I recently upgraded my cell phone when I discovered that I could get a new Motorola E815 for not much more than a new battery for the old one. The E815 has a rather amazing capacity to take and display still frames and videos on a 2.3” diagonal LCD screen. My wife thinks it is great to be able to show her friends, pictures and videos of the grandkids and family on the cell phone.
How to do it
Cell phones use a highly compressed video file type known as “3GP” or “3GPP” and also “3G2.” I was able to convert Mpeg2 video files directly to 3gp format using a trial version of the ImToo Video converter http://www.imtoo.com/3gp-video-converter.html . The downside of the trial version is that it converts only 2 minutes of the video file but that is enough to evaluate the quality.
The video properties of the converted video file were Frame Size: 176x144, BitRate: 40 kbps, FrameRate: 11, Mono Sound at 8kbps. The display on the cell phone was noticeably blocky and sound stuttered with these properties. Widescreen video displays as horizontally squeezed 4:3 in the cell phone. (The properties of the source clip were 720x480, 8000kbps, 30 fps, Dolby, Lower Field First)
I also tried the free Nokia Multimedia Video Converter http://www.forum.nokia.com/main/0,,034-63,00.html that was able to produce better results but only after I converted the video clips to Mpeg1 in Video Studio. It then was able to produce 3GP files at 176x144, 128 kbps, 15 fps, audio bit rate: 12.2kbps. The cell phone is even able to display widescreen video as wide screen as long as I select Non-square pixels when converting to Mpeg1. BTW, I also converted from Lower Field First Mpeg2 to Frame Based Mpeg1. The largest file that I converted was an Mpeg2 file of 2GB, which squeezed down to about 32 MB.
Getting the video files into the cell phone
The E815 has a socket for a transflash memory card of up to 512 MB. I found a 256 MB card at Circuit City for $40, formatted it in the phone, then plugged it into a Secure Digital USB2 cardreader (GE, $15). Then I was able to copy the 3GP video file to the transflash card using Windows Explorer. (The card looks like another disk.) The E815 formats a directory structure on the transflash card. Videos go in Motorola\Shared\Video, jpeg images at up to 1280x1024 go in Motorola\Shared\Picture and mp3 music files go in Motorola\Shared\Audio.
BTW, when I converted Mpeg2 to mpeg1, I placed the mpeg2 clip in the timeline, selected Share/Create Video/Custom/Options and set the following properties:
MPEG files
24 Bits, 352 x 240, 29.97 fps
Frame-based
(MPEG-1), 4:3
Video data rate: Variable (2000Kbps)
Audio data rate: 160 kbps
MPEG audio layer 2, 48 KHz, Stereo
Try this at home!
John
Playing Home Videos on Cell Phones
Moderator: Ken Berry
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jchunter
Playing Home Videos on Cell Phones
Last edited by jchunter on Tue May 09, 2006 11:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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jchunter
I was not aware of the 3GP Video Studio plugin. At $30, it is priced right up there, considering we can get the entire Video Studio for $70...
BTW, I was able to compare the video quality of the Nokia and ImToo video converters by using a video of a resolution chart that was captured to AVI. The Nokia required the intermediate step of converting to Mpeg1 but after converting to 3GP, it looked FAR better than the ImToo conversion when displayed on the cell phone. (ImToo was hurt by a video bitrate of 40kbps.)
Now, if I could only find a way to motivate Motorola to provide full-LCDscreen viewing by turning the images sideways ... (rotating 90 degrees, so that the picture fills the screen from side to side and top to bottom.)
BTW, I was able to compare the video quality of the Nokia and ImToo video converters by using a video of a resolution chart that was captured to AVI. The Nokia required the intermediate step of converting to Mpeg1 but after converting to 3GP, it looked FAR better than the ImToo conversion when displayed on the cell phone. (ImToo was hurt by a video bitrate of 40kbps.)
Now, if I could only find a way to motivate Motorola to provide full-LCDscreen viewing by turning the images sideways ... (rotating 90 degrees, so that the picture fills the screen from side to side and top to bottom.)
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jchunter
Torsten
Unfortunately, the 90 degree rotate control in VS only rotates the video image - makes it vertical - within the confines of a horizontal 4:3 frame. There are black bars on the left and right.
Also, Motorola/Verizon has taken the lower 1/3 of the LCD screen for some unneccessary controls and softkey labels as well as another band above the video image.
I think the only way is to burn some new code into the PROM that will offer a true "landscape" view mode (holding the cell phone horizontally) that uses all the pixels in the LCD for image display.
John
Unfortunately, the 90 degree rotate control in VS only rotates the video image - makes it vertical - within the confines of a horizontal 4:3 frame. There are black bars on the left and right.
Also, Motorola/Verizon has taken the lower 1/3 of the LCD screen for some unneccessary controls and softkey labels as well as another band above the video image.
I think the only way is to burn some new code into the PROM that will offer a true "landscape" view mode (holding the cell phone horizontally) that uses all the pixels in the LCD for image display.
John