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.

Quick N96 Video Center TIP

One thing I just learned today.

In the New Video Center for N96 you can search for Videos just like you search in other places. By typing any letter or word that may be in the video title.

See below:

This makes navigation through long lists of videos much easier.

Cheers!

New N96 Video Center!

Hello all,

Not many readers are coming here now a days, I guess I haven't been promoting the blog as much. There are so many blogs out there also talking about video for your phones that it's easy for 1 blog to get lost in the pile.

I'll keep posting on the Nokia Discussion Forum and sending people over here when I've already made a post that may help them.

Anyways I wanted to post a quicky about the N96. It seems to me that new videos and reviews are popping out almost every other day. Also the Nokia.com pages seem to have gotten an update. Could it be that this monster video phone is almost ready to hit the shelves?

As some of you know I've been allowed to play with a pre-released version of the N96. And I wanted to share some things about the device.

I LIKE IT!

Coming from an N95 8GB and also having used the N91 8GB for a while, this is the next natural step. It has a whopping 16 GB on board plus I got an 8GB memory card to play with it. So it feels like it will never run out of space...

The build quality seems to be very good, but I'm not a big fan of the battery cover. But once in place it fits well.

The kickstand is a great addition as it makes watching videos a lot easier, although the angle that the screen makes is maybe not the best it beats having to hold the device all the time.

Here are some screenshots of the main menu:





As you can see this is very familiar specially when compared to the N78 , menus. Nothing really worth metioning.

I'll focus on what this blog's about which is the video section. This is where we find the major changes compared to all previous products.

When you open Video Center this is what you get:

On the first section you get the last played video if you hit the center select you get the option to play from beginning or continue where you last stopped the video.

TIP: It's important to note that you continue where you STOP a video and not where you PAUSE a video, so when using Video Center press STOP to save the point where you left the video.

The next section shows how many videos there are in your phone that can be played by Video Center. Note that FLV videos cannot be played from Video Center so they don't show here. A new addition is that it shows how many UN-PLAYED videos there are (i.e. New videos).

TIP: When you transfer many videos to the phone you have to open Video Center and wait for a while (depending on how many videos you loaded) for the videos to appear, if you load 5-10 videos at one go they show up in a few seconds. So keep this in mind if you transfer 20 or more videos at one go.

The next section is Video Feeds. This is the same as previous Video Center. You can subscribe to video feeds. And also add video feeds.


After you add a feed you need to connect to the internet to download the items that can be played from the feed. Keep in mind that some feeds will Stream content while others are Download, meaning that you need to wait for the whole video to download before it plays.




The last section of the main Video Center menu is Video Directory. This launches a Nokia site where you can subscribe to additional video feeds and get more video content.

Now going back to the My Videos view. If you open it you will be greeted by a new way of navigating through your video collection:

All videos: Self Explanatory

Download: Downloaded videos

TV Recordings: Recordings made from the DVB-h Mobile TV application only.

Personal Videos: Videos you took with the phone

Other: All the rest.


Once you select one of the above you will see a list of videos like this:
Notice the red asterisk on videos that have not been played. From here you can press play or use the center rocker to start playback.

TIP: I'm happy to report that thumbnails can either be automatically generated or user loaded like in the old Video Center.

Interesting to note that some of the preloaded videos that this device had where on both QVGA resolution and VGA resolution like in the above picture (Snake for TV out).

I tried to take a snapshot of videos playing but they didn't come out. But anyways, the video quality is the same as the N95 8GB. Some new things though. The light sensor in the N96 makes the screen change brightness to adjust the contiditions, and for the most part does a good job.

You can use the front media keys or the other media keys (if you expose them) to control playback. Auto rotation works well with Video Center, allowing you to move from portrait to landscape by just turning the device.

The codec support is very similar to the N95 8GB with the following additions:

WMV9 at QVGA resolution which allows you to play WMV movies or streaming links if they are QVGA or less.

H264 (MPEG4 AVC) at VGA resolution. So now you can have movies for TV out that look almost like a DVD. YEAH!

One more mention, is that uPNP is still going strong.
I used the home media application with a PC using Simple Center and everything seems to work fine. I can play videos music and images both ways. I may do a post specifically showing this withmy PC and also with the Playstation3 it's just that I'm camera shy. :)

In the next post I'll talk about the new Gallery Application, aka Photos.

Until then, keep on rockin!

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!