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    Workaround: Getting CCGAME files on your Zune in Windows 7

So you may have heard by now that Microsoft are currently well on their way to shipping their most anticipated Operating System release yet: Windows 7. And many of us, being a the tech lovers we are, have jumped onto Microsoft’s BETA program, already have pre-release versions of the OS up and running on our home PC’s, and many us even taking the risk to use it as our primary OS! For the most part though its entirely stable, so its not that much of a risk. There is one problem though…

It seems CCGAME files are of no use for us Windows 7 users, as the “XNA Game Studio Package Utility”, which deploys the game to the Zune, instantly crashes. Of course this isn’t helpful for me, so I went looking for a possible fix. And, while it seems that as of yet there is a no fix for this (though the XNA team are aware of the issue), there is a workaround for it.

To start us off, download your CCGAME file to your Desktop itself. Next, we need to open the XNA Game Studio Command Prompt. To do this, Open the Start Menu, click All Programs, expand the Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.0 folder, then expand the Tools folder, then click on XNA Game Studio Command Prompt.

Now, we need to give it some instructions, in this format (Where you replace GAME with the name of CCGAME file saved on your desktop)

xnapack.exe unpack Desktop\GAME.ccgame /run

So, for example, if I were to download PaintZ BETA to my desktop, and would like to install it, I would type in like this:

Now, connect your Zune and turn it on. Make sure the Zune software is closed. Now press enter. Your Zune should enter the XNA Game Studio connection mode. If it fails the first time, don’t worry. Just turn your Zune back on and re-type the instruction into the command prompt. If all goes well, you should end up with something like this:

Congratulations, you’ve now got the game successfully installed on your Zune! Do it again for every game or app you want to install. If you’re still not entirely sure what to do or are getting errors, just ask on this thread in the forums, and we’ll try and help you through!
 Posted by Johnny on 24 Feb 2009 in Article, Exclusive, Games, Guide, XNA

    Games Marketplace Picks for week ending 21 February

So, here’s a new something I’m trying for the weekends, a quick roundup highlighting some of the more interesting games and applications that have hit our Games Marketplace during the past week.

Zune Solitaire
Created by Netrix

Responsible for millions of hours lost of work time on PC’s, the popular single player card game “Solitaire” comes to Zune thanks to coder Netrix, who’s efforts have resulted in a sublime recreation of the game. Featuring well designed graphics, and optimized to help reduce battery consumption, whilst including basic favourite options like 3 card or 1 card draw along with 2 different scoring options, this isn’t just a quick afternoon knock up of the game. A lot of effort was put in, and it really shows. The only think its really missing now is some touch control.

Check it out!

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Zune player with Asian Language support
Created by sectionboy

One of the things the Zune firmware is curiously missing is support for displaying Asian language characters in song info, instead displaying them as square boxes. Of course, for those with large collections of music with these characters, this can be really annoying.

Thankfully, sectionboy has come along with a solution: An XNA based Zune Player! Using a smartly designed GUI, sorting your albums by genre, it natively displays all the Asian font characters. Check out this video to see what its like in action. Of course, performance is better on the Zune 30, but it still works albeit with added slow-down on other models. Its also worth checking out if you just want another cool way of displaying your music on Zune.

Check it out!
 Posted by Johnny on 21 Feb 2009 in Article, Games, Guide, Media, XNA

    VCG: Windows Live Movie Maker Beta Encoding Guide

So, the first major entry into our Video Encoding Guide, I give you a quick and easy 3-step rundown of how to encode your videos suitable for playback in Zune, for both device viewing and TV-Out optimized, using Microsoft’s new Windows Live Movie Maker Beta.

“Say hi to Windows Live Movie Maker. Designed by Microsoft’s Windows Live team as the successor to the popular Windows Movie Maker, it’s aim was to simplify editing and publishing of videos, with a special focus on web publishing. Re-built from the ground up to improve performance and usability, many of the older features from the older Movie Maker’s are currently missing at the moment (though are due back at some point before its finished).

What’s there now however is a very easy to use, if somewhat extremely basic, video editing program. For Zuner’s looking for quite literally the simplest way to convert your videos, look no further. It really is just a 3 step process here. No settings to configure, no confusing menus to deal with. Just some nice big colourful buttons to play with!”

Read Encoding step-by-step for Windows Live Movie Maker…

Look forward to Extensoft’s Free Video Converter’s guide over the weekend, and Expression Encoder 2’s the week after, along with an update to the guide’s front page to make it more user friendly and easier to use, and then I’ll hit it up with the YouTube downloading guide and other tips. Stay tuned!!
 Posted by Johnny on 10 Feb 2009 in Article, Guide, Media, Software

    Video Conversion Guide

Microsoft gave Zune a nice big, bright and reasonably sharp screen, not just to look at pretty album covers whilst playing music, but to comfortably watch videos on the go.

However, they also left the Zune only capable of playing a very limited selection of video formats. For the Zune 30GB, only WMV video’s can be played, whilst all other models (4/8/16/80/120) allow for MP4 videos as well.
Problem being of course, that most videos on the internet don’t come ready for use with Zune in those formats. Whether they be in DIVX, FLV, AVI or others, they’re just not going to work straight on the Zune. Even some WMV and MP4’s won’t go straight onto the Zune if they fall outside the players capabilities. They need to be converted into a Zune friendly format before hand.

Microsoft included a basic converter built into the Zune software, but unfortunately it only accepts a very limited range of formats, and was virtually no configurable options (except whether you want your video big or small). So how are you going to get all your other video’s on your Zune? Never fear, the zoone is here!! Here in this guide we’ll be running through how you can use various different video encoders to get your videos on your Zune!

Okay, so lets note that this is going to be a progressive thing. Right now, its just a basic overview, but at least once a week I’ll update it with a new page, or a new program. Complete encoding walkthroughs to help you get the best mix of quality and file size whether your watching on Zune or TV. We’ll also have a handy guide through common video terminology so you can make your own informed decisions, and when its all done up nicely I’ll get a sweet looking PDF up for download here as well. If you guys have any suggestions, just send em’ through! (Check out the about page for our email)

Visit the Video Conversion Guide!
 Posted by Johnny on 07 Feb 2009 in Article, Guide



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