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Video on the Sidekick LX
By admin | June 30, 2008
There has been alot of talk about the video playback/recording with many questions as to what it will be able to play, how it will play and what can you get away with. I decided to take some time and go over the details (aka boring!) about the video format as well as some of the questions people are coming up with.
The LX video player (currently? Only?) supports the 3GP format. 3GP is a video format. A video format is kind of what a .mov or .avi video format is. What it comes down too is .3GP is a way the file is compressed when converted from say an avi.
3GP stores video streams as MPEG-4 or H.263, and audio streams as AMR-NB or AAC-LC formats. 3GP files are always big-endian. 3GP also describes image sizes and bandwidth, so content is correctly sized for mobile display screens. Currently from what I have been able to find about about 3GP is that it is only supported by Quicktime (ick! itunes), or RealPlayer (double ick!).
One of the best aspects of 3GP is that it is a video format specific to video playback on mobile devices. This dosen’t mean it has the best quality of video, but that videos focus specifically for devices with small screens and low bandwidth. Will the video quality be very good? I would say no not really. The video play back will be awful on a pc/mac and will be so so on the phone.
Will you be able to stream videos from sites like AOL, youtube, google and other streaming sites?
No you will not be able too. To watch videos from these sites you will need to manually download the videos to your computer, convert them and then copy them over to your phone. This process could day over an hour for most people so I don’t think many people will be interested in going though this process for a 5 minute video clip.
Will you be able to stream .3GP files from a website
That is the big question that is waiting to be answered. I’m hoping that danger will offer the ability to stream .3gp files from the built in web browser on the LX but I don’t think anyone has tried it yet.
Will there be a new video section added to the catalog?
I am sure this is the plan but have been able to get no conformation yet. I am willing to bet that the video feature will be very limited outside of the catalog and sending recorded videos too friends; both of which will cost you cash with each usage. Because of this a really cool feature that should be more powerful and useful will instead be very limited and uninteresting in the next few months.
Topics: Sidekick LX |
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