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Michael Dell announced at CES 2007 back in January that Dell would begin offering an XPS 410 “Dell Home Media Suite” that included the ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner which allows high definition (HD) content to be viewed and recorded with Windows Media Center.  After much delays and changes in the XPS 410 configuration and appearance, the ATI TV Wonder is now available on the high end XPS 410 models that also include blu-ray disk drives.

The ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner supports CableCard which allows HD, digital and premium cable TV content to be viewed or recorded without a set-top box.

 Updated 11/14/07 – This post was written for Zune Marketplace 1.0.  The new Zune Marketplace software that was released on 11/13/07 has been completely re-written and these registry entries should not be performed on the new software.

The Zune was designed to only support Windows Media Video (.mwv) files natively on the Zune hardware itself.  However, Microsoft added support for MPEG4 and H.264 file formats through a conversion process from the file’s native format to the Windows Media Video format when the file is synced to the Zune device through the Zune Marketplace software.  The conversion and sync process can be slow but it’s very straight forward and easy.

The problem is Windows Media Center records TV shows in MPEG2 (dvr-ms) video, which by default will not sync with the Zune.

There is a tweak to the registry that will allow the Zune Marketplace software to convert and synchronize drv-ms file types.  This is a big deal because previously third-party software like TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress that I talked about previously in my blog had to be used to convert the video to a Zune supported format.

The following registry changes adds a new media extension, dvr-ms to the list of supported Zune extensions.

Warning:  Backup the registry prior to making any changes.

Copy and paste the following text into a notepad document and rename it to DVR-MS.reg.  Open up the Registry Editor (regedit.exe) and import the file into the registry.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Multimedia\Zune\Extensions\.dvr-ms]
“Extension.Handler”=”WMP.DVR-MSFile”
“MediaType.Icon”=”C:\\Program Files\\Windows Media Player\\wmplayer.exe,-120″
“MediaType.Description”=”Microsoft Recorded TV”
“PerceivedType”=”video”
“Runtime”=dword:00000007
“Permissions”=dword:0000000f
“AlreadyRegistered”=”yes”
“UserApprovedOwning”=”yes”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Zune\Player\Extensions\Descriptions]
“2″=”Video Files (*.asf;*.wm;*.wmv;*.m4v;*.mp4;*.mov;*.dvr-ms)”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Zune\Player\Extensions\Types]
“2″=”*.asf;*.wm;*.wmv;*.wmd;*.m4v;*.mp4;*.mov;*.dvr-ms”

I tested the conversion of a 35 minute TV show recorded with Windows Media Center.  The original file size was 2.1 GB and it converted down to a 410 MB file when saved on the Zune.  It took about 30 minutes or so for the conversion to complete. I’m sure this will vary depending on your computer hardware.

Overall, I would say this is a very good and cheap solution to watch recorded TV shows on a Zune.

One of the coolest features of the Zune is the ability to watch video and when coupled with Windows Media Center content is limitless.

The problem is the Zune currently only supports Windows Media Video (.wmv) at 320×240 resolution, natively. In addition, the Zune does supports MPEG4 (.mp4, .m4v or .mov) and H.264 (.mp4, .m4v or .mov) video formats. These formats must be transcoded by the Zune software to the native format (.wmv) prior to synchronization. Any other video formats (dvr-ms, etc.) have to first be transcoded to a supported video format before it can be used with the Zune software. In many cases the video will have to be transcoded a second time by the Zune software before synchronization.

Windows Media Center produces MPEG2 (dvr-ms) video at 30fps, 8250 Kbs, 720×480 resolution and is currently not supported by the Zune. To get this video to work, it must first be transcoded to one of the supported format mentioned above. There are many utilities on the internet that can do this conversion.

After trying many different programs, I first bought PQ DVD to Zune Video Suite and was pretty pleased with the process to covert my dvr-ms files, mainly because it worked. PQ DVD supports conversion of video to MWV, MPEG4 and H.264 with the ability to change the resolution (640×480 or 320×240), bit rate and frame rate. However, there are a couple short comings that I never got working. First, the batch conversion process stripped the audio from the outputted video making the batch feature next to useless. Second, the MWV 320×240 video format still required the Zune to transcode the video a second time before sync even at a 900kbps bit rate. I found PQ DVD process to be inefficient because of its lack of a working batch process and single video transcode process.

I continued to look around on the internet and found a post at David Caulton blog site, Zunster.com. David works on the Zune Team at Microsoft. He recommended TMPGEnc Xpress in his Video Tools blog entry. So, I downloaded the trial version to give it a try and must say it is an exceptional product. Check out David’s blog and the TMPGEnc Xpress product page for software features. I did cough up the $99.95 price tag and it is well worth it. The TMPGEnx Xpress will produce transcoded video in the proper format to allow the Zune to sync without a second transcode.