Request to Nokia for next video device, AVI and DIVX

Hello all.

It's been a while since I posted anything. I can tell you what's been happening.

First of all, new Nokia devices provide better support for Flash videos, which in turn has meant that you can watch videos from a variety of sources in the internet. This means for me that I spend less time converting and uploading, as all I have to do is point to the Flash video site that I want and watch the videos. There are some downsides of course. I need a good WLAN connection. I need to have access to charging (as WLAN streaming of Flash videos eats out your power in a very short time), and I need to be willing to put up with low quality videos.

So here's what I would like to request that we get in the next Nokia video powerhouse (i.e. N96 replacement for this).

1.  Built-in support for AVI and DIVX containers and DIVX and XVID codecs. This is already built into the N900 so getting it to a phone shouldn't be an issue. This is LONG DUE. The baseline should be to support 720x576 (DVD quality) resolution and 3 Mbps, at least.
   
2. Smart support for non standard resolutions. Many videos you find are not in "standard" resolutions like qcif or qvga or nHD. The device should be smart and play the file anyways and scale or crop as necessary.
   
3. Capability to do Video Playlists. Again this is long overdue as this has been requested for a long time. And third party apps like CorePlayer have been able to do this for years
4. Ability to navigate by FOLDER in the Video App. Seems like a no-brainer, yet it has never been included
   
5. Full H264 compatibility. None of that baseline profile only. It should support Main Profile, Simple Profile and Spark versions of H264. 
6. Stereo Microphone for video recording. This was in N93 and N93i and needs to come back. 
   
7.  Auto-Focus in video recording. None of that infinite focus (ok, N86 has this but this needs to come to more models)
   
8. WMV at high resolutions (VGA and beyond) and higher bitrates. WMV only plays QVGA and low bitrates
9. YouTube HD support. Only regular version YouTube are currently supported and the YouTube application available only converts video to QVGA resolution even though I have the N97 or N900
10. Improved audio support. AC3, simulated 5.1 through headphones, SPDIF audio out, this could be done in the 3.5mm connector. A good tie-in accessory like a BOSE or Logitech 5.1 small speaker system would be nice.

 Other things that I would like to see but that are not so critical IMHO are:
-  Get ROXIO or NERO or FFMPEG to do the conversion software, AND include a DVD ripper tool (blueray recommeded). At least get the portable video version to work with these devices. I have many gripes with the Nokia conversion tools, maybe I'll do a post about the new OVI suite conversion.

- HDMI out. The VGA TV-out cable is showing its age already and is bad that it has lower resolution than the screen of the N900.

- Better/return uPNP support. It was very annoying that the N97 and N900 doesn't include uPNP. At least I can connect the USB cable to my PS3 and watch the videos that way...

- Video Store. Why doesn't Nokia sell/rent videos?, seems like a no-brainer. Videos in the OVI store are really underwhelming

- Better picture and video controls (contrast, hue, brightness, sharpness, zoom, frame by frame)

- Better integration with video podcasts and videos taken by the camera. Right now they get all mixed up and they're difficult to navigate.

What do you guys think?, do you agree?, disagree?, did I miss something?

Share your thoughts in the comments. Until next time, see you out there...

Most visited Video tips N97, 5800, N96

Hello again,

A few months ago I posted about the most popular posts

I think for the most part some of those are still valid. But now what you've search the most was for AVI files (DIVX or XVID) and how to play them in the S60 v5

Watching AVI videos in N97 (or 5800)

The second most popular is still the general settings for N96 that also work for 5800 and N97

And the ever popular tip for Music Database problems.

A lot of people also land in the Top page of this blog. If you're one of them and want me to blog about a specific topic, feel free to drop me a comment.

Until next time.

Got me some N97

Hi,

Yesterday I finally got onto the bandwagon of the N97. I've read a lot about it, the ups and downs, got to try it out for myself and finally got one.

At first I thought it was going to be a big change from the 7710 and the N96. And it is and isn't both at the same time.

On the one hand it does most of what the N96 did and even adds a few things, and from the old 7710 back is the touch interface, the handwritting window and a few other tricks. But on the whole it doesn't add a lot more than adding touch to S60. I won't repeat what has been said ad-nauseum. Instead I'll focus on the topic and reason why I got this. Can you guess?

Well to play videos of course.

There's nothing really new or added that I've discovered so far from the N96 features. The old post I made last year about what settings to use still pretty much applies and there are some minor drawbacks even when compared to N96.

To start, some WMV videos that used to play correctly in the N96 seem to stutter in the N97. It could be that the CPU is indexing still some data since I just got the device but it's odd. Other than that videos that are in an aspect ratio of 1.77 (16x9) play great. So my old VGA and QVGA videos will need to be re-encoded to play better in this new screen format.

Also worth nothing is that the best resolution to use in this device will be 640x360 (native resolution) but doing some testing I found the PSP old resolution (368x208) to also work great. Not only is this the correct aspect ratio but for the size of screen it's sharp enough thus saving some CPU power and size.

I also ran into problems playing H264 videos even though they're playing fine in the N96. I had the same problem when moving from the N95 to the N95 8GB then to the N96. There are subtle differences in what they support. This is a big headache, I think with each new model the support will be expanded while keeping compatibility but alas this is not the case.

Some have claimed that H264 support is not there for the initial firmware release, I can't confirm this but I can't get H264 videos to play either. Maybe future releases will fix this as it stated in Forum Nokia that N97 DOES support H264.

TIP: Just like in the N96 and other newer models when you load a lot of content (videos, music, photos), the phone goes into indexing mode in the background. Everything slows down to a crawl and it can take 5 minutes or more to finish indexing everything (loaded 700 songs, 15 videos and 30 photos). Even though there's an option to Refresh Library, this doesn't work like it used to in the N95 or N91, you just have to leave it alone and wait until the contents show up. The device should provide some indication that it's doing this.

TIP: Don't shut off your phone or take out the battery right after loading contents, doing so could corrupt the databases.

Another thing I noticed is that the N97 doesn't support user created thumbnails like the previous models. Even if you load the picture with the video the "Videos and Photos" applications will create their own thumbnails which is a drawback as many of them are just a black screen or whatever is the beginning of the video. If you have several movie trailers you will get a bunch of icons with the green start screen. :(

TIP: When playing video you can stretch, or zoom to fill the screen useful for different aspect ratios.

TIP: You can use the rocker key to control playback. Center select acts as Play/Pause. Up and Down is FFW/REW and left and right control the volume.

Well this is the first couple of days of using it, hopefully with more time with it I will learn some workarounds to get more performance out of the video playback. Also I'm waiting for CorePlayer and DIVX to release their versions for this phone.

Until next time, keep on reading.

3GP, MP4, M4A, WMA, AVI, DIVX and codecs

Hello again,

As the title suggests today I'm going to write a little bit about different Video file formats and what's the relationship between the file format (also called container) and the Video codecs. Finally I'll make some comments about some differences and what file formats and codec combos are better to use in Nokia phones and what are some common drawbacks.

Some of this information or for more details check out my Older post on How to become a better video editor

File Formats

The first thing is that we need to understand that the file container or wrapper, also known as the file format is what the name implies, just a wrapper, a structure or vessel where the content is going to be contained.

A file with extension MP4 can contain many different things inside. It could be an audio file, a video file, audio/video, or something else. The audio or the video can be encoded in many different ways and also using different codecs. Like xVid, MPEG-4, MPEG-4 AAC, eAAC+, H263, H264, to name a few.

The same goes for M4A or AVI or other file extensions. In fact M4A containers can have also video and they will work in Nokia devices, and MP4 can contain MPEG-4 audio files and they will play in the Music Player.

Some file extensions are commonly used only with one format of codec, but this is just that. It's commonly used. But you can put other things inside it and it's still a valid file and will work with several programs. Some extensions have changed it's use throughout time.

3GP format and later 3G2 were selected as the file container for MMS files and other telephony video formats as part of the 3GPP Standards. In general these files usually contained H263 encoded video, but more and more they are containing MPEG-4 and H264 video.

In the 90's .AVI files where usually containing uncompressed video like IndeoVideo, YUV2 or MSvideo. Now most AVI files contain xVid or Divx coded videos. But I still have some old encoders that will encode raw video into AVI.

This is one of the problems most people have when they try to play videos on their portable devices. They see an MP4 extension and assume that the video is MPEG-4 and that it must play in the device because it supports MP4. This is far from true. You need to know what exactly is inside that MP4 wrapper to know if it will play.

Some proprietary codecs have proprietary extensions so they are a bit easier sometimes. Still the contents could be different depending on the codec version used. See Video Codecs. Some examples:

• DIVX coded videos are in .divx file format
• Windows Video 8/9 videos are in .WMV file format
• Quicktime format videos are in .MOV file format
• MacroMediaFlash videos are in .FLV file format
• RealVideo videos are in .RM format
  

Video Codecs and their relationship to File types

Ok so now that we know a bit more about file formats and containers, let's talk a bit about codecs. There are a number of video codecs. Each codec usually has also several versions or levels or a combination of both. E.G. H264 can be Baseline or Main Profile and then there are 4-8 levels within each profile.

The most common formats for videos I've come across are:

AVI files
These files usually contain divx or xvid coded videos. Although as mentioned before sometimes they contain uncompressed video. These files don't play out of the box in Nokia devices, but you can install Divx mobile player, Smartmovie or CorePlayer to use them.

MOV files
This is a proprietary format from Apple. They usually contain Quicktime coded files although more and more files I've seen contain MPEG-4 or H264 (MPEG-4 AVC) coded videos. These only play in the iPhone. You need to change the container or re-encode them into a suitable format.
Some MOV files have 480p, 720p or 1080p video resolutions. Also called High Def.

WMV files
This is a Microsoft proprietary format that has been licensed by many vendors including Nokia. The most recent Nseries devices starting from the N78 and N96 can play WMV videos if they are WMV8 or WMV9 and the resolution is less than QVGA (320x240). Newer models may support higher resolutions but I haven't tested that.
Some WMV files contain AC3 audio (5.1 surrund sound) and can contain HD content (very high resolution video). This is great to watch in a nice flatscreen, but require conversion to be able to watch them on the phones, and some encoders still can't handle AC3 correctly.

FLV files
MacroMedia flash has existed for many years. It was used for video and animations since the early 90's and came of age with the internet. But it wasn't until Google Video and YouTube started using this low quality file types that FLV really took off. Before FLV streaming became the norm most sites were using RealPlayer or ASF (windows format) to stream video over the internet.

Now it seems that even in the Microsoft video webpages they use FLV format to stream video content. The advantages of FLV is that it's very economical in bandwidth and storage the downside is that it's not very high quality. Now they have the HQ option in YouTube but then you lose the advantage of the low bandwidth. Another quirk is that usually you can't download these videos they're for streaming. You need some special or extra software to save the stream locally so you can re-encode them or transfer them to your device.

FLV videos will play on most new Nseries devices, but high quality FLVs may stutter quite a lot as they need a lot of CPU to render. Still, the best way to watch them is in the browser, but you can also side-load them and play them from the File Manager.

RM Files
RM or RMVB files contail RealVideo coded videos although they can contain audio only as well. There are many versions of the RealVideo codec and not all of them are supported properly in Nokia devices, so it's a bit of a gamble if you have an RM file. It may or may not play. Also the resolution needs to be a specific one otherwise it may not play 320x144 may play but 320x140 may not. I haven't figured out what the pattern is. It may be that it needs to be divisble by 16 or something like that.
The main advantage for these files is when you are using a streaming server since in a single file you can have support for multiple downlink speeds, so that the watching experience is good even if your broadband is not very fast.

MP4, 3GP, 3G2, M4V files
I put all of these file types together because they can pretty much be used indistinctibly. Also these files are surprisingly not very common even though a lot of mobile phones use these file types. Even some people have trouble playing them back specially the 3GP and 3G2 file types.

Most of these files can contain a number of different things and as such they are sometimes the trickiest to figure out why they don't play correctly. In many instances I end up re-encoding them again into the same file type but with a different codec or settings.

Mp4 seems to be the one that is sticking more and more as a Video format, but what's inside seems to vary a lot. Many of the MP4 files I've come across contain MPEG-4 or MPEG-4 AVC H264. But some contain xVid.

I actually found it odd that although most people think of MP3 as a music file format but even though MP4 can also contain music files, people think more of M4A as the MPEG-4 file format. I guess it's all thanks to iTunes, but it's funny to me nonetheless.

For a while I used 3GP for H263 coded files and 3G2 for MPEG-4 videos, it's convenient as this file format is supported by all 3G phones (or should be as it's part of the 3G standards). But like everything else, some combinations are not supported. Is should also be noted that 3GP, 3gpp can also be used for music files. Older 3GP files will have AMR or WB-AMR audio which does play in most phones but may not play in some PC video players.

Some differences in Codecs

Ok now I explained the different common file types and the codecs they usually contain. Now I'll talk about some differences.

One thing we need to keep in mind is that different codecs perform different types of compression. A codec is really a compression algorithm. The most effective codec then is the one that will look better with the lowest bitrate. In other words, the benefit of a "better" codec is that you will get better results with less information (bits, bitrate, file size). This is very important, because at some point, if you use too much bitrate you will lose the benefits of the codec and the resulting video quality and file size is the same regardless of the codec.

Newer codecs are not "better" than older codecs in terms of video quality.

Newer codecs are better in terms of compression, so they yield better results at lower bitrates.

As an example. If you encode a video in QVGA resolution at 2.0 Mbps into an MPEG-4 codec and also in an H264 codec also at 2Mbps the resulting videos will be almost exactly the same in terms of file size and video quality. The same could be said for xvid. So at this bitrate the benefits of H264 are lost, there is no better quality to be gained by adding more information (bits). But if you do the same video (QVGA) but do it at 128 kbps in both MPEG-4 and H264, then you WILL see a clear difference.

The same could be said for H263, MPEG-2 or MPEG-1. At low bitrates the vides done in these codecs will not be as good as the results using xvid, divx or H264.

BUT, if you crank the bitrate high enough you will get the same size and quality from any video codec.

This makes sense. After all DVD are encoded using MPEG-1 or 2 and blueray are mostly MPEG-4 AVC to get the size down for HD resolutions, but the first bluray discs used MPEG-2 video.

I hope I didn't confuse you a lot with this.

So what's the difference?

"Best" codec/file combos and common drawbacks
The difference of the different codecs/file formats for ME (IMHO) is how easy it is to move them between my different devices. PC-PS3-Phone-PSP-Digital Frame

With now most phones supporting very high bitrates of 1.5 to 2 Mbps videos in MPEG-4 and H264, the quality issue is pretty much done. That is until we move to larger resolution screens beyond the VGA range.

I tend to like AVI files containing xvid or divx codec if I have them already in this format. This is by far the most supported format I've seen. It seems to be everywhere. There are a ton of devices that support "DIVX files" in AVI format.

If I'm encoding a DVD or other source video for use in my devices I first make a master copy in DIVX at the same resolution and high bitrate to use as the basis for further encoding. This has served me well since my days with the 7710 and Ngage. As devices supported higher resolution I could re-encode the master high rez copy into new formats. Then I encode into whatever is the best for my device. In the case of the N96 the best seems to be MPEG-4 (also because Nokia only supports baseline H264 which is not supported by other devices sometimes). I use the MP4 file format as this seems to be the most commonly used.

RealVideo formats seem to be disapearing fast IMHO, I don't see it as often. FLV is king for streaming but not so for local playback. WMV is so-so. Mostly I've been using it for my home movies because I had already a bunch of home videos in WMV format, but I never convert videos into WMV if I can help it. Also the fact that only QVGA max resolution is supported in N96 is a drawback. Haven't heard if N97 brings WMV support for higher rez.

H263 in the 3GP file format is fairly common as many basic phones only record into 3GP using this codec. But more and more are using MP4/MPEG-4 combination to record, so it may be that in time it will go the way of the .qt files or .rv or .nim

And if you don't know what those file formats are then you have nothing to worry about, you're still young and have a long life in front of you. ;-)

Until next time I hope you enjoyed this.

PS: All these comments are IMHO. If you have a different perspective then good for you!

Making home movies

Even though I think not so many peeps use their phones for this, it's doable and feasible to get a decent quality home movie using nothing else than your phone and a PC.

In some older N93 and N95 it was possible to create the videos wholly within the phone. But although it was technically feasible it was a slow and painful process to achieve any sort of good results. But just to cover all the basics I'll do a quick tips guide to using the on-board video editor. I believe some video editing is possible in the N79 and newer devices as well.

First things first. Let's look at some of the tools you will need to create your home movies.

1. Camera (of course you need the camera) you could use a phone with video recording capabilities but you can also use your digital camcorder or some other digital video recording device.

2. Connection to PC. I won't cover Mac since Mac's are SOOO easy to use that you don't need some guy writing a guide how to create home movies ;-)
You need a USB cable, Card Reader or BT adapter to transfer the video clips from the phone (or other camera) to your PC.

3. Conversion software. Most freeware software don't handle H264 or MPEG4. Some examples are Windows Movie Maker, Adobe Elements and Nero Platinum. So you first need to change the format to something else. I use a number of programs to convert like SUPER, but for a fast and easy conversion from MP4 to AVI, I use MP4Cam2AVI which is a very handy freeware program that allows you to batch convert files and is super fast as it doesn't re-encode but rather changes the container information.

4. Movie Creation program. There are a number of programs out there to add titles, SFX, transitions, cut, splice, slow, speed up, etc. your videos to create professional level results at a budget price. One option is Windows Movie Maker (but it's sometimes a pain to use as it crashes often for me). Nero Platnium is another option and it's not very expensive. Roxio Movie Maker is also cheap. On the more expensive side you have Adobe Elements, and other Adobe products. And a whole lot more out there. Shop around and read reviews if you are interested. I'll focus on Windows Movie Maker and Nero products as I'm more familiar with those.

Keep in mind that it's not my intention to teach you how to create the picture but merely the added things that using a phone will add to the process. Still feel free to contact me if you want to ask a question or share your experience.
Ok so where do you start.

Well, first you need to create a few clips for your movie.

TIP: If you're going to load your video to youtube or you don't want to upload a large video I recommend you use QVGA maximum. Use the EMAIL high quality setting or the middle setting of quality. If you are intending on creating DVDs then by all means use the highest quality.

TIP: If available, use a recording light or reflectors to illuminate the subject of your video. Indoor or low light recording quality of phones is not that great.

Don't worry about creating several videos or one longer one. The only difference is that short/small videos you can edit faster and handle much faster than a very large video file.

Move the videos to the PC.

Once you have the videos you need for your movie it's time to load them into a PC. Use whatever method you like. The point is to have the files in a directory in your PC. Use USB Mass storage or a card reader to copy the videos.

NOTE: If you have an N93 and N95 and you want to edit the movie in the device then don't move it to the PC.

I recommend you create a specific directory for your movie so that you can work with your videos there.

Convert the videos from MP4 to AVI

Run MP4Cam2AVI and then batch convert your videos. See my example.

TIP: If your movie creation program supports H264/MPEG4 then this step shouldn't be necessary. So only do this if your program doesn't recognize MP4 videos.


At the end of the process you should have an identical set of videos but in AVI format. And with that we are done with this step!

Start building your movie. I'll use Windows Movie Maker for my example.



Add video clips.


Add transitions. Add a title. Add credits or end things (fade in, fade out). You can be really creative here. You can trim the videos, split them, edit the transition effects, add titles to each video clip, add music or your own narration, etc.

TIP: Save your project often. If Movie Maker hangs then you don't need to start over. And for me it hangs quite often so be warned.

TIP: Experiment with the transitions, video effects and other things. You can watch the effect in the right hand side video window, to see how it's all coming together. Remember you can change the timing of transitions as well as color, text, and background.

If you use NERO products, or ROXIO DVD creator or other video programs they will have similar things to offer.

Once you are happy with your video it's time to save it. In the case of Windows Movie Maker it will save it in a WMA format which is ok as this plays on newer Nseries products. Use the setting for Broadband 512 kbps or another one that has QVGA resolution.

Other programs will allow you to save into MPEG-2, MPEG-4 or AVI. Just keep in mind where you are going to use the video. If you're creating a DVD then MPEG-2 or AVI is probably ok.

Great. So now you have a home movie that is much better and you can show to your friends and family. Load onto your device, into OVI or YouTube or other video service. Or if you prefer create a DVD to play in any DVD player.

To create a DVD you will need a DVD creation software. I've used NERO products to do this and it's very good. You can create chapters, titles, add menu structure and music and many other things.

Some people have even used their phones and a video editing software to create short movies or documentaries and post them on the web or even in some "film festivals". So unleash your inner Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Peter Jackson or Tarantino and call your shots.

Ok, so this video is not going to win any prizes but I did it in under 10 minutes, so you can get good results by investing time into it.

Most useful Posts

EDITED (May 29th, 2009)

Hello again,

Today I'm starting a new phase in my career and I need to decide if I'll continue with this blog or what I'll do with it. Hence the new poll about what to post about next.

Just as a summary and for people that have just found this blog this is the list of links to the most useful topics as seen by the number of comments made or the times I've pointed people to them when they had problems.

Enjoy!

Using ImToo 3GP encoder

Recommended Settings for N96

Using SUPER encoder

This has to be the most popular one.

Music Database problems.

Although this is but one solution there's lots of discussion about this. Seems to be a topic worth expanding on.

Will this video plan on my phone?

Lots of good information there.

uPNP, Media Center, Home Media

How to use this basically.

How to best benefit from this blog?

If you've found this blog it probably means that you are looking for some information on how to encode or convert videos to play on Nokia phones.

So what are the basic posts you should check out?, where to start?, here are some tips.

If you want information on what settings to use for N96 then go HERE

If you want to know how to use SUPER check this post

If you want to find out the detailed information of your video clip either for your records or to ask for my help check this post. Make sure you also check the other POST

If what you want is to know what are the basic video capabilities of Nseries products check HERE

And if you want an in-depth description of how to change a widescreen to full screen then READ THIS.

TIP: You can also check all the posts by either subscribing to the RSS feed.

TIP: You can check out the Blog Archive in the right-hand side below the YouTube logo.

Enjoy!

Good document with details about video for Nokia devices

HERE you find it.

It's a PDF file from Forum Nokia with more details about how to create video content for Nokia devices.

ENJOY!

My recommended settings for N96 video

Hello again.

On this occasion I want to share with all my list of recommended settings for encoding video to be used in N96.

While I've done a lot of testing, please note that this is just my recommendation, and this was tested with a firmware that may be different to what you have in your hands so things may have changed.

I'll keep using the N96 and if I find any significant changes I'll post an updated version. I've also done efforts to cross check my findings with what's available from official sources so I feel pretty confident that these settings are accurate.

As always, if you have comments or questions, feel free to add them here. I'll do my best to review, post and answer any questions you may have. Even if the answer is "I don't know" ;)

Ok on to the settings:

For playback in N96 screen

Codec: MPEG-4 Part 10 AVC/H264 Baseline Profile

Container: .mp4

Resolution: QVGA 320x240

Aspect Ratio: 4:3 (1.3333)

Framerate: As per source but limit is 29.97

Bitrate: 600 kbps (but can go as high as 1 Mbps but there's little gain in quality)

Audio: mpeg4aac, 96 kbps @ 44.1 KHz sample rate (can use 48 KHz if source is 48 KHz)

For use with TV-out

Codec: MPEG-4 Part 10 AVC/H264 Baseline Profile

Container: .mp4

Resolution: VGA 640x480

Aspect Ratio: 4:3 (1.3333)

Bitrate: 1 Mbps

Framerate: As per source up to 29.97.

Audio: mpeg4aac, 96 kbps @ 44.1 KHz sample rate (can use 48 KHz if source is 48 KHz)

Alternatively you can use MPEG-4 Part 2 SP/H263 Simple profile as the codec and use bitrates of 3 Mbps, this creates much bigger files but it's an alternative to H264/AVC.

Keep in mind that TV-out will change your video somewhat as the video will need to streched/cropped to PAL or NTSC and also the frame rate will change to comply with TV standards.

For WMV videos

Resolution: CIF (352x288) or QVGA (320x240). I haven't tested but QCIF (176x144) may also work.

Codec: WMV9 VC-1 SP/ MP.

Bitrate/Framerate: Depends on the profile you use. VC1 Simple profile: low level (QCIF 15fps), medium level (QVGA 24fps / CIF 15fps 384 kbps, VC1 Main profile, low level (CIF 30fps 2Mbps)

Audio part will be WMA (WMA2 part of WMV9) Use 32 kbps. and sample rate as per source material, you can of course go higher depending on the video bitrate. But for most cases I rather sacrifice audio quality than video since there's not a lot of headroom.

For Flash Lite Videos

If you are already converting your videos to FLV you can also use them on the N96 but these videos don't show up in the Video Manager or Photos applications so you need to access them through the File Manager.

Here are the specs:

Codec: Sorenson Spark or h263 or VP6

Resolution: QVGA 320x240

Bitrate: 192 kbps (for video part)

Framerate: 25 fps for h263 15 fps for Sorenson or VP6

Audio: MP3 (Mpeg1 Layer 3) variable bitrate

Combined bitrate should be around 350 kbps (in my tests if you start going to around 500kbps then the playback becomes choppy).

Other Codecs and Containers

There are other possible codecs to use, like Realvideo (Rm or Rmvb) but after doing some testing I don't recommend using Real as the performance is much restricted. I guess the main reason for still keeping real (keeping it real), ;) is mainly for video streaming. So CIF and QVGA are the main resolutions, only 15 or 25 fps is supported and the bitrate needs to be quite low (256 kbps).

You can also use .3GP and .3G2 containers for MPEG-4 codecs, as well as using .M4V container. Just keep in mind that iTunes uses H264 MAIN profile in their .m4v videos so they will NOT play in N96.

WMV can also have the extension .ASX or .ASF usually for streaming links. I had had some problems if the wmv or asf file contains more than 1 video or audio stream. The end result being that it doesn't play or plays partially.

MPEG-4 Part 10 also includes the "normal" mpeg-4 (non AVC) and several Levels are supported. Baseline profile Levels 1, 1b, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2. So it's an alternative as well.

Thumbnails and other issues to keep in mind

You can still create you personalized thumbnails to be displayed in video center following my previous tips. HERE
The file attribute “hidden” should be turned on for the thumbnail. The best way to do this is to set the hidden attribute when you create the images on a Windows PC (right mouse click on file in File Explorer -> Properties ->Hidden). Or use YBrowser to achieve the same effect.

• TIP: Some things to keep in mind is that when you load a lot of video clips, video center may not show them right away, you may need to leave it open for a few minutes before the library is refreshed. While this is happening your videos may not play correctly as the N96 is furiously searching for all those videos and creating thumbnails.
• TIP: If you just inserted a Memory Card with lots of videos, they may not appear right away in the Video Center, you have to let the program find the videos. It's very important that you either a) DO NOT remove the memory card while Video Center is searching for videos or b) Use the"Remove F: Memory card" option from the power button. Failure to do so may cause corruption to the Memory card
  

Also, the Photos application also shows videos stored in your device. So you can choose whether to use Photos or Video Center.

• TIP: Remember to save your videos in the VIDEOS or MY VIDEOS folders in the Mass Memory (E:) or the memory card (F:)

You can use either the front media keys or the landscape (hidden) media keys to control the videos. When the landscape media keys are exposed, i.e. Slide is down, then the front media keys will be inactive.

I'm starting to get too Lazy... Check this out!

It had been a while since I posted.

It's also been a while since I visited Symbian-Freak site, since I usually just go to the boards there.

In the Home Page there's a link to a thread about video encoding for phones. It's quite good if you want information on how to use MediaCoder

So head down there and check it out!

This is the link

http://www.symbian-freak.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6977

Until next time.

Cheers everyone!

Video file properties

Very quickly.

In a previous post I showed how you can read the Video Properties in different tools. HERE

Someone sent me a link to the source tool that provides the information for SUPER. The tool is called MediaInfo and can be found HERE.

I just started using it, it's very simple and powerful and should help when trying to figure out why a certain video doesn't play in X or Y device.

Cheers!

ImTOO 3GP encoder and H264

Since my early posts I've been advising people that I'm a user of
ImToo encoding solutions. I bought these encoders because they were cheap and got good feedback from other users of these solutions. Also because I wanted something to make the conversion from DVD to portable format easier.

I ended up buying the bundle of ImToo 3GP Suite that includes both the DVD to 3GP Encoder and the 3GP Encoder (Above).

First I recommend you download the software and try it before buying. Usually ImToo tools allow you to encode short videos or encode up to 5 minutes. This is great as it will allow you to try out the different format and settings until you feel comfortable that this is what you want.

Since I started using ImToo there's been a flood of encoders in the web. Mostly due to the popularity of the iPod video and other PMP devices. Back in 2002 when I started creating videos for mobile phones there were not a lot of options and the Nokia Multimedia Converter was one of the only ones available to do 3GP and h263. Real also had RealProducer which is a good software if you want to use realvideo format. But I've stuck with them since it works for me and if ImToo doesn't work with something then I can always use SUPER.

Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge

Some things to keep in mind...

• The bitrate, frame rate and resolution you set will only work if it's a combination that's supported by your phone. For more information see here.
• The ZOOM option in Imtoo encoders work in conjunction with the Aspect setting in the Video section of the settings. I tend to use the ZOOM option and not play around with the Aspect ratio setting. But you may want to try to use either.
• Further, zoom only works reliably if the source video doesn't have black bars as part of the picture frame. If they do then the black bars will be part of the video. See here.
• 3GP, 3GPP2, MP4 and MPEG-4 AVC all work in Nseries devices but you got to have the right settings.
• If using h264 codec don't forget to expand the Expert section of the settings and set the coder to 0 (zero).
• DVDs are all created differently. The same settings that work for 1 dvd will cause audio synch problems with another dvd or a jumpy picture.
• This is also due to the fact that some DVDs are encoded at 23.987 fps others at 29.97 fps others at 24 fps
• Some dvds have interlaced frames others have progressive frames.
• Some dvds have AC3 audio some have ProLogic2 or other audio formats. Some have only PCM audio.
• Remember to select the right Language track and right subtitle if you want to have those enabled
• TIP: Try first to encode one chapter of the dvd and try it out, if something is wrong right click on the chapter and play around with the settings. Email Imtoo support to get some more tips on how to solve specific problems they usually respond within a day or two.
• If it doesn't work sometimes it's not the fault of the encoder or the device or you, but a combination of different factors. No matter how hard you try sometimes some dvds are just difficult to find the correct settings to encode.
  
• Other DVD encoders may be more robust/smarter than Imtoo. So again shop around, try different solutions and if you find something that totally blows aways Imtoo please share in the comments so I can also try it! :)
• Have fun!, that's what it's all about.
  

Easter Eggs

Just in time, have a good Easter (if you celebrate it).

Also, I would like to talk about a topic that matches this time of year very good.
Easter Eggs in DVDs.

Easter Eggs are some "hidden" things in the DVD discs. Some funny outtakes, additional scenes, interviews, or other things.

In cases where these features are video you can also encode them for use in your Nseries.

Some things you may need:

• Have a DVD that has these hidden contents (there are some websites that keep track of these easter eggs or hidden features)
  
• Identify the Track number and Chapter number where these video clips are hidden
• Have a DVD software that allows you to read the Track and Chapter numbers like Imtoo DVD to 3GP.
• Encode using working settings

Using this method I extracted the clips from the Extended editions of the LOTR trilogy, Outtakes from the Star Wars DVDs, etc.

If this information is not enough to allow you to do this. Leave a comment and I'll update the post with more details.

Until next time,

May the force be with you!

How to check your video properties?

Many of us have problems converting videos. It's not straightforward. And when you ask for my help I always ask about your video. You should always be able to read what type of video you are dealing with before you start questioning why it doesn't work.

In many cases once you read your video properties it will become quite obvious why it doesn't play. As long as you know that compatible resolutions are:

sub-QCIF
QCIF
CIF
QVGA
VGA

So take these tips as an important step into figuring out what you need to convert in order to be able to use the video in your phone.

These are some useful ways to see the video file information in different players or applications.

Quicktime

RealPlayer


ImToo 3GP encoder


SUPER

DIVX player


Windows Media Player 11



Let me know if this post was useful. Since I use these tools all the time...

Until next time. Keep on watching...

Will this video play on my Nxx?

Sometimes the question is: why doesn't this video play?

Well to learn more see my old post HERE

_________________

I know some of you will not so here are some more generic tips.

These are the generic baselines for most Nseries devices. Some models support more, but as a general guide.
Basic compatibility

• RealVideo 8,9 and 10 (note that there is no support for Realvideo 7! or 11). Video size of QCIF, QVGA , CIF. Bitrate of 128 Kbps.
• h263 video in 3GP or 3G2 or MP4 container at 128 kbps (narrow band audio AMR or AAC)
• MPEG-4 in a 3GP, 3G2, MP4 or M4V container at 256 kbps (aac audio mono or stereo)

And that's it!. Then you start getting into the category that some will play and some will not.
Newer Nseries:

• Support VGA MPEG-4
  
• (N95, N81, N82, etc) support H264 in an MP4 or M4V container. BUT, and this is key, only the Baseline profile of H264 is supported.

iPod, iPhone and PSP also support H264 but they support different versions of the codec. Including Main Profile, Sorenson H264, Spark or other levels of the BaseLine profile not supported by Nseries phones.

This is why many of the H264 videos don't play on Nseries devices even if they are in a supported resolution and bitrate.

As of today N95, N95 8GB, N93 and others support H264 at QVGA resolution. At VGA it will stutter or not play regardless of the bitrate or frame rate.

A note on quality, different codecs and framerate.

In general, the quality of a video is dictated by the resolution, bitrate and the frame rate. But these parameters also control the size of the video.

Plus if you use MPEG-4 and AVC (H264) the resolution has to be divisible by 16, otherwise you waste a lot of space (resulting file is needlessly large). So if you use a resolution of 640x480 this is better than 640x396 since 396 is not a factor of 16. 320x160 is better than say 320x150. 320x144 is OK though.

OK, this is basic good information but I want better quality than the general compatible quality!

In this case it starts to get more complicated as videos you encode may ONLY work on your device and may not work on other devices. For the best settings IMHO see my post about using SUPER.

What if I want to play AVI files or XVID?

This is also a common question. First thing is you need to get a player for your device that can play this codec.
I recommend you get DIVX mobile Player (see links at the bottom of my blog)

If you want a better experience and don't mind spending some money get CorePlayer or Smartmovie.

Anyway. What ever the player you get there will be some limitations due to the smaller CPU in the phone than your PC. So as a rule of thumb in my experience videos that are smaller than VGA tend to play almost correctly. Videos that are VGA or greater will drop many frames. Again QVGA, CIF videos play correctly almost 100% of the time. Also VCD resolution plays ok (480x480) for the most part. But once you get higher than this you start running into problems.

TIP: Using TV out is great because TV-out resolution is VGA instead of the internal display 's QVGA. So you see more pixels with TV-out.

TIP: When you use TV-out the CPU has more to do, so a video that plays marginally good in the phone may not play or play worse when using TV-out.

I welcome your comments. Tell your buddies about the blog, email the posts. Let's get more people into enjoying Video in their Nseries devices!

Using SUPER encoder with Nseries

Hello fellow Nokia users.

I want to spend some time with this post, I began working on it some time ago. The main idea is to provide a "fail safe" mode and setting to encode both VGA and QVGA resolution movies that will play in your Nseries device.

Before you begin check out my list of installed software. My setup

If you just want to know some settings that work for most Nseries devices then click on the pictures below. Just make SUPER settings look like this:

h264 settings
mpeg4 settings

If you want the more detailed walkthrough keep reading.

One thing that's important before you begin is to get codecs into your computer. The most important one that I recommend is DIVX codec since this one will allow you to use AVI files (xvid or divx) as DIRECT SHOW files. HERE

Direct Show is important as this enables the coder software to manipulate the stream (I don't think we need the technical details). Basically allows you to do advanced editing functions like rotating, cropping, flipping, mirror, etc.

You also need a player. Quicktime is quick and easy (pun intended). So go get it HERE
I know you could use the Nokia provided Multimedia player but I find Quicktime much more convenient and better.

Another good addition would be FFDSHOW mpeg4 codec pack but this is not necessary strictly speaking and it's a bit more complicated so I'll leave this one alone unless you feel comfortable messing around with advanced settings.

Ok once you have installed the codecs, now it's time to get the SUPER encoder. This is where some people have their first problem, they can't find the download link or it doesn't work. This is the direct link:

Click on the picture

If you have problems the help provided is pretty self explanatory. Use IE, turn on Java scripts, clear the cache and don't connect through a proxy. When ready hit the link "Start Downloading Super".

You should be able to save the file SUPERSetup.exe. Run the file and install SUPER. I believe it connects to the internet while installing, I've done my own checking and nothing malicious, but if you feel unsure about it, just don't install it.

With me so far?, ok, now an icon will be created in your desktop. Now you can start using SUPER. When you start the program it will connect to the internet and check that you have the latest version.

Once it starts you are at the main screen which can be rather intimidating at first. But once you know what the things are then it's actually not that hard. Once you set it once you pretty much don't need to touch it again as it will save the last settings you used to encode.


Ok now let me go over the main controls that are at the top numbered 1,2 and 3.

The first one is the Container. This refers to the extension or MIME type that the file will be output to. Like .MP4, .3G2, .3GP, .AVI.

For Nseries devices you can select mp4 or 3gp. Other settings MAY work but I haven't experimented with all of them. So feel free to try on your own time and share your results.

Now let's move to the next setting. The Codec.

The codec list shown will depend on the Container you selected in the previous screen. So for MP4 that would be the list of codecs. For Nseries devices you can use MPEG-4, H264 or H263.

Well now, it's time to select the audio codec. In this case it's simple. Just leave the AAC as the codec.

The next thing I want to touch on is DIRECT SHOW button.


When you will use an input file (the video you want to transcode), that's supported by Windows, then it's a Directshow file. Basically if Windows Media Player can play the video then you can select Directshow. There are some limitations though and it may not work 100% but that's the theory.

Why is this importat?, well as I mentioned before if you have Directshow then you can do more advance editing on the file like these options (press the Button):


So, you can join files to create looped version (multiple copies end-end) slow down playback, speed it up. flip, rotate, change colors, change to B&W, include fade in or fade out, add the clip info or a watermark.

Just remember that you should do just 1 effect per transcode. This is important, if you select multiple things then it will fail. Also Remember to press the RST (reset) buttons to CLEAR your settings after you are done, otherwise the next video you transcode will use this same settings.

If the video you are converting is NOT Directshow. Like a Quicktime movie or an FLV, then don't select DirectShow!

So now we have selected the Container, Codec, Audio and DirectShow settings (if applicable). It's time to select the video output details. Click on picture for bigger picture.

It's pretty self explanatory. I just want to point your attention to the H264 button. In some posts I've warned people about the different H264 types and why some H264 files don't play. Well hit the button.
And a new window will open (you can move the window location). Then here it's very important to select BaseLine. Otherwise the video will not play.
Now let's continue with the settings. The next area you see is the AUDIO section of SUPER:

As you can see you can select here the sample rate, number of channels, bitrate and Language track (for DVD video files but I've never used this feature). I recommend not going overboard with the Sampling frequency and bitrate. From my experience 64 or 96 kbps produce decent quality audio for most applications and sampling at 48 or 44.1 Khz is ok.

Now that we've looked at the main settings. Let's encode a file.
The first thing you need to do is right click on the SUPER window to bring up the menu.
Then from here you might want to change the output destination folder so that you manage where the encoded files end up (by default they end up in c:\program files\erightsoft\super\output).
Now select Add Multimedia Files and select the files you want to convert.
Once you select a file it should look something like this:
The files will be listed there with a checkbox next to it. The file has to be checked to be converted. Please check that it's checked.
From here you can also play the file using the Play button, or Encode.


Then sit and wait.
Encoding times vary greatly depending on the settings, the input file type, your CPU and memory and what you're doing. But on average expect the transcoding to take 1.5-2 times what the file is. So for a 2 hour movie expect 3-4 hours. conversion time.

Ok, congratulations!, you've successfully transcoded a video. Now it's time to put it into your phone.

Easiest way:

1. Connect the USB cable to phone
2. Select File Transfer or Data Tranfer or Mass Storage as USB mode
3. Once Windows completes adding the device open the File Explorer in your PC and locate the new Drive that represents your phone
4. 
5. Copy the video file to this drive under My Videos.
6. If you don't know how to copy a file in Windows then maybe video conversion is too advanced for you.

If you want to add a thumbnail to your video. Get a picture that represents your video. Or capture a frame from you video (SnagIt or similar program can be used) and then follow my instrauctions as here.

TIP: Remember to always stop your USB devices before unplugging them from your PC to avoid data corruption. Press this button:

This is not a be all, end all guide to using SUPER but I hope that with this information you are able to use it for video convertion into Nseries devices. For more detailed instructions and features go to the Erightsoft pages HERE

I welcome your comments.

Until next time,

Cheers!

Nice Video Preview of N96 from AAS

All About Symbian has posted a cool video preview of the Nokia N96, if you haven't seen it I've posted a link here for your enjoyment.

Cheers!

Multimedia from All About Symbian

Add thumbnail to Video Center

How to add thumbnails to Video Center.



Since the N95 we were introduced to video Center, a Nokia application that allows you to access Video feeds, do syndication (video podcasts) and also download and manage videos. If you've never seen it, it looks like this:


Some things to remember is that you need to set-up how Video Center access the internet for most of the things to work.

But I'll talk about Video Center in some future post, for now I want to show you how you can put your own thumbnails for the videos shown in the Video Center (My Videos) folder.

It's quite simple.

1. Get your video
2. Get a picture file for your video. JPEG, PNG or GIF (but no animated gif)
3. Make the picture into a thumbnail of 320x240 or 240x320 in size. Size is important, you can go even lower rez. the actual picture that's displayed in the screen is only about 70 pixels tall. The only thing important is to make it in an aspect ratio of 4:3 (1.33333). Other aspect ratios WILL work but the icon will show smaller*.
   
4. Rename the picture EXACTLY like your video file. Pay attention to the letter case as it has to match. (Video.mp4 and video.jpg will not work, it has to be Video.jpg)
   
5. Now that you have the picture and the video file, copy it to the My Videos folder on your Nokia Nseries.
   

On newer software (N95 v20, N82 v11), Video Center will try to create a thumbnail on its own, but if you loaded your pictures as described above it will use the picture instead of the thumbnail it creates. In fact if you are experiencing problems of video center closing by itself it may be because it cannot create a thumbnail. If this is happening load a picture to each video file you have as described above and the problem will be fixed.

* If you don't know how to edit a picture file then leave a comment. Windows comes already with a couple of simple tools to edit pictures and there are 1000s in the web.