Zune HD and MKV files?

[That's_Corporate]

Anyone know a good way to get .mkv files onto the Zune HD?

I've been searching for hours, and all I've come up with is a bunch of $30 software whose trial versions don't even work.

 

[Joe Average]

HandBrake - use it to convert the MKV files to MP4 files. Select the iPhone/iPad preset and you'll end up with near-perfect sized encodes of those files ready for playback on the Zune HD. You can also adjust the bitrate of the audio to suit; 128Kbps is typical, I prefer using 192Kbps for all the audio tracks considering that almost all MKV files have AC3 audio streams, so might as well keep the quality up there.

You can adjust the Video settings from the default Constant Quality setting of RF 20 to Avg Bitrate of about 1000 Kbps - on the Zune HD screen with the massively reduced resolution, 1000Kbps is more than adequate for almost any video material and will result in files that are typically half the size (in terms of megabytes) of the RF 20 Constant Quality setting.

It's free, and it's pretty much the best there is at what it does.