Nokia

[#1]

I've been tinkering with my Nokia E62 for sometime now and have found it to be very handy for my use. A good solid phone with plenty of options for a great price.

One of the features I've recently been playing with is the video playback (Real Player). Using my 2GB mini SD card, and some super software, I've been able to rip movies from my DVD collection and compress them to a useable size and format on my phone (about 150MB for a 2 hour flick). The audio quality is amazing, thanks to the E62's superb loudspeaker.

However, video playback seems to be lacking sorely. Anything above a resolution of 176x144, 12fps, and 144kbps seems to bog down video playback significantly. The audio will play uninterrupted, but it will choke on displaying frames (forget about trying 320x240 - it seems to display about 1 frame every 15 seconds). I've found that this is the case for both MP4 and 3GP formats.

My question - does anyone know the optimal video playback settings this phone is capable of - resolution, fps, and bitrate? By optimal, I mean not too choppy but clear (few artifacts) and large enough to make out (full res?). Or is this simply an issue with Real Player or perhaps codecs?

Now, I did find some specs about FPS for 2D gaming on one review (http://www.mobiletechreview.com/phones/Nokia-E62.htm), but I'm not sure if the same specs would apply to video playback.

Yes, I know it's just a phone and not a portable media player. However, I would think that if the phone can smoothly play a full-res intro every time it's turned on to remind me I am using a Cingular branded phone, it should be able to perform similar with movies or videos.

[#2]

Read through the entire thread here: http://www.howardforums.com/archive/topic/1014463-1.html 
and here: http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=1030957

Let us know how you make out.

[#3]

The method described doesn't work on the E62, I used SUPER with the exact settings described, I get audio but no video. Has anyone successfully transferred video to the E62 with smooth high quality play back, using either the Real player or SmartMovie. Even using the SmartMovie converter the play back is choppy at best. I tried the video on the MiniSD card and fro the phone memory with no difference.

Thanks,

Martin.

[#4]

I tried using the Nokia PC suite converter as described in the Howard forum. The picture was very grainy and choppy. I purchased SmartMovie and converted a movie that was ripped into AVI format by another program. The picture is good but the sound is very low. I did see that the SmartMovie converter has a sound boost setting so I will try upping that. 

[#5]

I have SmartMovie too, the sound is low even when boosted up, and the playback is still choppy. I remember having the same problem with Windows Media Player on my Cingular 2125, on my Cingular device all the choppy playback disappeared when I switched to the TCPMP player which I believe is being released for S60 under a different name. If anyone has any luck making good looking videos play smoothly on the E62 please post any information you have here, i.e. software and settings used.

Thanks,

Martin.

[#6]

I was at the Cingular B&M and the rep gave me a great site to go to for all kind of Symbian stuff.  Its at www.handango.com

SmartMovie was one of the products listed on the site.

Message Edited by TWCCEO on 11-11-200601:07:12 AM

[#7]

If you're having trouble getting video files to play satisfactorily on your E62/E61, try playing them on your PC first to see if it's a processing power problem or something else.  Take the files you've created with Super or another program and play them on your PC using Nokia Multimedia Player, a part of Nokia PC Suite.

If you don't have Nokia PC Suite, get it here: http://www.nokiausa.com/support/pcsuite/main.html

BTW, if you want to see what some people are doing with their E62/E61, search www.youtube.com for E61 or E62.

Message Edited by NJNGuy on 11-11-200610:34:36 AM

[#8]

All the files play fine in the Nokia viewer, on the phone though it's more choppy than a bad Kung Fu movie...

[#9]

Thanks for the replies, everyone. Glad to see I'm not the only one who's dissatisfied with the video quality on the E62.

I did find a forum post over on AllAboutSymbian.com that pointed to a different media player - Pocket DivX. This media player is capable of playing AVI files using the DivX codec and is for S60 v3 devices.

I used Super to convert a movie to an AVI file under the following settings:
320x240, 15fps, 128kbps video; and 22khz, 1 channel, 32kbps audio.

This seemed to playback at optimal quality on the E62. Any higher, and it begins to show signs slow down. Perhaps this is the CPU limitation. However, the one drawback is that the volume level in the movies are quite lower than through Real Player. But, I did find another tool called VirtualDub to bump up AVI volume a bit.

My diagnosis of the E62 - The bundled Real Player is either crippled or uses way too many resources. However the volume level is optimal through Real Player.

Again, thanks for the replies and interest everyone! If anyone finds anything better, let us know!

[#10]

In Super, click on the 'Other Opts' box in the Video section.  A pop-up window will show more options including 'adjust encode volume' and a slider.  Mine has a default value of 121 (within a range of -300 to +300).