This walk-through is a bit out of date already. Even though everything should work as described, ubuntu now supports the zen’s by default. No need for complications. Try to install gnomad and you should be able to use it immediately!

Good luck!

when I plug in my zen, it shows up in my file system, and puts a link to it on my desktop, but when i move files into it, i cannot see them, even though the zen ‘rebuilds’ after i put them into a file.

any help/tips is greatly appreciated !

Well, I hope this “helps” some of you out there.
Allan

Using gnomad2 2.9.2 (on gentoo), the meta-data on video files (.avi) is handled correctly without the need to edit. (Yay). Now, the problem I had was a/v sync issues (like many others). Some have posted solutions, (notably:
http://samantha.carrotware.com/default.aspx?tag=zen16) but most others are Windoze based. I saw reports of many quality issues with .wmf, and didn’t feel like using vmware to encode video. Instead, I decided to use a brute force method and scale the speed of the audio instead. The magic scale factor for xvid .avi files seems to be 1.00015. That is, if you slow down the audio by that amount, the audio stays in sync. I’ve transcoded over a 3 hour film and the audio was still bang on at the end, so that seems to be the correct number.

I used transcode v1.1.0 for all my tests. The original video was either xvid .ogm or .avi, 24 fps. The target resolutions should be either 320×240 (4:3), 320×176 (16:9), or 320×144 (1:2.25). But, in practice I just use zoom (-Z) values to keep the exact same aspect ratio of the input with X=320, then pad with -Y to get Y up to a multiple of 16.

Examples:

For an input .ogm file, 24 fps, 720×320:

ogmdemux -o t in.ogm
lame –decode t-a1.mp3 t.wav
sox t.wav tt.wav speed 1.00015

transcode \
-i t-v1.avi \
-p tt.wav \
-o out.avi \
-Z 320×142 \
-Y 0,0,-2,0 \
-w 975,50 \
-b 192,0,0 \
-E 44100 \
-y xvid,tcaud \
–progress_rate 25

It’s a very similar operation for input .avi files, but instead of demuxing an .ogm, I just use transcode to pull out the .mp3 track.

Lets say the input is 720×384, 24 fps:

transcode -i in.avi -y null,raw -P 1 -m t.mp3
lame –decode t.mp3 t.wav
sox t.wav tt.wav speed 1.00015

transcode \
-i in.avi \
-p tt.wav \
-o out.avi \
-Z 320×172 \
-Y -2,0,-2,0 \
-w 975,50 \
-b 192,0,0 \
-E 44100 \
-y xvid,tcaud \
–progress_rate 25

So, you get good quality video and 192k mp3. (I think the sound is one of the Zen’s best features, so why over compress)? Congratulations, you now have a video that will lose a/v sync in any other known player BUT the Zen. No big deal, it’s not like I would watch a 320×240 video on my monitor anyway. The above method has worked for every single video input I have tried.

Well, I hope this hope some of you out there…
Allan

ps:
For those interested, here is my toolset:

2.6.27-gentoo-r8
media-sound/ogmtools-1.5
with media-libs/libogg-1.1.2 (downgraded from 1.1.3)
media-sound/lame-3.98.2
media-sound/sox-14.2.0
media-video/transcode (1.1.0 installed from tar)
(I imagine just about any version would do).
media-sound/gnomad-2.9.2

I just wanted to let you know how I managed to sync AVI files on my Creative Zen.

After encoding an AVI file using mencoder:

mencoder “$INFILE” -profile xvid_4/3 -o “$OUTFILE”

I copy the file to /media/zen/Video and unmount. Then, I open Gnomad 2 and, on the “Music transfer” tab, I do the following:

1) order the files by CODEC
2) identify the AVI file I just copied to Zen
3) right click on the file
4) click on “Edit selected”
5) modify the “Length” tag
6) click on OK

When you close Gnomad, you will see your AVI file with the correct duration and the Zen controls will work properly.

I suspect Zen ignores the metadata of the video and uses metadata from elsewhere in its file system. Other tools probably copy over the video metadata by calling the Zen APIs. This is just my speculation- a quick look at the Gnomad 2 code would probably give us the answer.

BTW, this is the encoder profile I use to encode AVIs:

[xvid_4/3]
profile-desc=”Xvid encoding for Zen (4:3)”
ovc=xvid=yes
xvidencopts=bitrate=768
vf=expand=:::::4/3,scale=320:240,harddup=yes
#af=resample=44100
#ofps=25
oac=mp3lame=yes
ffourcc=DX50
lameopts=cbr=yes:preset=224

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Demian Lessa