N900 does DIVX and XVID (AVI)

Hi,

It's been a while since I got down to write something.

I've taken a break from doing video since now most of the stuff I watch can be viewed using a web browser. No need to down.load, transcode, upload, etc. I just need a hotspot and my laptop or device and I can watch movies, tv shows, you name it. Also the quality of some of the videos posted has increased greatly. I was watching an old TV series, I have all 170 (or so) episodes in a hard drive but I found a place where I can watch them all streaming, so now I don't copy them or carry them, I just connect and watch.

Now if only the battery life would be 10-15 hours of video streaming or something like that, I would be really happy indeed.

Anyways, I got a chance to play around with an N900, many good things about the device, but after using S60 and the iPhone, the N900 was a bit weird to use, specially the phone. But there are some good news.

The N900 comes with very good AVI support right out of the box!

AVI streaming (like from Megavideo) doesn't work well with the N900 (it's painfully slow), but local playback is superb. I managed to play very good quality (over VGA) videos with no apparent slowdown.

The video controls are extremely limited and touchy, and the screen aspect ratio is not the best to watch video but overall a step in the right direction.

I didn't get to play enough with the N900 to really put it through it's paces regarding video, I did find some problems playing H264 videos converted for the N96 format, and I didn't check if it supported Main Profile, if I have another go I'll try to verify this.

One good thing is that people are developing new stuff for the N900 all the time so you don't have to rely on official releases to fix or expand functionality, just keep checking the Maemo repository or other Maemo sources.

The Ovi Store gets 'tabs'...

The Ovi Store gets 'tabs'...

Posted using ShareThis

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.

Another place to download SUPER encoder easier

Hello my fellow video enthusiasts.

As you know many people swear by SUPER from erightsoft as the best free converter out there. SUPER is based on the FFMPEG command line converter and is very easy to use. See my previous post on how to use SUPER.

I was digging in the web trying to find the FFMPEG latest command line converter, which I found at this link:


http://www.videohelp.com/tools/ffmpeg

And there they have links to several GUI that use the FFMPEG. Including SUPER from erightsoft.

They provide links both to erightsoft and a MIRROR which is easier to download that the original site.

So enjoy!

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/SUPER

While on the topic of Tools. Don't forget to also stop by Sourceforge and download MediaInfo, a must have to get all the details of the video and audio files.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mediainfo/

Have a good weekend!