At her request, got the wife a Sansa Fuze. Now she wants to watch TV episodes on it. I don't know where to begin. My supposition is that either this is so easy nobody has to explain it to anyone except Luddites anymore, or that it's basically illegal.

Do you have to pay for this kind of content if it is already available on Hulu or elsewhere? Does Apple provide free network video content?

Thank you for your kind guidance.

The player supports AVI, MPEG4, WMV, QuickTime, MPEG2, ASF video files that are already on your computer. This means no streaming content unless you have some software that captures streams and saves them locally (which is questionably legal, but since you'd be using it like a dvr...) and also some software to convert the flash video files to something the sansa can handle.

I found this handy tutorial for you: http://gleez.com/board/general/general-discussion/how-put-video-sansa-fuze

Oh, and Apple doesn't provide free network video content. iPhones and iPods don't support Adobe Flash or Microsoft Silverlight, which is what almost all websites use for TV/movie streaming.

Thank you, Peter. I appreciate the guidance. I enjoyed "Anyone who has used such softwares can leave some comments and suggestions"

that tutorial is pretty specific to the software he suggests, which isn't free. Both my software links point to free software.

Speaking of Luddites, I wonder what my kids will be like. I routinely do things like:

1. Use NoScript to find the link to the Flash video player.
2. Extract from that the XML catalog which lists the video steams.
3. Use rtmpdump (which I compiled from source) to retrieve the highest resolution stream provided.
4. Pass that HR Flash Video file through ffmpeg with the A/V codecs set to copy, to preserve the actual H.264 and AAC streams, but put them in a standard MP4 container.
5. Copy the file to my USB stick in the folder VIDEO.
6. Enjoy the show on my PS3.

I didn't need a tutorial to figure out how to do that, I just came up with it myself, and found the tools I needed to do what I wanted. Took me about an hour the first time I tried. My parents wouldn't have a clue about anything I even said above. I'm scared what the future holds, when I have kids who can do things I don't start to understand.

Like what, play Football or Lacrosse?

No one understands lacrosse. Don't lie to me.

Heh, you got me on that one.

I believe someone told me that if you go to videohelp.com and search for a pice of FREE software named Handbrake, you can convert video (using a nice drop down menu of presets for specific players) and port it to your Zune.

Looking around on the Handbrake page will get you a link to several guides to show how the software works.

I just started using handbrake for my son's iPod conversions. I wouldn't be much help to any one, other than to say it works very well.

Handbrake is very slick. I use it often.

Thanks again, guys. With the holidays in full swing, I haven't taken time to work through the process yet, but do appreciate the help. I knew I could count on you, even when I post to the wrong forum.

What I'm really looking for is fresh content. Most of my wife's viewing is fresh TV series rather than RE-viewing movies or anything else, so my initial stumbling block is acquiring (non-DRM?) files efficiently.

D*TV was developing something a few years ago that they have abandoned; I think it was called directv2go. With a Lyra player, it would have allowed transfer of DVR'd content to a portable device. I understand that Dish DOES have something like this, but I'm unwilling to switch providers at this time.

If you go to torrents, you can get every show you desire at about 350 progressive lines for XviD files, and 720p MKV with H.264 and AC3 sound.