango (e.g., DVD to Pocket PC), and you'll see I'm not alone. Who knows, maybe they fixed their act, but I'm not risking my dough again with them.

Mex

UPDATE: I just went over to Handango to see what kind of reviews they got for their latest version of DVD to Pocket PC. A lot of customer support complaints. Don't expect a refund either. I tried with version 3 after not being able to use it once on 3 different machines. Oh, believe me, I tried.

[vlefur]

I already have for a month now two other DVD to Zune converter (Cucusoft and Wondershare for certain DVD coming from china) and I can say that they are not quite perfect being still at their first releases.
I downloaded this Makayama converter and I can say that it is really still in an early beta phase. I wonder whether the guy who presented this converter knows what he talked about ( ... end of my wait ...).

[Dyvim]

I have to agree with Mexico. Mayakama writes some really bad, buggy software and has awful support. I made the mistake of investing $30 in a copy of DVD2PPC (or whatever it's called) and it was a total bust. This was v1 of the software and I think now they're on v3, but I won't be fooled again. The trial version which encodes 5 minutes of the movie worked fine, but encoding the full-length movie would cause crashes, hangs, produce low-quality video files, etc. Mayakama couldn't help me out, and I never could get my money back from Handango.

I then switched to Dr. DivX and CorePlayer to play the results and am much happier. As a geek I appreciate the fine level of control Dr. DivX gives me over my video files (not everyone may feel the same).

Edit: obviously the Zune can't play DivX files (yet), one of the advantages of PPC.