E70 and N93 video reviews

Probably this has been asked before, but is there any chance that you could start publishing the magazine in some other format as well, e.g. mpg?

Er... it *is* in mpg format. MPEG-4, to be exact.

What are you trying to play it on? It's currently compatible with PCs, Macs, PSPs, iPods, modern smartphones, etc.

If you mean MPG as in MPEG-1, the show would be 300MB rather than 65MB and noone would want to download it. And Rafe would kill me as I slowly killed his servers.... 8-)

Steve

Err.. well, 😊 when I try to play it I get one of those annoying little empty windows with that stupid little icon in the left corner and no picture.. Plus, I just thought you needed a Quick Time player since the page says " (If your PC can't seem to play the file, you need an up to date copy of the free Quicktime Player).". Herein lies the problem: I cannot install software on this computer (yeah, at work). 😊

Ah. Well, if you can't install the free Quicktime Player then complain to your IT guys 8-) Or view the Show at home..... Or download it at work and view at home, etc.

Steve

At home I have more important things to do.. lol.. 😉 Anyhoo, I will do that, we have a Mac at home (even my laptop is employers and the IT nazis do not allow me to install stuff on it either) 😊

If you have a S60 3rd Edition phone (or N70 I think) you should be able to view it on that I think.

Yeah thanks I know, but I have an ancient 😊 6620. I live in the US.. nuff said.. lol. I am praying to gods of all nominations that N73 comes to Cingular.. They have the 6682 but it looks so passe now..

Hello Steve

Excellent video reviews in SPS13. Great stuff. However, you say in the E70 review that it supports WMA audio files. It doesn't I'm afraid. Great shame though it is. We're stuck with MP3 or other large files and can't get down to better file sizes with WMA, nor OGG (yet!). This seems to be another penny-pinching exercise by Nokia - and so daft - as the N91 and N80 both support it. Could this have been much more costly to include? Silly people!

Tim

Tim,

I recommend using AAC+ or ideally M4A on the E70 - more efficient than MP3 and WMA.

Thanks for this Rafe.

However, you tend to group MP3 and WMA together in your comment (as if they are comparable) and it is my experience that saved at a reasonable bit rate (or whatever it's called - no expert here!) WMA comes out much nearer OGG than MP3 (I generally use CDex to save). Further it is my experience that saving files as M4A (iTunes base format?) these files end up being about the same size as MP3 (or bigger). I have tried to get round the OggPlay being missing by experimenting with the various formats which the E70/61 will read and OGG (and WMA - which they won't read) seem to end up being the smallest by streets. Please correct me if I'm wrong or suggesting different save settings which will prove this wrong.

Maybe there's scope for you guys to do a real-life comparison with these file formats and some (almost) Tutorial to make the best of what can be used - a bit like Steve has done at 3Lib. Perhaps an editorial in the making?! I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one who would be grateful.

Tim

Yes you're right WMA is better than MP3. With M4A you can use a lower bit rate than WMA or MP3 and still get comparable quality.

These are all roughly comparable:

MP3 128 kbps
WMA 96 kbps
M4A 64 kbps

and yes probably a good idea to do an article / editorial on this - thanks for the suggestion.

Apologies for mentioning WMA in the video review - my mistake, I was somewhat shocked afterwards to find that it doesn't support WMA - I'd have thought that Nokia would have licensed WMA and then implemented it as part of S60 3rd Edition across the board....

Steve