Excited about the new Zune HD? We are! A built-in HD Radio receiver, high-definition (HD) video output capabilities, organic light-emitting diode (OLED) multi-touch screen, Wi-Fi and an Internet browser… Zune HD is the first portable media player to provide all of these technologies on one device.  Oh, and by the way, did we mention that its less than 9 mm thick and only weighs 2.6 ounces!… 🙂

If you don’t already own one, check out http://www.zune.net for more details. If you do own one, then check out these new custom profiles for Windows Live Movie Maker. They let you save movies in a format that’s perfect for the Zune HD.

We also have a new “HD Fullscreen” (4:3 aspect ratio) profile that saves high-resolution (1440×1080) WMV video files. This new profile is ideal for making HD movies without letterboxing. This works great when you’re using photos in your movie that have a 4:3 aspect ratio.

Note: When using the HD Full Screen profile, set your project to use a standard (4:3) aspect ratio to get the most out of this profile. (To set the project aspect ratio in Windows Live Movie Maker, on the View tab, click Aspect ratio, and then click Standard.)

At the end, we’ll provide a link to an article that explains how you can make your own custom profiles to use in Windows Live Movie Maker.

 

New Custom Profiles

We have two custom profiles for you that let you save movies in Movie Maker in a format that works great on the new Zune HD, as well as play from a Zune HD device to an HDTV at 720p resolution².

²Zune HD player screen shows supported 720p HD videos at 480 x 272—not HD resolution. HDTV and Zune HD AV Dock (all sold separately) are required to view video at 720p HD resolution.

The “Zune HD – Device” profile will create a WMV file with a resolution and bitrate that matches the playback characteristics of the Zune HD device (480×272).

Next, the “Zune HD – 720p High Definition” profile is optimized for playing back content directly from the Zune device via the Zune HD AV Dock. It uses a slightly higher bit-rate and more advanced Windows Media codecs (Windows Media Audio 10 Pro & Windows Media Video Advanced Profile) than the standard 720p profile built into Windows Live Movie Maker.

You can download and install these custom profiles (and the custom icon for the Zune profiles) by following these steps.

1. Download this compressed (ZIP) file: http://cid-2f7eb29b42641d59.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/NewProfiles.zip

2. Extract the files to a new folder on your computer. You will see the following files:

ZuneHDNative.prx

ZuneHDNative.ico

ZuneHD720p.prx

ZuneHD720p.ico

HD Fullscreen.prx

3. Copy these files to one of the following locations on your computer (depending on if your computer is running a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows):

– 32-bit version of Windows: C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Photo Gallery\Video Profiles
– 64-bit version of Windows: C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Photo Gallery\Video Profiles

4. Restart Windows Live Movie Maker.

 

Creating Your Own Custom Profiles

If you want to make your own custom profiles to use in Windows Live Movie Maker, see the article Use custom settings to save a movie in Windows Live Movie Maker on the Windows website.

 

– Mike Morrison, Windows Live Movie Maker team

 

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November 3, 2009

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