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Second Generation Zune Design Info & More

By: Grahm Skee on October 3, 2007 3:27 PM

zune-design.jpg

Besides learning that DRM free MP3 will not track you, I have also learned a little more about the Zune design. Inside sources have stated that the back plate of the player will be made from a brushed metal. This will be key for keeping scratches and fingerprints at bay. As for the rest of the body of the player it will be made of a hard glossy scratch resistant plastic as seen on many of the players noting the Creative Zen in particular. This from experience will show smudges and fingerprints but any player with a glossy plastic will. One of the more surprising things was that the Zune screen will be made of glass. So no more need to ridiculously spend $10 on a sticky piece of plastic.

I think the Zune team made a great choice by not leaving out first generation Zune owners; they will be getting all the same full functionality as new Zune owners. There was one small catch that I picked up on is that the first generation will not get native H.264 support. However, H.264 will be easily converted with the Zune software.

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Comments

kevo777 on October 3, 2007 4:29 PM

Interesting about the native H.264 not getting to the first gen device. I've seen several posts indicate the contrary. I guess we'll see in November.

EnzoTen on October 3, 2007 5:45 PM

That information is directly from the mouths of the Zune team, i got a change to speak with them this morning. First gen Zune will not support native H.264

jeebs on October 3, 2007 5:46 PM

pwnd!

Deej on October 3, 2007 10:48 PM

lol, jeebs

Utew on October 4, 2007 9:11 AM

Grahm, I assume this is due to different SOC's being used for the two generations of players? H.264 takes a bit more grunt to decode...

Any word on native decoding of DivX/XviD?.. and also Maximum bitrates and resolutions supported? Whether video-out at higher than 320 x 240 would be good info to know too.

EnzoTen on October 4, 2007 11:01 AM

Yes, i believe that the lack of H.264 on the Zune 30 has to do with hardware architecture.

No there will be no native DivX/XviD support, there may even be difficulty converting it with the Zune software. So you will have to look to third party software. But, they did not rule out the possibility of supporting it in the future.

as far as max bitrates i didnt get a clear answer. But i do know that TV out will be full 640x480 30fps... so i think natively its looking pretty good.

Utew on October 4, 2007 1:16 PM

Thanks for that, Grahm.. Haven't seen that info listed anywhere before now.. It falls in line with what I expected. Overall it seems that MS has done a decently admirable job with the evolution of this nextgen Zune.

Here's hoping you get a sample before the official release date to test .

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