More Codecs Coming to the ZuneHD Then Previously Thought?
This morning @norrathreave, decided to browse around the ZuneHD’s player firmware. Nothing too exciting at first, a little MTP transfer protocol here, various PNG image files there. That is until he stumbled upon a few nice little tidbits of code in the firmware.
I found some interesting tidbits in the Zune software: .ogg 4 Content Type audio/ogg * Default audiofile, .avi @ Content Type video/audio/avi * Default videofile & .mov @ Content Type video/audio/mov
There’s also some evidence in there of Divx support. Now let’s be clear. These capabilities may be in the firmware, but you will not be able to use these capabilities until the Zune desktop Software get’s an update to allow these types of files, and we’ve heard nothing from the Zune team on that front as of yet. If I learn anything as always we’ll keep you posted.
To add to what Travis said, the evidence of the Divx support (as opposed to just Xvid which was already announced) is the fact that there’s a listing specifically for file extension .divx in the firmware.
Looking at the player it looks like everything is in place to actually allow the files to play minus the MTP (Media Transfer Protocol) listings required to allow them to be put on the player.
Then again the strings may also be there just to make everything easier once the codecs are actually put on the player. Less coding to do the second time around.
A quick addendum to all this, via Wikipedia explains a bit how MTP works, in particular how it works with the Zune devices.
“…the MTP allows MTP Initiators to identify the specific capabilities of device(s) with respect to file formats and functionality. In particular, MTP Initiators may have to provide passwords and other information to unlock files, or otherwise enable restricted capabilities. Nothing specific of this nature is in the core standard but the possibility is allowed via Vendor extensions. MTPZ, the Zune Extension to MTP specifically denies access to files until authentication has been processed…”