Zune hacked for DivX support (sorta)

The Zune has already seen its fair share of hacks in its relatively short lifetime, from running Linux to supporting USB drives, but it seems that there's still plenty of room for improvement, the latest addition being a small but significant tweak that forces the device to play nice with your DivX files. Whipped up by a member of the Zune Scene forums, the hack simply consists of a modification to the Windows registry that allows DivX files to be dragged and dropped into the Zune software. Then, the next time you sync the device, the files are automatically transcoded into the more Zune-friendly WMV format, ready to be viewed at your leisure. The hack also apparently supports Xvid files, albeit with less than optimal results. Not exactly the solution that native DivX support on the player would be, but if you've got a pile of DivX file and nothing else to play 'em on, it looks like it's about the best you're gonna get for the foreseeable future. As always, however, if you're not comfortable messing with your registry, you may want to steer clear this one.

[Rob @ Mar 1st 2007 4:01PM]

Niiiiiiiiiiice.
Bout time we start seeing some worthwhile hacks.

[CBMTTek @ Mar 1st 2007 4:08PM]

Great, now the 6 people that actually bought a Zune can play Divx files.

[mwells @ Mar 2nd 2007 7:22PM]

HILARIOUS, THANKS.

[akintz @ Mar 1st 2007 4:12PM]

IMO, this is something the Zune should have done from the start. They're being converted to WMV anyways, so why couldn't they just make this a default feature instead of having to "turn it on" with a registry key?

[Leo @ Mar 1st 2007 4:20PM]

You don't have to do a reg hack if you don't want to. Just rename the files to .wmv to get it to show up in the library. Then change the extension back to whatever it was and sync away. http://www.zunescene.com/forums/index.php?topic=3564.0

[Doug @ Mar 1st 2007 7:26PM]

Does this mean that I can drag and drop divx files to watch on my 360 as well?

[tim @ Mar 1st 2007 8:20PM]

Zune users can't hack!

Worthwhile hack? How so? It does nothing that can't already be done other ways, wuicker and better.

[Fire Hazard @ Mar 1st 2007 10:21PM]

creative labs' players play divx and xvid. Why would anyone want a zune?

[sracer @ Mar 1st 2007 11:47PM]

I wonder how important this news is to people who have bought a Zune. Anyone who bought one knowing it was wmv-only isn't too concerned about DivX and xViD. Especially when there are fantastic players like the Creative Zen Vision:M that natively support wmv, DivX, xViD, and MPEG.

[DM @ Mar 2nd 2007 1:43AM]

Exactly. No one can argue that Creative Zen Vision:M is the best.

[James @ Mar 2nd 2007 4:59AM]

The title of this article is misleading. "Zune hacked for DivX support" should be more like "Zune software hacked to encode DivX files". "Zune divx support" implies that the zune plays divx files. It still does not. Essentially it used to be "zune only plays wmv files, encode using another program" and now it's "zune only plays wmv files, encode using zune software".

Not really news at all. Why do the editors insist on using interesting but ultimately false titles? Just for the traffic?

[KingJehu @ Mar 2nd 2007 10:29AM]

Hello All,
I'm KingJehu the original author of this hack. Yeah, there's nothing truly amazing about this hack. I only made it to help stop the overflow of the "falsely" advertised "Zune Converters", that are just relabeled ipod converters. They claim to be Zune converters, but only convert to mp4, in which has to be converted AGAIN when you sync it to your Zune. At least, my hack gave non-tech people a free way to do something that should have been standard in the Zune software.
Honestly, I don't even use my own hack. I use WinAVI :-) lol

[Chris D @ Mar 2nd 2007 10:44AM]

Hardly a needed "hack" to say the least. Just use Windows Media Encoder with the settings provided on the Zune website and you're all set. (It converts everything I've thrown at it thus far) http://www.zune.net/en-us/support/howto/start/providecontent.htm . The Zune software tends to be much slower at encoding either way...

[Doug @ Mar 2nd 2007 12:18PM]

Well, in case anyone's wondering, it won't work on a 360, at least with Xvid files. Zune sees the file, the Xbox sees the file, but when you go to play the file it says its unsupported.

[Bak3donh1gh @ Mar 2nd 2007 8:19PM]

This is incredibly old news, seriously already been out for at least two months.

[Chris @ Mar 2nd 2007 9:51PM]

i said screw it long ago i transcoded almost 500gigs worth of my tv shows from divx to wmv hers the funny part beyond getting it to work on the zune, my 360 and just about all the other media players on the market (screw the ipod) there was another benefit, for every season i transcoded i saved about 1/4th - 1/5th the size of the original files... over the course of a season that adds up to about 750mb-1gb saved with minimal to unnoticeable loss, and i'd have had better quality even if i was more patient but my pc is slow and singlecore so i went with wmv8 instead of 9 or vc1 but even with wmv8 its perfect for my SD tv :)

[Paul @ Nov 21st 2007 1:49PM]

When is Zune 2.2 going to get the DiVx treatment?? I can't believe Microsoft left this key feature out the recent updtae, but right now I would just be happy to get auto playlists back

[Stephen @ Apr 17th 2008 4:34PM]

Hey all, remember, another way to play divx on zune is by importing the video into windows movie maker, then publishing the video as a WMV. Then put the finished product in the zune software.