Zune “TV Out” Reviewed

3” in good but 42” is great. Yes, you can watch videos and pictures on your Zune, but what makes those features really fun is to be able to send the content to your TV. We were not sure what to expect from the Zune “TV out” but we were happy with what we found.

We first had to hook-up the Zune to the TV. I was not sure if we could easily do that because I did not buy the Zune A/V cable. But luckily, I could make it work (almost) in a second with a standard A/V cable that we normally use for camcorders.

There is no automatic video signal detection in the Zune player. So, you need to go to the main menu, select settings, than display and finally choose the TV out option to send the video signal to your TV. At this point, you Zune screen will be turned off.

There is also a TV out in the base connector of the Zune. This can be use with the docking station available as an accessory. You can bet other accessory makers are going to use that in the future.

I was curious to see how the Zune would use my 42” 16x9 Plasma TV. I can’t flip the TV like I do with the Zune…

 

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First thing first: The menu. The menu is accessible on the TV screen but you lose a lot of space because, like I said, we can’t flip the TV and the output resolution of the “TV out” is the same as the Zune’s screen. For the main menu, this is fine since the actual Zune menu only has 6 items in it. But when scrolling in your music, picture or video lists, the navigation is a lot less obvious. The screen becomes too small and you see only a few songs or pictures at the same time on the screen.

Music: When we finally choose a song, we had there a sweet surprise. The ‘TV out” can take advantage of the screen. Like you can see in the first image, the song information was placed besides the album art instead of under it. This is nice since you can’t scroll when you are at this place in the interface.

Videos and movies: The video compression is so high that when you shoot it on a 42” TV it is very ugly. In fact, it becomes unusable. I would make more sense to upload the video at 640x480 and downscale it to fit the screen resolution of the Zune and shoot the high resolution through the TV out. But it would take much more space on your hard disk…

 

 

 

Pictures: We had much better result with picture viewing. The pictures just looked great on the big screen. It was also a nice surprise to find that the controls on the Zune don’t flip when you are using the TV out. This is great since you are not looking at the Zune screen but at an “unflipable” TV! The thumbnails were also well displayed on the TV screen, permitting the full use of the screen space (row of 6 thumbnails instead of 5 on the Zune screen).

The “TV out” was fun to use for pictures at the same time as you listen to music. We had people at home this past weekend end I was able to drive the Zune music at the same time as I was watching pictures in a slide show on the TV. The family enjoyed that as much as I did.

Comments

[Justin]

Awesome. I have to say, I am liking this Zune more n more by the minute. It syncs up nicely with my windows XP, and "Wifey" is going to love all these extra options for picture viewing n such. What would the ladies do with out all their photo's anyway? 1 other thing, customer service, at least for me was spot-on! Within 2 minutes I was speaking to some chick via the telephone. C'est maginfique!

[CanadianZune]

It's true, the Zune TV output looks ugly in big screen such as 32' and 42'. If you convert video at higher resolution, would it able to play in the Zune?????????????????????????????

[Nyob]

So this is what the 'TV' on my Zune is for?

[Mike]

my zune won't allow me to turn t.v. out on i clicked it and it says To return display to Zune, hold play/ pause to turn Zune off, then press any button to turn it back on then i clicked ok and it does not work???
please help me!!!!!!

[clint]

did you get an answer for this? I'm having the same problem.

clint

[Nancy]

I have the same problem too.

[Debbie]

I am having the same problem also. I called Zune Support and they were unable to help. I am wondering if their new update messed this feature up.

[Wesmeister]

wow this works like a charm. really. i didn't have to shell out an extra $40 for the A/V kit.

also, on HD TVs, the videos DO look terrible. however, on a normal tv, they look great. seriously. use it on a normal tv and it'll be like watching a DVD.

[ss]

I have Zune 30 and i am not able to select the "Tv out" option. its always saying "return display to Zune, hold play/ pause to turn Zune off, then press any button to turn it back on ". nothing happens.. did anybody is successful with this setting?
min got updated with the latest firmware & software ie. zune 3.1

[wwncl143]

the tv out works just fine,
if you use the right cable,
just follow the instructions EXACTLY as displayed on your screen,
GREAT for PHOTOS,
only good for videos if you downloand in highER resoluction, therefore much MORE memory is used.

[joe mcdoe]

OK HERE IS THE FIX:

Insert the 1/8th-inch mini-phone plug into the headphone jack on your Zune.
Insert the red RCA plug in to the yellow jack on your TV. Insert the yellow RCA plug in to the white jack on your TV. Insert the white RCA plug in to the red jack on your TV. Got that? None of the jacks will match the color of the plugs that are in them.
Power on your TV and, if needed, set it to get its signal from the RCA jacks.
Power on your Zune if it is not already on. In the main menu, navigate down to settings → display. In the display settings, shown in Figure 2, set tv out to on. The Zune will remind you about turning your unit off. Click OK.

[Peter B]

Tried the above post with no luck, still unable to change the video output on zune to view on TV. Was able to hear sound but no picture.. and I am using a Zune Cable which I was able to view on TV in the past. Can anyone still help? pbj

[the killer]

i did tv out and it said that you have to push or hold a button or buttons to exit and i didn't read then so can you tell me what they are please cause it's been 3 months ago that it happened and i get bored without it so can anybody tell me what they are?

[Charlie]

I just tried out the fix the one guy explianed about using the red cable in the yellow slot and behold i had it working for those that are having the issue when that message pops up its a reminder if you get stuck here i just hold back and down for about 6 seconds to reset the device then flicking hold on and off again will restart the zune into its original display hope that helps and that fix does indeed work thank you ww

[Victor]

Hey thanks Charlie, I was having the problem with nothing showing up and I had tried all the tvs in my house and I thought my Zune was just screwed up. But then I searched for doing tv out and found this and now it works. Awesome, I'm going to have fun with this!

[Victor]

oh wow, i tried going to the games on tv out and now the screen on the zune is stuck on the texas hold em menu. just great. so now we know not to do games while it's on tv out.