Ahh it feels good when you beat your head against something for a long time and finally research and troubleshooting-thinking solves the problem.
The problem, as described in the previous post, was that whenever I steered the phone to show me the files that were available on the microSD card, the thing would simply give the lovely "Not Allowed" message. No way to access the movies, pix, whatever I had on my card. NOTE that this was not the regular, predictable "Not allowed" message that accessing the microSD would give you if you had just recently inserted the thing but not followed it with a turn-on-and-off. This problem was different -- it was persistent and couldn't be resolved at all. Simply put, it sucked. My 1 gig microSD was the source of most of the fun on my T809.
About the fix: It's pretty simple. The general principle in troubleshooting things that don't respond to most of the simpler solutions eventually becomes: RESET the damn thing. However, I found that the normal reset command was not strong enough. To give the full history, My first attempt at this "reset" philosophy was to initialize the memory chip (after backing up its contents to my computer through a microSD card reader.) Well, this was not possible because the Format command for the card is actually inside the part of the phone's commands that was out of reach because of the "not allowed" command. My second "Reset" attempt was to use the phone's built-in "reset" command that is in the settings section, under Reset Settings. Well, that reset all of the cosmetic customizations that I had set on the phone -- key tones, wallpaper, but the "not allowed" problem continued. Argh.
The ultimate answer: I did a google search on the net, and found a user forum on HowardForums (one of the excellent phone enthusiast websites along with phonescoop and mobiledia) where a guy told someone else of a FULL RESET command on the phone. Simply put, this worked. Here is what to do: (1) Back up your data, pictures, movies, etc., by using the samsung PC Studio software that comes with the phone (or is available from samsung's site.) (2) issue the full reset command, which is to enter the following code on the phone's keypad: *2767*3855# and be very patient while it resets the phone. It tells you to NOT turn off the phone or do anything until a full minute after it turns itself back on. So, obey that instruction and wait like five minutes or something. and lastly, (3) insert your microSD (if it wasn't already in the phone) and then of course turn the phone off and on again.)
Problem solved! you can visit your chip's files. Thank god. I bet that full reset command would fix the annoying "Bluetooth Activate" error problem... but it's a pretty drastic solution when that problem will just fix itself automatically after a couple days anyway.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Saturday, January 20, 2007
When T809 gets impish
If there's one thing I'd like to get across in the messages in this blog, it's that the T809 (yes, in other words, the D820) is the one of the very best damn cell phones out there. It blows the mind long after purchase with its insane crisp screen, sharp features, design, etc., and when you start doing cool stuff with ringtones, movies or tv episodes, etc., it goes beyond cool.
However, this post will be about when the thing misbehaves. Leaving aside the initial large disappointment that Samsung's packaged Windows software does not supply Outlook syncing for the T809 (while it does for the other phones that the software works with-- this problem I addressed, less-than-ideally, by buying Data Pilot, described in an earlier post), I can point to two damn annoying bugs that the thing has been zapping me with recently. Both I have mentioned obliquely in previous posts below, but neither one have I really crabbed about.
First bad behavior: [NOTE: This problem was solved in the January 21 blog entry.] We have always known that when you insert a microSD card, it accepts it nicely but then if you try to navigate to the files on the chip (for instance by using one of my more common key shortcuts, Menu-6-1-6) then it yells out a "Not Allowed" error message. To get it to be actually accessible, you need to turn the phone off and then on again. OK, that's not a big deal at all. BUT, recently, I've been just getting the Not Allowed EVERY time I navigate to the files on the SD card. Say What??? I can't watch any movies etc. that I have on the chip until I fix this. I've turned it off, on again, removed and reinserted -- no luck. Maybe this weekend I will sit down with it. HOWEVER, I have found that the files and file structure are still there on the memory card -- I put the card in my computer's card reader, loaded it up, and there they all are. I even took some movies off of the chip to see if it was just too close to totally full. No luck.
If I have no more luck in getting it to open up through the phone, I will (1) copy all of its contents to my computer, and then (2) re-initialize the chip, I recall there's a command for that somewhere on the phone. Then copy back. My guess is that that relatively dire step may do the trick. Hmmm. [See January 21 Blog Entry for the problem's solution.]
Second bad behavior -- The occasional error that happens when you try to turn on bluetooth. What is that error message that comes on again? something ungrammatical like "Bluetooth Activate Error." As I've said earlier, this one is simply erratic, but it does SOMEHOW seem to rear its head when the phone has dipped into a relatively l0w-battery period. However, unlike what I've read elsewhere on the net, the problem isn't solved by just totally charging the phone and then turning it off and on. It just has to arrive back at its sanity on its own, perhaps when you have waited 2 days and then decide to try to start up bluetooth again. ERGH. Annoying.
However, this post will be about when the thing misbehaves. Leaving aside the initial large disappointment that Samsung's packaged Windows software does not supply Outlook syncing for the T809 (while it does for the other phones that the software works with-- this problem I addressed, less-than-ideally, by buying Data Pilot, described in an earlier post), I can point to two damn annoying bugs that the thing has been zapping me with recently. Both I have mentioned obliquely in previous posts below, but neither one have I really crabbed about.
First bad behavior: [NOTE: This problem was solved in the January 21 blog entry.] We have always known that when you insert a microSD card, it accepts it nicely but then if you try to navigate to the files on the chip (for instance by using one of my more common key shortcuts, Menu-6-1-6) then it yells out a "Not Allowed" error message. To get it to be actually accessible, you need to turn the phone off and then on again. OK, that's not a big deal at all. BUT, recently, I've been just getting the Not Allowed EVERY time I navigate to the files on the SD card. Say What??? I can't watch any movies etc. that I have on the chip until I fix this. I've turned it off, on again, removed and reinserted -- no luck. Maybe this weekend I will sit down with it. HOWEVER, I have found that the files and file structure are still there on the memory card -- I put the card in my computer's card reader, loaded it up, and there they all are. I even took some movies off of the chip to see if it was just too close to totally full. No luck.
If I have no more luck in getting it to open up through the phone, I will (1) copy all of its contents to my computer, and then (2) re-initialize the chip, I recall there's a command for that somewhere on the phone. Then copy back. My guess is that that relatively dire step may do the trick. Hmmm. [See January 21 Blog Entry for the problem's solution.]
Second bad behavior -- The occasional error that happens when you try to turn on bluetooth. What is that error message that comes on again? something ungrammatical like "Bluetooth Activate Error." As I've said earlier, this one is simply erratic, but it does SOMEHOW seem to rear its head when the phone has dipped into a relatively l0w-battery period. However, unlike what I've read elsewhere on the net, the problem isn't solved by just totally charging the phone and then turning it off and on. It just has to arrive back at its sanity on its own, perhaps when you have waited 2 days and then decide to try to start up bluetooth again. ERGH. Annoying.
Sunday, January 7, 2007
Post your T809/D820 comments or questions here!
I thought I'd make one blog entry specifically to invite people to press the "comment" button below and make any comments or questions. Digging your phone? By the way, if something's critical, you can email me directly, the email address is estephan followed by an "@" sign, and then fastmail.net. No huge news to report at the moment. I've been putting episodes of a beloved animated tv show on the phone (again, the put-movies-on-your-phone process is described here) ... and had the wonderful experience of acquiring a set of avi files of the show that had the commentary track built in -- the result being that my conversion had ONLY the commentary track. Love commentary tracks, but not ONLY commentary tracks. yeesh... only motto to that one: acquire different avi files...
Anyway, post any comments as by hitting the comment link.
Anyway, post any comments as by hitting the comment link.
Monday, January 1, 2007
The T809 error messages that sometimes pop up...
There are a couple error messages that have raised their heads at odd times as I've set about putting the T809 to use. Here are a couple of them, along with what I have learned about getting around them.
Bluetooth Activate Error. This one is a bit of a drag. I've seen other folks complain of this on the net. I make use of bluetooth both for syncing with outlook and for occasionally using a wireless headset. I went months without this showing up, but suddenly one day when I went to turn on bluetooth, there it came up: bluetooth activate error. And wouldn't let me turn on bluetooth. Someone on an online forum said "this happens when the phone is not fully charged. So not only charge the phone but also try activating while the charger is connected. This didn't work, and neither did taking out the battery. The only thing that resolved this one for me: Waiting a day or two and trying again. Because later on when I tried, it started bluetooth fine. Another possiblity is finding whatever "master reset" command is in the phone. I could imagine that would work but it would likely nuke my settings and maybe my contacts list. So that's the best I can do on that one.
"Not Allowed" error when going in to your SD memory chip. This one is easier. Let's say I remove my microSD memory chip from the phone, perhaps to put it into my computer and plunk a movie on there. Then say I put the chip back into the phone. And I navigate to go look at the contents of the memory chip (keyboard shortcut Menu, 6, 1, 6). And it gives a Not Allowed error. Whaaat? Did my memory get nuked? No, it's just that if you remove and then put the memory back into the phone, you have to turn the phone off and on again in order to navigate in there.
Content Not Supported error when trying to watch one of your movies. This one pops up sometimes when I'm trying to watch a movie that I imported to the phone, but which isn't quite to the specifications that the phone needs -- it's the correct format (mp4 or 3gp) but either its bitrate, frame rate, or something is wrong with the file -- OR, the file is just too damn big (say something like 140 megs, at which point many of my movies start to choke. I just chalk this error up along with the other symptoms of a "movie not converted correctly." Check out the full movie converting and viewing instructions and read them carefully about the configuration and file/movie size.
Bluetooth Activate Error. This one is a bit of a drag. I've seen other folks complain of this on the net. I make use of bluetooth both for syncing with outlook and for occasionally using a wireless headset. I went months without this showing up, but suddenly one day when I went to turn on bluetooth, there it came up: bluetooth activate error. And wouldn't let me turn on bluetooth. Someone on an online forum said "this happens when the phone is not fully charged. So not only charge the phone but also try activating while the charger is connected. This didn't work, and neither did taking out the battery. The only thing that resolved this one for me: Waiting a day or two and trying again. Because later on when I tried, it started bluetooth fine. Another possiblity is finding whatever "master reset" command is in the phone. I could imagine that would work but it would likely nuke my settings and maybe my contacts list. So that's the best I can do on that one.
"Not Allowed" error when going in to your SD memory chip. This one is easier. Let's say I remove my microSD memory chip from the phone, perhaps to put it into my computer and plunk a movie on there. Then say I put the chip back into the phone. And I navigate to go look at the contents of the memory chip (keyboard shortcut Menu, 6, 1, 6). And it gives a Not Allowed error. Whaaat? Did my memory get nuked? No, it's just that if you remove and then put the memory back into the phone, you have to turn the phone off and on again in order to navigate in there.
Content Not Supported error when trying to watch one of your movies. This one pops up sometimes when I'm trying to watch a movie that I imported to the phone, but which isn't quite to the specifications that the phone needs -- it's the correct format (mp4 or 3gp) but either its bitrate, frame rate, or something is wrong with the file -- OR, the file is just too damn big (say something like 140 megs, at which point many of my movies start to choke. I just chalk this error up along with the other symptoms of a "movie not converted correctly." Check out the full movie converting and viewing instructions and read them carefully about the configuration and file/movie size.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Syncing T809/D820 with Outlook?
If you bought the T809 you may have found that the Samsung software that comes with the product, that promises to synchronize the calendar and the address book contact list with Microsoft Outlook falls short.
Installing the software, you will find that it simply states that among the various features of the software, the sync-with-Outlook is simply not available for the T809 (the software is meant to be used by many Samsung phones, which, lucky for them, do NOT have the syncing options greyed out when they use it.)
There are a few ways of getting around the Syncing with Outlook problem. One can use the software to do a one-time import (as opposed to a graceful synchronozing) of address book info to the phone.
However, there is third-party "syncing" software that is compatible with the phone. The package is called DataPilot, and their website contains a for-purchase application that succeeds in linking both the address book and the calendar with Outlook. However, to be accurate, the calendar connection is not a sync, but a transfer that overwrites the contents of the phone, so recent additions to the phone's calendar are deleted, not synced in.
However, be cautious when purchasing Datapilot.
-- One would expect that the software would be compatible with the phone-to-USB cables that come with the phone, but they are not: the software wants to use DataPilot's own cables. Therefore it is better to use Bluetooth for data syncing.
-- However, again, there is a caveat: only the more advanced drivers of bluetooth (Broadcom/Widcomm Bluetooth BTW 1.4.2.21 or above) will work with the software. It is probably easiest to buy the package that includes Datapilot's own USB Bluetooth adapter and driver.
Installing the software, you will find that it simply states that among the various features of the software, the sync-with-Outlook is simply not available for the T809 (the software is meant to be used by many Samsung phones, which, lucky for them, do NOT have the syncing options greyed out when they use it.)
There are a few ways of getting around the Syncing with Outlook problem. One can use the software to do a one-time import (as opposed to a graceful synchronozing) of address book info to the phone.
However, there is third-party "syncing" software that is compatible with the phone. The package is called DataPilot, and their website contains a for-purchase application that succeeds in linking both the address book and the calendar with Outlook. However, to be accurate, the calendar connection is not a sync, but a transfer that overwrites the contents of the phone, so recent additions to the phone's calendar are deleted, not synced in.
However, be cautious when purchasing Datapilot.
-- One would expect that the software would be compatible with the phone-to-USB cables that come with the phone, but they are not: the software wants to use DataPilot's own cables. Therefore it is better to use Bluetooth for data syncing.
-- However, again, there is a caveat: only the more advanced drivers of bluetooth (Broadcom/Widcomm Bluetooth BTW 1.4.2.21 or above) will work with the software. It is probably easiest to buy the package that includes Datapilot's own USB Bluetooth adapter and driver.
Watching full hollywood movies on your T809 / D820
OK, I've done quite a bit of experimenting and learning, and I think I have something of a formula for transferring movies to your phone and watching them there. Yes, you are going to say "who wants to watch a 90 minute movie on a couple-inch screen." Good question. However, look: you're bored on the metro, you're bored on a bus, you're waiting for a friend to show up at the bar -- why not bust out Nosferatu (1922)? or North by Northwest (1959) or a Buster Keaton? And for the screen size: Yes, it's smallish, but when you hit the "1" key while viewing, the full-screen mode is pretty amazing. And remember you're watching it half a foot from your face, therefore the screen's apparent size is more comparable to a TV or cinema experience than you'd think.
Follow these steps and you'll be watching a movie on your phone.
1 -- you'll want to get a microSD chip of a fairly decent size. As I recall, the microSD that comes with the phone is 32megs, and of all the films I've converted, the only ones with a file size less than 32 megs are short (5 minute or so) cartoons like Betty Boop or Popeye or what have you. I got a 1 gig microSD for $30-40. AND at the same time, get a USB card reader (about $17) that accepts microSD if you don't have one. Really, moving the microSD between your phone and your computer is the only way to port large amounts of data that's worth a damn.
2 -- You have two routes to go in terms of acquiring the film itself and converting it into the MP4 or 3GP file that your phone can watch.
One of the routes is for someone that gets their films over the net, for instance via Bit Torrent. This way you can download any number of movies. I look for ones in AVI format, which I then convert to 3gp. You might ask, why not try to download one that's already in 3gp or mp4 format? The answer is because it's unlikely that the file is already in an appropriate file size, duration, frame rate, and bitrate for the T809 to be able to deal with... so you are probably going to always do one conversion anyway. So start with a good old large AVI file and in converting it to 3gp, you can also take care of converting all the variables to what's needed by the phone.
The other route is to say (1) I actually want to be getting my movies straight from regular DVD discs, and/or (2) I'm a bit technophobic and I don't want to have to deal with configuring weird numbers in this process and (3) I don't mind paying $30 for a program to help me. In this case, a company named Makayama has a piece of software that will port either regular DVDs or existing video files directly into 3gp files that work on your phone. Find this software at http://www.makayama.com/dvdtosamsung.html. I will try to go into more detail about my limited experience with that program later in this article. For now, I'm going to focus on the do-it-yourself route for people that can snag AVI movies off the net.
3-- So, back to the first route I mention above. Load up your favorite peer-to-peer file sharing program, like Bit Torrent or whatever, and do a search for a short movie -- maybe start off with a single cartoon like the first Mickey Mouse film with sound, Steamboat Willie (1928). Hopefully you can find that or some other .AVI film that's 50-100 megs.
4-- Now to convert it to a nice 3gp file, and furthermore, one with the size, duration, and settings that will not cause the T809 to choke. For this task, I recommend a program that has worked well after some fiddling around on my part. The program is ImTOO 3GP Video Converter 3. Acquire this program and install it on your computer.
5-- Run the ImTOO converter program. First drag your avi file onto the grid at the left of the ImTOO window. This area is basically a queue of the movie files you want the program to convert. For now you will only queue one up. Next, look off to the right, the section of options categorized under General, Video, and Audio. In this area you tell the program what kind of specifications you have for the 3gp file the system is going to create. Here are some settings that I have arrived at after wrestling with it a bit and also after peeking at other files that I knew were created to work with the T809.
First, *click once on the queued-up entry for your avi file that's in the left table, so that you see that it is selected.*
Then, go to that right hand settings area and set the following specifications. Leave all other settings untouched:
Video Codec: mpeg4
Video Size: 320x240
Bit Rate: 120
Frame rate: 15
... and under Audio,
Audio codec: mpeg4aac
Bitrate: 0 [I know, zero? makes no sense to me, but whatever]
Sample rate: 16000
Channels: 1 (mono) [hopefully getting the home theater experience on your T809 is not a priority]
Now, choose a destination for the new file that will be created. In the destination line at the bottom, click Browse and choose your desktop as the destination.
... With these all set (annoyingly, it seems that the program cannot be set to lock these in as defaults), cast your eye over the entries one last time to make sure you have them set, and then click the Encode button up top.
Now you wait 10-30 minutes or what have you for it to completely finish encoding.
6 -- Check to see if your new 3gp file can be played directly on your computer, before we try on the phone. Basically, doublelclick on it. I don't know if Windows Media Player can load it up, but I know that quicktime can, so if it will not play by simply doubleclicking it, I would recommend installing iTunes on your computer -- the mp3 player program made by Apple. Works fine on windows, and the point being, when you install iTunes, it also installs QuickTime at the same time. In the end, your new movie file should load up ok.
7 -- Once it works on your computer, time to move it to your phone. (1) take the microSD chip out of your phone. (2) Put the card reader into your computer's USB jack. (3) put the microSD chip into the card reader. My computer's built-in card reader requires that I pop out the SD and pop it in again for it to notice the thing. It may ask you what to do with it -- just "View as a folder" is fine. If you can't get to the folder to show you the contents of the chip, then go to My Computer, locate the entry that indicates your microSD memory, and open it up.
8-- drag your nice new 3gp file onto your chip. You can plunk it in the pre-set "Videos" folder, but I made a separate folder called "Movies" so that hollywood flicks would be separate from pictures of me and my girlfriend being goofy at a diner. It will possibly take a minute or two to copy. That's pretty fast, if you ask me.
9-- This is interesting -- you have to turn your phone off and on again for it to recognize the newly-reinserted memory. So I would recommend turning the phone off while the chip is still off in your computer getting the movie copied onto it, and then putting the chip into the phone while it's still off, and lastly turning the phone on.
10-- Find your way to the memory card on the phone. My favorite way of navigating there: hit Menu, 6, 1, 6, and you are at the memory card. [If you get a cryptic error about how the card is Not Available or Not Allowed, turn the phone off and on again (see in step 9.)] Now that you'd navigated to the memory card, move up/down to find the folder you had placed the movie into. Click on it once and it should appear in the movie player, and, ideally, start playing.
11-- Now that you have succeeded (if not, see below) with a small, 5-10 minute movie (remember I said above to make your first try be a short one?) You can go ahead and try the full process above with incrementally larger movies, approaching hollywood size. When you get up above 100megs (or above an hour in duration) you may find that the playback is erratic -- skips into a repeating rut, shows colorful garbage, or just stops and goes back to zero. In this case, I believe they key is either (1) split this movie into two pieces (See the ImTOO function specifically made for this, down at the bottom -- tell it to split the output movie into 75megabyte chunks) or (2) maybe try a smaller bitrate, which will mean less video quality but also smaller file sizes.
THE PROBLEMS YOU MAY HAVE:
When I go to click on the 3gp file that I've copied into my phone, it doesn't begin to play but instead simply shows options such as move this file, delete this file, all those. First, make sure that you are clicking it in the correct way -- Go watch a regular movie that you made on the phone somehow else and make sure you understand that it's the silver middle-of-the-nav button that you press to view the thing. BUT, if this still happens, I have found that this comes up when it's a movie that doesn't meet the phone's desired specs. Did you stray from the specifications that I list above? Video size, bitrate, all those? Those took me a while to figure out. Only adjust bitrate downward or maybe, once all is working, upward...
The movie plays for a little bit but then crashes, or shows tons of weird distortion, or when I try fast-forward it still goes really slowly, or gets into a rut and shows the same 4 frames over and over while the audio continues along as if everything is OK: This happens to me when the file size is really pretty large (120-150 megs or more) OR maybe it's more because the movie's time duration is long (over an hour or 1.5 hours.) ... Like I said in the final step above, look in the SPLIT feature at the bottom of ImTOO, click configure, and choose 75 megs as the maximum size. Then convert your movie again. It will split it into 75meg chunks. Those might play OK.
I get some error about how I don't have the right codec. Oof, this is annoying. You need to install a program that brings along with it good codecs for encoding and decoding these file types. The easiest is to find a copy of Nero and install it on your computer. You will see that it includes something called Nero Community Codec. Install the whole thing and this error will likely not appear.
LASTLY, ABOUT MAKAYAMA: I said that I would talk more about my experiences with Makayama's software that I mentioned early in this post. Well, here are the pros and cons:
PROS:
-- Designed specifically for Samsung, so theoretically the movies will always play without fiddling with settings.
-- can slurp video straight from DVDs (but the software is so basic that it simply chooses the largest file on the DVD to encode, and the controls to choose another track give you no sense of which file is which.)
-- Similar to ImTOO, it can also convert AVI and other video files, and not just DVDs. (though it was being annoying about *sometimes* saying that I didn't have the right codec, though I had installed codecs (via Nero) that other programs were happy with.
CONS:
-- Crummy interface requires repetitive clicking through screens, and can not nicely queue
up several movies to encode in one large job, for instance, overnight.
-- Weird errors about the right codec not being installed, when I was trying to do AVI files instead of DVDs (see above.)
-- seems to really not work at all if any kind of copy protection is on the disc.
-- The thing does a very basic guess as to which part of the dvd you want to convert. And if you use the feature to choose which track you want, there's no way of previewing those tracks to confirm which is which.
Have fun!
Follow these steps and you'll be watching a movie on your phone.
1 -- you'll want to get a microSD chip of a fairly decent size. As I recall, the microSD that comes with the phone is 32megs, and of all the films I've converted, the only ones with a file size less than 32 megs are short (5 minute or so) cartoons like Betty Boop or Popeye or what have you. I got a 1 gig microSD for $30-40. AND at the same time, get a USB card reader (about $17) that accepts microSD if you don't have one. Really, moving the microSD between your phone and your computer is the only way to port large amounts of data that's worth a damn.
2 -- You have two routes to go in terms of acquiring the film itself and converting it into the MP4 or 3GP file that your phone can watch.
One of the routes is for someone that gets their films over the net, for instance via Bit Torrent. This way you can download any number of movies. I look for ones in AVI format, which I then convert to 3gp. You might ask, why not try to download one that's already in 3gp or mp4 format? The answer is because it's unlikely that the file is already in an appropriate file size, duration, frame rate, and bitrate for the T809 to be able to deal with... so you are probably going to always do one conversion anyway. So start with a good old large AVI file and in converting it to 3gp, you can also take care of converting all the variables to what's needed by the phone.
The other route is to say (1) I actually want to be getting my movies straight from regular DVD discs, and/or (2) I'm a bit technophobic and I don't want to have to deal with configuring weird numbers in this process and (3) I don't mind paying $30 for a program to help me. In this case, a company named Makayama has a piece of software that will port either regular DVDs or existing video files directly into 3gp files that work on your phone. Find this software at http://www.makayama.com/dvdtosamsung.html. I will try to go into more detail about my limited experience with that program later in this article. For now, I'm going to focus on the do-it-yourself route for people that can snag AVI movies off the net.
3-- So, back to the first route I mention above. Load up your favorite peer-to-peer file sharing program, like Bit Torrent or whatever, and do a search for a short movie -- maybe start off with a single cartoon like the first Mickey Mouse film with sound, Steamboat Willie (1928). Hopefully you can find that or some other .AVI film that's 50-100 megs.
4-- Now to convert it to a nice 3gp file, and furthermore, one with the size, duration, and settings that will not cause the T809 to choke. For this task, I recommend a program that has worked well after some fiddling around on my part. The program is ImTOO 3GP Video Converter 3. Acquire this program and install it on your computer.
5-- Run the ImTOO converter program. First drag your avi file onto the grid at the left of the ImTOO window. This area is basically a queue of the movie files you want the program to convert. For now you will only queue one up. Next, look off to the right, the section of options categorized under General, Video, and Audio. In this area you tell the program what kind of specifications you have for the 3gp file the system is going to create. Here are some settings that I have arrived at after wrestling with it a bit and also after peeking at other files that I knew were created to work with the T809.
First, *click once on the queued-up entry for your avi file that's in the left table, so that you see that it is selected.*
Then, go to that right hand settings area and set the following specifications. Leave all other settings untouched:
Video Codec: mpeg4
Video Size: 320x240
Bit Rate: 120
Frame rate: 15
... and under Audio,
Audio codec: mpeg4aac
Bitrate: 0 [I know, zero? makes no sense to me, but whatever]
Sample rate: 16000
Channels: 1 (mono) [hopefully getting the home theater experience on your T809 is not a priority]
Now, choose a destination for the new file that will be created. In the destination line at the bottom, click Browse and choose your desktop as the destination.
... With these all set (annoyingly, it seems that the program cannot be set to lock these in as defaults), cast your eye over the entries one last time to make sure you have them set, and then click the Encode button up top.
Now you wait 10-30 minutes or what have you for it to completely finish encoding.
6 -- Check to see if your new 3gp file can be played directly on your computer, before we try on the phone. Basically, doublelclick on it. I don't know if Windows Media Player can load it up, but I know that quicktime can, so if it will not play by simply doubleclicking it, I would recommend installing iTunes on your computer -- the mp3 player program made by Apple. Works fine on windows, and the point being, when you install iTunes, it also installs QuickTime at the same time. In the end, your new movie file should load up ok.
7 -- Once it works on your computer, time to move it to your phone. (1) take the microSD chip out of your phone. (2) Put the card reader into your computer's USB jack. (3) put the microSD chip into the card reader. My computer's built-in card reader requires that I pop out the SD and pop it in again for it to notice the thing. It may ask you what to do with it -- just "View as a folder" is fine. If you can't get to the folder to show you the contents of the chip, then go to My Computer, locate the entry that indicates your microSD memory, and open it up.
8-- drag your nice new 3gp file onto your chip. You can plunk it in the pre-set "Videos" folder, but I made a separate folder called "Movies" so that hollywood flicks would be separate from pictures of me and my girlfriend being goofy at a diner. It will possibly take a minute or two to copy. That's pretty fast, if you ask me.
9-- This is interesting -- you have to turn your phone off and on again for it to recognize the newly-reinserted memory. So I would recommend turning the phone off while the chip is still off in your computer getting the movie copied onto it, and then putting the chip into the phone while it's still off, and lastly turning the phone on.
10-- Find your way to the memory card on the phone. My favorite way of navigating there: hit Menu, 6, 1, 6, and you are at the memory card. [If you get a cryptic error about how the card is Not Available or Not Allowed, turn the phone off and on again (see in step 9.)] Now that you'd navigated to the memory card, move up/down to find the folder you had placed the movie into. Click on it once and it should appear in the movie player, and, ideally, start playing.
11-- Now that you have succeeded (if not, see below) with a small, 5-10 minute movie (remember I said above to make your first try be a short one?) You can go ahead and try the full process above with incrementally larger movies, approaching hollywood size. When you get up above 100megs (or above an hour in duration) you may find that the playback is erratic -- skips into a repeating rut, shows colorful garbage, or just stops and goes back to zero. In this case, I believe they key is either (1) split this movie into two pieces (See the ImTOO function specifically made for this, down at the bottom -- tell it to split the output movie into 75megabyte chunks) or (2) maybe try a smaller bitrate, which will mean less video quality but also smaller file sizes.
THE PROBLEMS YOU MAY HAVE:
When I go to click on the 3gp file that I've copied into my phone, it doesn't begin to play but instead simply shows options such as move this file, delete this file, all those. First, make sure that you are clicking it in the correct way -- Go watch a regular movie that you made on the phone somehow else and make sure you understand that it's the silver middle-of-the-nav button that you press to view the thing. BUT, if this still happens, I have found that this comes up when it's a movie that doesn't meet the phone's desired specs. Did you stray from the specifications that I list above? Video size, bitrate, all those? Those took me a while to figure out. Only adjust bitrate downward or maybe, once all is working, upward...
The movie plays for a little bit but then crashes, or shows tons of weird distortion, or when I try fast-forward it still goes really slowly, or gets into a rut and shows the same 4 frames over and over while the audio continues along as if everything is OK: This happens to me when the file size is really pretty large (120-150 megs or more) OR maybe it's more because the movie's time duration is long (over an hour or 1.5 hours.) ... Like I said in the final step above, look in the SPLIT feature at the bottom of ImTOO, click configure, and choose 75 megs as the maximum size. Then convert your movie again. It will split it into 75meg chunks. Those might play OK.
I get some error about how I don't have the right codec. Oof, this is annoying. You need to install a program that brings along with it good codecs for encoding and decoding these file types. The easiest is to find a copy of Nero and install it on your computer. You will see that it includes something called Nero Community Codec. Install the whole thing and this error will likely not appear.
LASTLY, ABOUT MAKAYAMA: I said that I would talk more about my experiences with Makayama's software that I mentioned early in this post. Well, here are the pros and cons:
PROS:
-- Designed specifically for Samsung, so theoretically the movies will always play without fiddling with settings.
-- can slurp video straight from DVDs (but the software is so basic that it simply chooses the largest file on the DVD to encode, and the controls to choose another track give you no sense of which file is which.)
-- Similar to ImTOO, it can also convert AVI and other video files, and not just DVDs. (though it was being annoying about *sometimes* saying that I didn't have the right codec, though I had installed codecs (via Nero) that other programs were happy with.
CONS:
-- Crummy interface requires repetitive clicking through screens, and can not nicely queue
up several movies to encode in one large job, for instance, overnight.
-- Weird errors about the right codec not being installed, when I was trying to do AVI files instead of DVDs (see above.)
-- seems to really not work at all if any kind of copy protection is on the disc.
-- The thing does a very basic guess as to which part of the dvd you want to convert. And if you use the feature to choose which track you want, there's no way of previewing those tracks to confirm which is which.
Have fun!
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