Internet Tablet Video Converter updated (and public API added for developers)
Thu, 2007-12-20 16:14
Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter was just updated, go and download the new version from here.
The team has done lots of improvements based on your feedback, but most importantly, the latest version includes a public API to allow 3rd party developers to create modifications and further improvements. I hope to see a vibrant community emerging around this app: end-user discussion happening here at Beta Labs, and development discussion at maemo.org. If this modus operandi works well, we'll probably do the same thing with other future projects too.
One of the key guys behind the application wanted to personally address your feedback so far: (click for more)
Dear Betalabs users,
The entire Video Converter team has been excited by your enthusiasm, feedback, and suggestions for our software. It's extremely gratifying for us to release software and instantly see how many people are interested enough in it to take the time to tell us what they like (and don't like) about it.
Having said that, I'd like to address some of the most common comments we've gotten back:
"This app is great but it won't convert [fill in some media format] properly and just gives me an error"
We try to support as many file formats as possible. In general, if your Windows Media Player will play a file, the Video Converter should be able to handle it just fine. If that's ever not the case, please let us know via the Feedback form on this site or by filing a bug at https://bugs.maemo.org/.
"This app would be useful if it worked on [any platform other than Windows XP]"
Please understand that we don't hate Linux and Mac users :) In fact many of us on the team are Mac and Linux users ourselves. The reality is that the majority of the desktop world is Windows users right now, and we have to prioritize our development efforts based on that. Having said that, we definitely want to make this application available for as many users as possible. We are working on versions of the app for Windows Vista as well as OS X (10.4 and 10.5). Linux is a tough one unfortunately due to codec issues as well as the difficulty of supporting multiple distribution, but we're still looking into if and how we can help our Linux users.
"I wish this app did [fill in your favorite feature or function]"
We have heard some great ideas from the community on how to improve the application and we don't have enough hours in the day to implement all of them by ourselves :) So starting with this release, we're making a developer API available to 3rd party developers. This API will allow developers to customize the Video Converter to create custom functionality and then share this custom code with the rest of the Internet Tablet community. We look forward to seeing what you guys come up with!
Thank to all of you who have taken time to download, test, blog about, or send feedback about our application!
Victor
Comments
Thanks Jason, I'll ask.
I'm having a problem getting it to connect through the firewall. I'm running it on XP with no XP firewall, but instead a linux gateway/firewall. The app consistently tells me it's having a firewall problem even though I've opened the ports on the linux box. What am I doing wrong?
Hi Tommi; I'm trying to download the mediahandler-proxy sample from the ITVC tutorial page at the maemo.org wiki and the download seems to be broken. Do you know who I can contact about this?
I
I've seen a few "suggestions" on the web as to how to transcode for the N810, and I've tried a *lot* of variations with mencoder, but NO luck whatsoever.
It would be really nice if someone would please post *accurate* specs as to what the N810 will play:
- res (800x480?)
- video bit rate (2mb/s?)
- codec (MP4? H.264? DivX?)
- transport/envelope (AVI, MPEG, DivX, XviD, MOV/QuickTime?)
- audio format (mp3, aac, ogg?)
- audio bitrate (in various formats)
- channels
etc. etc.
I simply *can't* transcode to anything that works, even though all my settings "look" the same as the N810 demo video that comes on the device!
Could someone please give us details?
Thanks!
David
In response to Dave, I found some video specs here:
http://maemo.org/community/wiki/VideoEncoding/ and
http://maemo.org/development/documentation/how-tos/3-x/transcoding_how-t...
Hope that helps.
It works on win xp sp2 okay. It would be nice to adjust the video frame size to 400x224 so 16x9 aspect ratio inputs are not distorted. Separate adjustments for video and audio quality would be good, too.
How to convert PDF files to Word documents? - this seems to be an often asked question nowadays. Normally you can
Great ! I will add this to my bookmarks. TY
Im trying to download the video converter, but it is not giving me the option to. I can see the overview button but no 'download' button which is supposed to be next to it? As i cant watch videos on my Nokia N97.
@ndougal - This beta was archived in March 2009. There are a variety of third-party video converters out there that will probably do what you're looking for.
John - Community Facilitator @ Beta Labs