Thu 7 Dec 2006
Don’t you know that RealPlayer support DivX codecs too? It was a surprise to me… 
How do we convert our videos to be played in RealPlayer? There are already several blogs discussing about this topic. Here are some of them:
- Video transcoding using ffmpeg from Oren (S60 Blog). Oren discussed how to convert our videos using Linux command line tool, i.e. ffmpeg. The tool, ffmpeg, is available for Windows too.
- Transcoding Video Files for Your Mobile Phone from Martin Sauter. Martin discussed how to use Media Coder to convert our videos to be played on S60 phones.
- Media Coder Mobile Phone HOWTO from Media Coder Wiki.
I won’t repeat the steps that are already covered by those postings. I just want to share which software and settings that I use to convert my videos. Normally, I am using SUPER from eRightSoft. SUPER is a free transcoding software that supports many popular codecs, including DivX, XviD, MPEG-4, H-263, H-264, MP3, AAC, …. However, I am also using Media Coder in some other cases. The screenshot below shows the settings that I use in my SUPER to convert videos to be played in RealPlayer for S60.
Output container: mp4 (MPEG-4) Output video codecs: MPEG-4
- Video scale size: 320 x 240 (most of the latest S60 phones use QVGA resolution, however double check your phone resolution)
- Frame/sec: 15
- Bit rate (kbps): 336 (you may need to lower the bit rate if your video cannot be displayed smoothly on the phone)
Output audio codecs: AAC
- Sampling rate: 22050
- Channels: 2
- Bit rate (kbps): 56
Compatible devices: S60 2nd Edition FP3, 3rd Edition, Nokia N-Series, Nokia E-Series.
Update (02-May-2007): There is a nice article from SoftwareInReview.com, Improving Video Quality on the Nokia E61 Smartphones.
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December 7th, 2006 at 11:28 am
After I found the ffmpeg article at S60 Blogs I’ve been playing around with video converters and settings. I’ll have to try out SUPER, too.
Now, if only there was a video player that would allow me to bookmark the spot where I have to stop watching. You wouldn’t happen to know an application like that?
December 7th, 2006 at 10:12 pm
I am using Total Video Converter, it also can convert flash video (FLV) so you can download videos from YouTube then move it to your mobile!
December 7th, 2006 at 10:14 pm
Please fix my last comment’ HTML code, i can’t posted it with fixed code! and delete this one.
Thanks!
December 7th, 2006 at 11:24 pm
@Sewar: I don’t see a problem with HTML code of your last post. So I didn’t do anything.
December 7th, 2006 at 11:39 pm
@Minna: I don’t think video players that I know so far, i.e. RealPlayer, DivX Player and SmartMovies, support bookmarking. What I have seen is a feature to jump to specific time in SmartMovie.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:42 am
Hi, RealPlayer in S60 devices doesn’t support DivX but there are 3rd party players for that. The RealPlayer in Nokia 770 Tablet supports some flavor of DivX, but not “officially”.
I’ve written about this earlier at http://blogs.s60.com/s60multimedia/2006/07/update_convert_ipod_video_for.html. So AVC might be worth a try also, depending on the device you have.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:43 pm
@Jukka: When I have tried to use DivX codec and MPEG-4 as container, RealPlayer for S60 happily plays the video. It seems that DivX is “unofficially” supported too.
December 22nd, 2006 at 10:26 am
i want to use this softwar for my new n73
and i feel that this softwar is good for it
December 28th, 2006 at 4:56 pm
You can also convert videos to mp4 (for RealPlayer) using the ‘View multimedia’ function of Nokia’s PC Suite - just open any video with the Multimedia Player, then select ‘Save As’ and choose a format.
As always the big limitation with RealPlayer is that it doesn’t have a seek function, so viewing anything longer than a few minutes can be a real pain.
December 28th, 2006 at 5:14 pm
@Infi: Thanks for additional information. You’re right that we can use Nokia Multimedia Player to convert to MP4 format. However, the features of this application is very limited, for example we cannot specify the bitrate, audio quality, etc. Furthermore, I have audio problem with some of my converted videos (the audio is not played “smoothly” in RealPlayer). That’s why I don’t use this application any more.
January 4th, 2007 at 9:20 am
Nice tips, thanks for that
BTW, is there any tutorial about how to convert and play a DVD movie on our phone using SmartMovie, DivX, Real Player etc?
I’ve followed a tutorial from SmartMovie website. It’s about [url=http://www.lonelycatgames.com/index.php?note=smartmovie&chapter=sm_dvd]SmartMovie DVD Guide[/url] but the converting progress really took time (as long as the movie’s time).
I heard that Super is a fast converter.
Thanks, BTW
January 4th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
@rulirahm: I haven’t really compared the speed between SmartMovie and SUPER. However, converting a full DVD usually takes a long time. We need fast machine to do that…
I myself am using laptop too and it takes forever to convert DVD.
April 14th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
Hi Anthony, many converter don\’t has the same screen size with my phone (Nokia N70). The screen size on my N70 is 208 x 176.
So far, only SmartMovie provides this resolution for my phone.
Do I must find and use the screen size that looks closer?
April 14th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
@rulirahm: You are right, some S60 phones have odd aspect ratio, like N70. The thing is videos/movies usually have 4:3 or 16:9 ratio. There are two possible ways.
The first one, as you mentioned use the closest resolution, which could be QVGA (320×240) or CIF (176×144). Secondly
The second one is using another converter, for example MediaCoder (http://mediacoder.sourceforge.net/). It is an open source converter that supports 208×176.
April 14th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
I just finishing converting a DVD movie to my N70 using DVDFab Platinum.
I ticked my own language at the Subpicture.
I choosed “generic.avi.xvid.audiocopy” (maybe for sound format), Bitrate 256 kbps and resolution 304 x 176.
To bad, I can’t hear the sound while playing the converted movie using SmartMovie on my N70. The subtitle not showing up. The video also very bad
Maybe I should use “generic.avi.xvid.mp3″ for my N70? Because, SmartMovie uses MP3 too in the Audio ettings.
Thanks for the MediaCoder. I’ll try it.
To convert a DVD movie is not as easy as VCD. Sometimes, the subtitle won’t showed up, bad screen size and video quality.
April 15th, 2007 at 6:53 am
Anthony,
I downloaded MediaCoder 0.6.0 build 3598. On the Video tab, I choosed Format = XviD and Container = AVI.
But I still got .MP4 when the converter finished, why?
I really like Real Player but it cant Fast Forward/Rewind a movie.
I choosed AVI because I wanna play it using DivX or SmartMovie.
Please help me…
April 26th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
Thanks to everyone for the info here. I have a Nokia E61 and one problem I am having is a lack of synch between my audio and video. Video seems to be running ahead of the audio. This has been the case using the built-in Realplayer app as well as Smartvideo. I have also tried using different codec packs, same thing and I have also tried changing the bit rates for the audio playback. Anyway, has anyone else experienced this problem? Thanks
April 26th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
@Ioakim: I have this experience when using DivX Player. For RealPlayer, I rarely see this problem. Normally, when you reduce the bitrate, it should be okay.
April 16th, 2008 at 1:43 am
Hi, real player can fast forward!!! just press the up on joypad for a longer time
that is on nokia e51
July 23rd, 2008 at 5:34 am
Hi i tried almost everything to convert vidz for my N80. I hope this works !!!:D:D:D
September 28th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Hi there, nice introduction. Though the audio settings you suggest would only be fine when playing through the phone speaker. With headphones or stereo speakers the sound is awful.
For listening with headphones I\’d suggest always 44100 sampling freq. and:
160 kbps for music (or 128 kbps if source is just 128 kbps)
112 kbps for voice (films)
64 kbps for mono voice
To get smooth video playback, I\’d also suggest to always use same setting for frames/sec as the source, even if it\’s 29.97 or 30 fps. Playback on my Samsung i550 is beautiful then, but bitrate should be slightly higher as when using 15 frames/sec. I found 480 kbps to be quite suitable.
February 3rd, 2009 at 10:42 am
thnx alot its important to me
but is it possible to play mp4 video on mu nokia N73???????
February 21st, 2009 at 6:36 am
I tried this converter. Seems to be doing a lot. But clips that I converted are not playing on my new Nokia 5800. Are there supposed to be some different setting for Nokia 5800, which is a S60 5th edition phone.
Thanks.
June 4th, 2009 at 9:36 am
I’ve been using handbrake (linux/windows/osx) which is easy to use (gui), fast (dvd to mp4 in 30 mins) and free!
June 6th, 2009 at 8:11 am
hey, i got nokia n73 music edition i want to run YOUTUBE VIDEOS ON IT,,HOW CAN I PLZ TELL ME DIRECT SOFTWARE,,,I WIL B HIHLY OBILIGED BY UR REPLY..MAN I CANT JUST HEAR AUDIOS ON IT ,, I WANNA ADD VIDEOS TOO.MAN SOO PLZZ, TELL ME MEN,,,