2009 July « Nathan Scott, Left-handed Geek

Archive for July, 2009

I guess the Zune HD will support 5.1 channel audio

Published July 25, 2009 Zune HD Leave a Comment

I was browsing around to answer some questions I had and was reading the Amazon.com’s temporary page for the Zune HD when something in the disclaimer caught my eye:

Amazon.com says 5.1 surround sound - pardon my pathetic attempt at a zoom-in, which has mostly failed since I had to resize the image to fit on my blog. (Hey, I used MS Paint!)

Specifically shown in the image is that the Zune HD will support 5.1 channel (or surround sound) output, although since this text is immediately beside a completely incorrect reference that the Zune HD will also support 1080p (which it won’t), I took it all with a bit of salt and moved on.

…Until a minute ago when I was playing around with the newly-released Expression Encoder 3 trial (since I was curious about what I’m missing) and found a Zune HD-specific profile that basically tells me all the specs I need to know about what the device will handle:

The profile in question is for the Zune HD AV Dock Playback, which is vastly different from the vanilla Zune HD profile, as it has proper 1280×720 output (versus the screen-specific 480×272) and an immensely higher bitrate of 6.1Mbps/12Mbps (average/peak) compared to 1Mbps/1.5Mbps. And on the audio front we’re going from 128Kbps on the vanilla profile to 384Kbps for the AV Dock profile. The sample rate and bits for both are 48KHz and 24-bit…

So the Zune HD will handle both the video and audio excellently, which is all especially useful to know since I’d probably rather save some money and make a profile for the free (but somewhat reliable) Windows Media Encoder.

About this geek

This is the semi-personal* tech blog of Nathan Hamersley, a left-handed geek on a mission.

I live in northeast Ohio, just outside of the Akron/Canton region. I love to discuss technology and share my passion for Microsoft (you could call me a fanboy) and technology.

I am a firm believer of the power and potential of mobile devices like Tablet PC and Origami/UMPC. I've grown more fond of the idea of Netbooks ruling the world, and I eagerly await Windows 7 to bring new (and proper) life to that category of machine. I claim to actually know how to use a computer, and since I grew up using computers and I've been programming since I was 9, I'd say that consuming grains of salt with those claims need not be required.

I specifically enjoy drinking a healthy amount of coffee every day, I admire aviation and would love to get my private pilot's license some day, I use dot-dot-dots way too often (...) and I would use the (‽) interrobang symbol if it were practical. I've been studying the Korean language since early 2004 and thus pretend to actually know what I'm reading or hearing when exposed to that language, I'm a Christian, I have conservative views (less is more, you know), and I sometimes stare mindlessly at objects - in all honesty: who doesn't?

I'm sure there's plenty more weirdness to be told... and I'm sure I've made a spelling mistake or two in the paragraphs above.

* I say semi-personal because I don't fully blog my mind - I stick to the tech stuff here. Eventually I'll get my own domain and hosting and I'll speak more freely there.