Using HeyWatch the user can upload a video from his/her computer or give a link and the service can automatically download it from the web. This works with many Flash Video hosting services like YouTube, Google Video, MySpace etc.

It offers a free account (10 minutes max video length, no size limitation, 10 montly encoding sessions etc) and a paid plan for $4.99 per month (25 minutes max video length, 100 montly encoding sessions etc).

Here is a tutorial to help you with Zune. The problem for now is the Zune Software will transcode again your video, because it really is an mp4 iPod video! After the transcoding however it works fine.

YouTube + HeyWatch + FeedYourZune + Zune tutorial

We will stick to the following scenario: We have a YouTube video and we want to save it in our Zune.

After signing up with HeyWatch (for a free or paid account), the user will be asked what is the default format he wants. Select "Zune" under the devices. If you want to change it in the future you can go to "Account" (top-right) -> "Advanced". These are my settings: 

You can select to be notified by e-mail when your encodings finish. At this point I used FeedYourZune as a PodCasting application. You can use whichever you want or not use at all and do it manually. I preferred FeedYourZune because it is free, simple and has out-of-the-box support for Zune (read a previous article about it here). HeyWatch suggests Juicer, which runs on Windows, Mac and Linux.

Click  "Home" in the HeyWatch interface. You will see a feed icon at the middle-left of the browser. You can drag and drop this in "My Channels" in the FeedYourZune.

       

As you can see a "Hey! Watch : zuneonline's Podcast" appeared. Every encoded video when finished will appear there. Download it with FeedYourZune and it will be added in your Zune Software library also. If the Zune Software has auto-sync enabled, open it and it will load your video to Zune.

So first of all we have to upload our video to HeyWatch. Alternatively we can give only a link and the service will fetch it. Click "Tranfer" in the interface:

For testing purposes I used an edited part of the Bill Gates keynote in CES 2007 where he is talking about Zune. I uploaded it some days earlier on YouTube (you can watch it here, its the first one). The YouTube link for the video is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrxuFHwj7uA . You can set a custom title if you want. After this, click "Discover" (or "Upload" if you send a video from your computer. In this case you don't set a title for the video). A continually updated progress bar appears (below-left). After the transfer finishes the encoding will start (below-right). Maybe you will have to wait if the service is busy:

Lets see what you get if you use FeedYourZune (at the bottom right of the app): 

Click get and the video will be downloaded: 

It should be also in your Zune library:

At this point the video should sync to Zune but there is a minor problem: HeyWatch doesn't support Zune's video format (wmv + wma). The video produced is an mpeg4 video for iPod. The Zune Software will transcode and sync it to Zune but this takes time.  If you select the "WMV format" instead of  "Zune" you will get an asf format (wmv2 + mp3). It is also incompatible with Zune player and the Software will trancode it again.

On the paid plan you can create your own format. I tried to create a Zune compatible one but unfortunately you can't have wmv + wma. So till HeyWatch fully supports Zune you can use it for other video codecs but I wouldn't recommend it for Zune.

Check back for more on this. 

links:
HeyWatch | FeedYourZune | Juicer