Microsoft Zune Player not Compatible with Xbox Live Video

"At launch, you will be able to plug your Zune Player device into your Xbox 360 to stream content, including video, music and pictures via USB cable, to enjoy all your Zune content on the TV in your living room.  While, Microsoft does not have any specific details to provide on future integration scenarios, we have been considering how Zune will integrate more deeply with Xbox and other Microsoft products in order to deliver the best connected entertainment experience to consumers.

Right now the Xbox 360 team is focused on the introduction of downloadable full-length TV and movie content to Xbox Live Marketplace, delivering on their commitment to continually enhance the gaming and entertainment experience for Xbox 360 gamers. Video has always been a key part of the Zune vision and Microsoft is certainly exploring other video scenarios for Zune in the future, but right now there are still amazing opportunities around digital music and the Zune team is focused on taking the music experience to the next level with wireless sharing.”

Kevin C. Tofel from jkOnTheRun worked hard to get that statement from Ross Honey, Senior Director, Media, Content & Partner Strategy Group at Microsoft. We new that we could sync the content from the Zune Player to the Xbox, but thanks to Kevin, now we know that we are not getting the movies from the Live Video Marketplace.

One of the issues is certainly to bring the content to the 320x240 screen resolution of the Zune Player. David from Zunester.com told us that to convert a video from 640x480 to 320x240 should take about real-time (30 minutes for a 30 minutes video). And those numbers are for a PC not an Xbox… We will probably have to wait until they have a better way to transcode the content for the Zune screen.