Zune HD question: Playing HD quality content and the (possible) lack of storage

I have been putting quite a bit of thought into the upcoming Zune HD lately and cannot help but wonder something. Granted there are plenty of details that have yet to be announced so this may end up not being an issue. Anyway...

I was happy to hear that the Zune HD will be able to play HD quality content via the AV dock but that is leaving me worried about storage capacity issues. This is going on the assumption that the Zune HD is having flash-based storage, which currently is settled (in terms of a reasonable price) at 32GB.

Now, here I go assuming, but if I have a fair amount of music on my Zune HD and want to add an HD (720p) quality movie that is going to take up a decent amount of space.

Basically, it sounds like the HD part of the Zune HD is not going to be as nice as it initially sounded. To begin with you will need the AV dock because you cannot play it directly on the Zune, but more annoying is the storage limitations.

Thoughts...

Comments

[Cruleworld]

Actually you will be able to play back 720P video on the device itself. The processor inside will be able to rescale the content to be displayed on the lower resolution screen. So the part of the article where you say:

"Basically, it sounds like the HD part of the Zune HD is not going to be as nice as it initially sounded. To begin with you will need the AV dock because you cannot play it directly on the Zune, but more annoying is the storage limitations."

That is not true at all, the device will play the same videos it will output through the dock.

[Jaxim]

I think (I hope) that the Zune HD will match the storage capacities of the iPod touch, which is currently set at a max of 64GB.

Hopefully the Microsoft is forward thinking and makes a 128GB flash version too -- as that will probably be the next logical step for the new iPod Touch that I think will be announced this coming Monday.

[Paul VanderKlay]

I hope they have a larger capacity one, like 128gb but I assume they'll do like the Touch and have lower capacity ones also to be competitive on price, again like the Touch. Many will buy it for a capacity they will likely never really use.

[ACE]

Since when did the iPod Touch come in 64GB?

As far as HD content, it's thought that one movie takes up 5GB, but that's simply not true. Once transcoded, a movie could be as small as 500Mb...

[jdkelly156]

I bought a 4 gb Zune a while back and can fit 4 Pretty good sized movies and still have room for the Games pics and music

I also Have A 30 min 720p Video on it to but of course it is Compressed to fit the screen

[LUke]

It will definitely have competive storage capacities with the iTouch, but hopefully, it will have a capacities higher than the iTouch so it can hold the HD movies(In order for it to output HD movies, it will take about 5GB of space, unless they find a good way to compress it as well as uncompress the file). If MS wants to get ahead of the iProducts they have to make it better AND cheaper. The biggest complaints i have heard is that iTouch is sooo expensive for a small storage. If Zune HD gets a 64GB drive for $400, i'm buying for SURE.