Zune Thoughts: Certification for Zune Software Encoders?

"There was just one problem. When the software re-compresses the files from MPEG to WMV, it introduced a garbled audio track. It almost drove me crazy trying to figure out what was wrong. After digging into the archives, it turns out this issue has been around for several versions. Their solution? Uninstall WMP11. Not really feasible. Which brings me to the point of this post. I've been thinking. What if we have a "certification" for software encoders? Basically this would be a Designed for Zune program but for programs. You guys think there is any value there? If so, tell me who you think would be likely candidates to reach out to."

Bill's talking about his experience with Snapstream's BeyondTV product - which, by the way, is simply awesome and so much better than Windows Media Center in many ways...but ultimately fails on the ecosystem front because they never introduced their own SnapStream "extenders" and relied on poorly-executing third party companies for that. But I digress. Bill's basic point is that there are a lot of software tools out there that say they'll get your content into the right format on the Zune, but many will fail at it in one way or another. Part of the problem is the ancient and somewhat flaky Windows Media Encoder 9 that most developers are using under the hood, but part of the problem is sloppy programming and not enough testing (I'm not saying that's the problem in SnapStream's case however). What do you think? Would a software certification for the Zune entire you to buy one product over another? Or would you still want to test them yourself and use the best one for your needs?