Video - MS vs. Symbian

[TomB]

I haven't been able to test video on a MS smartphone yet but I have found information on MS compressions and will compare that to my experience on the Symbian Nokia 3650. Using Real Media I would say the quality is just barely marginal on the Nokia and unacceptable on Media Player on the MS Orange. Generally speaking, we are a long way away from any commercial use of video on existing phones. Here are results:

Orange - Media Player 64kbs (third party skinable to 176x132 at 8fps):
160 x 120 x 10 fps

Nokia - Real Player 64kbs
176 x 144 x 12 fps

To sum up, this performance is worse than what was available on the first PDAs (208x160x10fps). I am especially surprised at MS based on what they have done on the PDA side. BTW - I am an old hand at compression but new to cell phones so I would like to hear from others on experiences with video on all media enabled phones.

[TANKERx]

I wouldn't describe video playing on the Orange SPV as bad. In fact, I think it's quite good and bad results are usually down to settings used during the encoding process.

I've had some very good results by fiddling with things like framerate, bitrate and audio quality. Sites like this one, Modaco and Coolsmartphone offer help in this area.

My mate has a 3650 and he has some cool videos on that too. So I think both phones are pretty much equal in terms of quality with the SPV a little nudge ahead because it supports Microsoft's proprietary standard (I can always use my 7650 or 9210 to watch Real media).

Of course, you may have issues with how each phone responds to a phonecall while playing media, but that doesn't really change much for me (deduce from that statement that not many people phone me if you like ;-) )

As for recording videos, don't even think about it on any of the current Microsoft devices. The software exists, but you'd get a better framerate with a Commodore64 doing relatime rendering of ToyStory!

PS. I don't know where you got those figures from but I know that both phones are capable of much more than that.

[TomB]

This @#$! server timed out and I lost my long post again with all my links so I am just going to say 176 x 144 x 12fps is the best you can get without artifacting on a system file. If you are getting better results at 64kb/s you are onto something big! PLEASE share your resources with us!

[DubWireless]

i watch video on the MS Smartphone (Tanager) - using encoded MPEG-1 files and Pocket TV - it's great mainly due to the screen though - transflective and 65k colours so you get great quality - plus the flexibility of large SD cards can fit a lot on

i also use video for the Symbian based P800 and Series 60 in MPEG-4 and 3GPP format and it's fine - although not as impressive as the (Tanager) MS Smartphone due to their use of MMC/MemoryStickDuo memory (current 128MB limit) and non-transflective displays only offering 4k colours

with the new Nokia Series 60 and new version of the SE P800, the colour will go up to 65k - although no details on type of TFT used

[Nikhil]

I would say that the video with MS Media Player does suck.

However, with my new MPx200 (transflective) and PocketMVP, videos look amazing. I encode at 224x(depends on source video), 15fps (one or two are at 24 and play fine), 175-200 kbps Divx 5.05, 32kbps 22,050KHz MP3 Stereo audio. I currently have on my SD card some epsidoes of Will and Grace (from the DVD set), 10-12 trailers, and some 3D animated shorts. They all play flawlessly.

PocketTV, too, is great...just doesn't offer the compression that Divx video does. Performance using it is awesome though.