The Media Center Show: I Chat With Ian Dixon [Archive]

Jason Dunn

01-03-2008, 11:00 PM

sbono13

01-11-2008, 11:39 PM

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://thedigitallifestyle.com/cs/blogs/podcast/archive/2008/01/02/the-media-center-show-137-jason-dunn.aspx' target='_blank'>http://thedigitallifestyle.com/cs/blogs/podcast/archive/2008/01/02/the-media-center-show-137-jason-dunn.aspx</a><br /><br /></div><img hspace="10" border="1" align="left" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com//zt/auto/1199390258.usr1.png" alt="" /><em>"Welcome to the first show of 2008, this week Zune MVP Jason Dunn returns to the show to talk about the new generation of Zunes, Zune software and accessories. I have news items and an update on Media Center Health Monitor. Next week I will be at CES in Las Vegas so if your going say hello!"</em><br /><br />What's that? Your New Year's wish for 2008 was to hear my slightly-scratchy Skype-converted voice on a podcast talking about the new Zune for almost an hour? Well have I got a surprise for you! ;-) Ian Dixon once again <a href="http://thedigitallifestyle.com/cs/blogs/podcast/archive/2008/01/02/the-media-center-show-137-jason-dunn.aspx" target="_blank">invited me onto his show</a>, and we had a great time chatting about the new Zunes: what's good, what's bad, what needs to be fixed, what they really nailed. Give it a listen and let me know your thoughts...

I enjoyed your interview on Ian's MediaCenter Show-- here's my take on the DVRMS transcoding issue. With WMP11 and a portable media center device, the solution was simple... background transcoding. If I created an autoplaylist of specific TV shows and set that up to sync to my PMC, then whenever a new episode got recorded, it would be imported into the WMP11 library and then into the TV show autoplaylist. Once the computer CPU was free of work, WMP11 would automatically begin transcoding the TV show in preparation for later syncing. That means that whenever I attached my player, the transcoded file could be transferred immediately. It's a far more elegant solution than making the player support native DVRMS-- a 1 hr show in that format would take nearly ten minutes to just transfer to your zune, and the battery drain for decoding/ playing such a huge file would be prohibitive anyway.

Unfortunately, the current Zune system can't work like this because: 1) no autoplaylists to identify new shows that are intended for syncing and 2) it's not clear if the WMP-free Zune v2 software even supports background transcoding (v1 did, although no official DVRMS support).