Smartphone Media Studio 2.0 - Faster DVD to Smartphone Software Released

[Kris Kumar]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.handango.com/affiliate/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?programId=45&affiliateId=690&productId=127693' target='_blank'>http://www.handango.com/affiliate/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?programId=45&affiliateId=690&productId=127693</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Transfer DVDs to Smartphone in less than 40 minutes! This software lets you convert all your media to your smartphone and watch them in great quality, with excellent sound and in full screen landscape mode. A memorycard as small as 128 Mb is enough to store a full length feature film or 100 minutes of home movies and TV-programming. Never a dull moment with video on the go. The new version is 400% faster than other software."</i><br /><br /> <img src="http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/images/Kris-Mar06-makayama-media-studio.jpg" alt="User submitted image" title="User submitted image"/> <br /><br />Makayama Interactive has announced the availability of a new and improved version of their video conversion software aimed at Smartphones. According to the folks at Makayama Interactive, the new version converts the following media types: AVI, MPEG1, DivX, XVID, VOB, ASF to the Smartphone compatible MPEG4 and does that 400% times faster than other products. A trial version is available and the full version can be purchased for $32.95. [Affiliate]

[edgar]

Semi offtopic but related.

To take my Tivo II recordings to my PocketPC and Smartphone - do I need something like this? I do not have Media Center - just XP. I have the older version of this and would upgrade if it does. Some have said use DrDivx

-Edgar

[dh]

It's great how converting DVDs has moved on nicely in the last few years.

I remember having to go through a really long process (from PocketMatrix) to get a DVD onto my PPC;

SmartRipper to remove the copy protection and rip the DVD

DVD2AVI to convert the .vog files, having to set everything up manually

HeadAC3he to convert the audio track

Virtual Dub to convert the files to DivX to play on the PPC, again with tons of settings to make.

It was a major project to encode one movie and would take hours.

With Smartphone Media Studio, it took about 20 minutes for a series of Little Britain to encode and having it on my phone is just too cool!

The only bad news is that this project has shown that the headset that comes with the SP5 really is terrible.

David

[Kris Kumar]

I am not an expert at video conversion but definitely excited about the possibility of using easy to use conversion software. That said, I downloaded the trial version, started the application and received a warning "No decoder installed. You may not be able to play and convert DVD's. Select Help Menu->Online FAQ for explanation." The help menu does not have an item titled "Online FAQ," it has "Errors and FAQ" and "Online Manual", and both of them didn't have an explanation of the error message I am seeing. I am hoping that this is a system specific issue or a user error. Makayama Interactive has been making the video conversion software for quite some time now and they are probably one of the best in the industry. But little install issues is what turns a customer away from the software. I am not trying scare our readers but merely advising them to try out the demo version first.

Now to figure out what the heck is wrong with the install.

[Kris Kumar]

Semi offtopic but related.

To take my Tivo II recordings to my PocketPC and Smartphone - do I need something like this? I do not have Media Center - just XP. I have the older version of this and would upgrade if it does. Some have said use DrDivx


I think you are perfectly on topic. ;-) What is the Tivo II recording format?

I think I should wait for our forum expert on video conversion, (http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8665) optikalsaint to answer the question. :-) Where are you optikalsaint?

[Rocco Augusto]

I am not an expert at video conversion but definitely excited about the possibility of using easy to use conversion software. That said, I downloaded the trial version, started the application and received a warning "No decoder installed. You may not be able to play and convert DVD's. Select Help Menu->Online FAQ for explanation." The help menu does not have an item titled "Online FAQ," it has "Errors and FAQ" and "Online Manual", and both of them didn't have an explanation of the error message I am seeing. I am hoping that this is a system specific issue or a user error. Makayama Interactive has been making the video conversion software for quite some time now and they are probably one of the best in the industry. But little install issues is what turns a customer away from the software. I am not trying scare our readers but merely advising them to try out the demo version first.

Now to figure out what the heck is wrong with the install.

ive run into the decoder problem a lot in the past. an easy fix that works 90% of the time would be to open the movie up with your software based dvd program (powerdvd, etc). onced open then run the program. it should pick the DVD disc up no problem.

[edgar]

Well from what I understand Tivo uses a modified Mpeg2 format - basically mpeg2 with a proprietary DRM.

You can then use their desktop software to create a file for a Windows Media pocket device and/or WMP 10? But from what I've seen on PPCT and elsewhere you then need to down convert to your device. One person said DrDivX, others have said other things.

[edgar]

To partially answer my own question re: tivo->SP/PPC

http://pocketpccentral.net/help/tivo2go_tutorial.html

[Pete Paxton]

Have any of you been able to convert more than 30 minutes of a DVD? I have the full version of this program and when I try to convert a dvd, it only converts around 30 minutes or less. Anyone know what I'm doing wrong? I've emailed their support but haven't received an answer yet.

[dh]

Have any of you been able to convert more than 30 minutes of a DVD? I have the full version of this program and when I try to convert a dvd, it only converts around 30 minutes or less. Anyone know what I'm doing wrong? I've emailed their support but haven't received an answer yet.

I have run into the same issue when encoding files longer than 30 mins. I've sent a support email, but have not heard back so far.

[bryant]

I have the same issue. I dug around a little and figured out that the problem is there are multiple AVI files created from full length movies. The program only converts the first file to the compact format and ignores all the other files. So you end up with a short movie and you can see all the uncoverted files in your c:\VIDEO_TS folder.

I also emailed support about this but haven't gotten an answer back yet.

[makayama]

The issue with some discs transferring only 20 minutes has been solved in version 2.0.1

You only need your e mail address and your order reference number to login and redownload the s oftware

http://www.handango.com/MyLogin.jsp?siteId=1

You also need to re-install the bundled Betaplayer on your s martphone, because this update also has s ound improvements.

best regards,

Vincent | Support
www.makayama.com

[bryant]

Ok the new 2.1.1 (not 2.0.1) fixed the issue with the whole movie not being converted. However, the new player gives me a direct draw error and doesn't display the movie (but the sound works).