04.27.07
Posted in Multimedia at 4:27 pm by Jonathan Greene
I’ve dabbled with a few tools to convert video for the N800 (and 770 actually) and have a few solutions to offer those of you looking to enhance the mobile multimedia experience, but today I am just going to address one - HandBrake. Handbrake is a cross-platform conversion tool and was recently updated after a very long time. It’s ability to compress beautiful video is seriously good!
What I really like about Handbrake is that I can take a DVD and in a single click export what I want — a whole movie or a single episode from a TV show disc. I tried a bunch of different settings, but what has worked best for me is the following:
Once you copy this video over to your memory card, you can enjoy right within the Media Player. I have not tested this yet today, but I believe that streaming through a UPnP server via Canola would also work if you like on your home network… a topic for another day.
The nice thing about this MP4 video output is that it also works in iTunes, on your iPod and (if I had one here to test I believe) the AppleTV! One format to rule them all!
Disclaimer: We are all adults here. Ripping a DVD is technically illegal. I am in the camp that believes I actually own the media and can choose to enjoy the content across devices for my own personal use.
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04.26.07
Posted in Basics at 10:20 am by Jonathan Greene
, originally uploaded by .
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04.16.07
Posted in News at 11:28 pm by Jonathan Greene
I’ve just spent some time (PDF Links) from Intel’s Developer Forum (IDF) and wow does this confirm Nokia’s move towards Internet Tablets!
As I read through the documents I could not help but compare the Nokia Tablet to the MID Platform Intel is promoting as a revision (fork perhaps?) to the UMPC platform they initially developed with Microsoft. The MID (Mobile Internet Devices) as defined by Intel are built on Linux with 4-6″ screens, target the Prosumer and are sold at Consumer price points. Sound familiar?
Intel is focused on delivering an un-compromised Internet experience with an excellent UI, strong performance, responsiveness, battery and memory. They define the usage models as “Stay in Touch,” “Be Entertained,” and “Access Info and Locate.” As you can see from each of these slides, things vary enough to make the case for unique priorities. I’m probably more of a Stay in Touch kind of user, but would be very tempted by the Be Entertained system as well.
I’m hoping someone will realize that a nice cross-over will serve the true Prosumer — someone who stays in touch constantly, wants to be entertained while on the go and would like to know where they are (GPS). Why split this stuff up into smaller groups of people than will likely be attracted to the platform initially anyway??
I hope the Nokia / Maemo team is watching this carefully. While there’s been a great deal of positive energy around the platform recently, things are going to really heat up with multiple OEMs pushing similar devices based on Intel’s reference designs — especially if it means being free of Windows licensing. Actually - a Nokia / Intel partnership in this category would be very interesting.
This looks inspired by iPhone with those icons than Maemo, but it’s probably running either Linux or embedded Windows.
There’s no denying Maemo in that first shot. Seeing Firefox here makes me quite happy. I’m hoping we’ll be so lucky on the N800 soon enough as it will likely lead to greater compatibility as well as extensibility through plugins.
Here are a few more pages from the presentations. You’ll can see the differences in each reference design as well as note the key applications (at least as they are thought through now) on each system.
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Posted in Applications at 8:33 pm by Jonathan Greene
In case you missed it, there is a GMail notifier statusbar plugin in the (on device) Tableteer site. The install is of the one-click variety which means you download a small repository install followed the application.
The GMail notifier works like you expect and have probably seen on other platforms, though there’s thankfully no floating preview. You can set the interval to check for new messages and be notified by a blinking mail icon as well as a chime.
I had installed this some time ago, but found enormous battery drain. That version was pulled and replaced with today’s release. Hopefully the kinks have been worked out.
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Posted in Multimedia, Services at 2:32 pm by Jonathan Greene
Via Nokia Press Release…
Orb’s intuitive solution simply streams a person’s own content from their home PC using the Web browser and media player of the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet thus creating a “personal media portal” from which users instantly access and enjoy home photos, videos, music, and even TV, from anywhere, anytime. With MyCasting, consumers can also remotely record TV programs using Orb’s Digital Video Recorder (DVR) function and then play back those recorded programs on the Nokia N800.
“The Nokia N800 Internet Tablet was developed to make it easy for people to access their favorite internet sites, content, and entertainment from the couch, airport or coffee shop- anywhere there is WiFi. Orb’s MyCasting is an excellent use of the device making it a jukebox of personal media,” said Ari Virtanen, vice president, Convergence Products, Multimedia, Nokia.
“Nokia offers a quality mobile web experience for users with the rich functionality being introduced in the N800 Internet Tablet,’ said Joe Costello, Chairman and CEO of Orb Networks. “When Orb unlocks that personal digital content on the home PC, the N800 becomes the one connected device to enjoy it all whenever and wherever you want.The combination offers a new level of media freedom and control for the customer.”
The MyCasting service which will be demoed on the Nokia N800 at Nokia’s booth (# 402) at Web 2.0 Expo this week is free of charge and is immediately available for download from www.orb.com/n800 as well as from the Tableteer site, which can be accessed via the Nokia N800. There’s no need to download additional software for the N800. Using the built in media player and browser, Orb works instantly.
I tried this today (of course) and had some issues. I don’t have a PC (it’s PC only) here, so Parallels it is and that’s most likely my issue, because I was unable to stream any content on my LAN. I’ll give this another try later on courtesy of Ricky’s collection… Orb lets you share with friends.
I also had some issues initially getting past the security prompt on the http://my.orb.com. I had to clear about 5 accept the cert warnings and then another one as the page refreshed (for good measure perhaps) only to find that the process failed. I tried once again (per Ricky’s advice) and it did load, but I was not able to get anything to play.
I will say this… While this is potentially a cool application, I think the Orb UI requires far too many clicks to just play a song or a video — especially when you are told the media format you’ve selected is not compatible. Orb can be setup as a UPnP server as well as a web streamer so on your LAN, you can choose to run either Canola or the MediaStreamer application which may work better. If someone has success with this, please let me know!
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04.12.07
Posted in Applications at 9:44 pm by Jonathan Greene
I discovered WOWIO today via Teleread and it’s a great source of DRM-Free known titles of free eBooks. What caught my attention initially was that they were offering 5 Kurt Vonnegut titles (Breakfast of Champions, The Sirens of Titan, Cat’s Cradle, Player Piano, and Slaughter-House Five). All are ad supported, which as best as I can tell means that the first few pages are sponsored like magazine ads, but then the book is clean which is quite fine (ahem) in my book.
Since the books are PDFs we can read them directly on the Tablet without any additional applications. There’s a great PDF reader right within the Utilities folder under Applications. If you are feeling adventurous, you might also like to try the Evince reader, which is another PDF document reader. I’m actually finding that the pages flow better on Evince, but the rendering is a tad quicker on the PDF Reader app. It all comes down to personal choice and whether you want to install a second similarly functioning application.
I saved the five books to one of my memory cards and am reading full screen at 200% (or fit to width). The Nokia Tablet’s screen is awesome for reading books like this and I’d recommend you check out WOWIO yourself. WOWIO has a 5 book download per day limit, but you can queue in a shopping cart, that saves your selections for later…
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Posted in Software Updates, Multimedia, Services, Basics at 9:15 pm by Jonathan Greene
I’ve never done an unboxing video so when a new N800 arrived today from the Nokia Blogger Relations Program, I thought this would be as good as anytime to get going. I realize now that the memory card adapter, I struggled with was just that an adapter… see what limited sleep can do to a geek??
I’ve broken things into two videos… First my unboxing, followed by my flashing the Firmware to Tablet OS 2007 v3 with a quick install and check-in with Rhapsody for good measure.
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