Ordered My MPX220

[Guest ColdSoul]

Well I couldn't find a MPX220 locally, so I bought one off of Ebay from a reliable dealer, cost me 300+shipping but it's going to be here tommrow (hopefully), and I got a free 512 PQI Card, and a car charger, as well as all orginal stuff.

I have allready downloaded the programs you guys reccomended before I registered as I knew I was going to be getting a MPX220.

I have:

TMPGEnc

PocketDivXEncoder_0.3.51

DVD Shrink 3.2

#1 DVD Ripper

VirtualDub

And then I also have my nero suite, with Nero Re-code. I was able to use nero suit, to make a mpeg-4 file of a movie, and it's 142 megs but it's not made to fit the MPX screen (it's a smaller than norm size though)

I have seen the tutorials on here, but I was wondering if anyone knew about using Nero Re-Code, and how good the quality would look on the phone? I know on my computer screen it looks bad ;)

I have seen files for 30 min episodes that were very small (althought there were animation, southpark, etc) and only around 15 megs to 40 megs mostly. And were still get quality. Does the fact that it's animation make it look better?

My #1 question is..how can I get my tv shows from my computers tv tuner onto my phone? There huge (500 megs for 30 min) And because there mpeg-4 I can't seem to find anything to convert them into smaller files. All the tools I listed will not work, and nero only uses mpeg-4! Sorry for such a long message, just excited. I plan to go look at the first 48 hours with a smartphone again.. Thanks.

[Guest tendomentis]

Okay, you have two main options to choose from.

(1) You can upgrade to the 3.45 firmware and use the auto-transcoding feature of Windows Media Player 10

(2) Create a custom profile for handling Nero Digital video for your smartphone.

The first option would be the easiest in the end, but if you don't feel confident in reflashing the firmware on your phone, the second option would be best.

The ideal, novice settings for Nero Digital for your smartphone would be as follows:

Video size: 224 (w) x 176 (h)

Video bitrate: 149kbps

Audio Type: LC-AAC

Audio Bitrate: 64kbps

Audio Frequency: 32000hz

On the next screen of Nero Recode, switch OFF Quarter pixel (Qpel), Global Motion Compensation (GMC), and Bi-direction Encoding (B-Frames). Alternately, you can just select the "Quicktime Compatible" check box to set the codec appropriately. I would also select 2-pass encoding as opposed to 1-pass encoding (for better quality, although it does take just a little bit longer to encode).

There you go. That type of file should play just fine in the latest Betaplayer for Smartphones.

NOTE: If you are already a little knowledgeable in video transcoding, you should pass your source video through AviSynth to convert the framerate to 20 FPS before passing your AVS script to Recode for encoding. Depending on your smartphone, MPEG4 video at 20 FPS is actually a little smoother for playback on the limited processor of a smartphone.

Hope that helped. Good luck!

[Guest tendomentis]

I didn't answer your #1 question appropriately though.

The easiest way that I've found to get tv shows from a TV tuner card to a smartphone is:

(1) Have the TV tuner software encode the video normally using an easy compression like MPEG1 (those are the huge files)

(2) Install Windows Media Encoder 9 on the computer and set up an automatic command line script to encode ANY video files in the TV tuner software output directory to WMV.

(3) Have the output directory for the command line encoder automatically synchronize with a directory on the smartphone's memory card.

It MIGHT sound complicated to set up, but once it's set up all you have to worry about is making sure you remember to record your TV shows and remember to let your phone synchronize with your computer the next morning.

I have my command line encoder set up to start up at 1 am so that it transcodes all my tv shows for that day to WMV while I sleep, and my phone synchronizes with my computer all night long so when I wake up, the TV shows are on my phone already.

I hope that helped a little.

Edited June 23, 2005 by tendomentis

[Guest ColdSoul]

Well I allready changed from 1.30 to 1.43 cingular. But my phone is locked, can I put the chinese rom on it? Thanks. I will look into making the nero profile though. Thanks alot.

[Guest tendomentis]

I think that you can flash the 3.45 (or better yet, the new 3.46) Asian firmware to your phone EVEN when it's locked.

But why take the chance.

Call up Cingular customer care, and tell them that you will be travelling to Iran (where they don't have a roaming agreement), and that need to have the phone unlocked so you can use a temporary international pay as you go SIM card while you are in Iran.

According to other people I've heard from who've done this, Cingular should get back to you in a few days with your unlock code for your phone. Or, you could search the web for an MPx220 software unlocker (make sure you use a good one though).

Good luck, and remember to ALWAYS be careful when unlocking your phone (three wrong attempts and the phone is useless) or flashing new firmware (one bad flash and your phone is toast).

[Guest ColdSoul]

Well I flashed my phone with the 3.45 I think it was, but it's hard to tell. I know it was 3.45 or 3.46 gotone though. Worked fine, but I couldn't do anything to change the font to snglish. So I am re-flashing back to 1.43, and will see if anyone knows how to change the language on the gotone rom. Anyone know? Thanks...

BTW I googled it allready, but couldn't seem to find any info.

[Guest tendomentis]

You shouldn't have given up so fast.

To change the language on the phone, press Start-9-1-9-6

this takes you to the language selection box.

After that, just reboot the phone and voila, ENGLISH :)

[Guest ColdSoul]

Well I had planned on looking what i needed to do in the 1.43 version. plus i am downloading 3.46, since I might as well get that once, and save myself registry tweaking everything twice.

I got the english fine on the 3.45, as well as fixed the ExtLCD, etc. But I didn't like it to much. WMP10 isn't that great to me since it wouldn't play the movie I wanted (that was in Nero Digital format) which I thought it would. Betaplayer works just as good to me (as I don't plan on getting WMP10 for my computer to synch up my songs, as I don't get Itune, or anything like that). And no easy bluetooth?

So while I plan on loading up 3.46 to look at it, and see how I like it for a couple of days, etc. But in the end I think I will stick with cingular 1.43. Or am I missing something on the rom that makes it better, and worth entering/tweaking it more than 1.43?

OH.. The camera came out better I think, but the loading screens, and gotone (on the start menu) are annoying. I know they can be removed, I don't know about the gotone, and customer service shortcuts on the start menu though.

[Guest tendomentis]

The GoTone icons can be removed easily enough. For me, the efficiency of WMP10 is that you can FINALLY move backwards and forwards through the music/video that you're viewing.

Another advantage of course is that the playlist you make on your computer for your music will actually transfer to your phone with the music when you synchronize using WMP10 (in betaplayer you still have to go and manually create playlists).

To each his own, though. If the Cingular ROM works out better for what YOU need, all the power to ya.

For myself, I installed the 3.46 and I'm loving it. Since my TV card output solution is in WMV, windows media player is a better video player for me than betaplayer anyway.

[Guest ColdSoul]

Well I re-read what you said about WMP10 moving over the files, and I will check it out. But I would have to upgrade to WMP10 on my computer first :) Guess I got more downloading to do.. (Man I hate dialup). Thanks for the advice, you have been a great help.