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tomdugan2

Guys - a developer's board is useless without SOME oversight. For instance, you do have a sticky here on Converter 2.0 - but with zero information other then a download url.

All of the people here are having a problem getting a solid compression to play on the system 40 Nokias. There are major sync issues that seem to be caused by a player that is NOT dropping frames to keep pace with the sound track.

I am a content provider who was asked by my users to look into feeds for the Nokia line. But I have been getting Zero support from Nokia at every venue I turn to. PLEASE get in touch with me or at least post some basic parameters for 3GPP playback so as a compression pro, I can try to port my content to the phone. If needed, I would be happy to PAY Nokia for the support I need to make this work.

Thank you!

enstedt

Hi,

Quote:

Originally posted by tomdugan2
Guys - a developer's board is useless without SOME oversight.

We are monitoring the boards every now and then and try to pick up some issues that needs to be answered. Unfortunately we don't have time or resources to answer every question. This is only one task in our work and you probably know that we have paying customers aswell and the number of those is increasing.

The original intension of the these boards was not only "Ask a question and Nokia answers", but also to build kind of a mobile developer community where developers can also help each other to solve problems.

Quote:

Originally posted by tomdugan2

For instance, you do have a sticky here on Converter 2.0 - but with zero information other then a download url.

Could you mention what's the other information you'd like to see there besides url?

Quote:

Originally posted by tomdugan2

All of the people here are having a problem getting a solid compression to play on the system 40 Nokias. There are major sync issues that seem to be caused by a player that is NOT dropping frames to keep pace with the sound track.

It would be helpfull for us if you could provide us a sample of the original content and then the same sample converted with NMC 2.0. It would also be good to know the parameters used in conversion. Also the characteristics of the original sample: video codec, bitrate, fps, resolution, audio codec, bitrate, mono/stereo...?

And also in what Series 40 devices you have noticed this behaviour if not all? Have you noticed this problem in Series 60 devices?

Best regards,
V / Forum Nokia

tomdugan2 · *Last edited by tomdugan2 : 2005-01-21 at 01:52.*

Enstedt, thanks for your attention! I have tried for months to contact a Nokia engineer through this site and Nokia America. I do understand that this site is for developers to share knowledge and have been doing that since my registration. Based on the questions here though, it appears that many people are first time end-users, not developers, so the pool of knowledge and experience is a bit limited without Nokia intervention.

I am a content provider in New York for mobile media and was asked by my users to port my free 40 to 90 minute videos, film, music and ebooks to the Nokia series 40 and 60 line. I have started this with the 6230 (series 40) because it appears to be the most popular device in the USA.. I have also worked with the 3650 (series 60) and spoke with you on this a year and a half ago through this board.

For The Record:

1. Most of my material comes from 320x240 10fps Microsoft audio video interleaved raw masters scanned from original content (35mm motion picture negative scans).

2. Most of my material is between 40 to 90 minutes long.

Nokia Problems:

1. Nokia Converter 2.0 works with short 2-5 minute AVI master compressions. However on forty minute files the video pre-processing freezes at 93%. This has happened to others posting here too so it is the program not my use or computer. My GUESS is that your program is failing on video demux on large files. Maybe a buffer problem? Whatever that limitation is - it should be noted in your sticky FAQ as a limitation or known issue, especially if you can't fix it!

2. Although you provide an interesting FAQ zipped with Converter 2.0, it is a general introduction to compression (developers know this). You leave out all critical information on specs so that developers who use pro level tools have no idea what they are compressing for and what the processor limitations are (developers need this).

System 40 Problems:

1. Everyone here has complained of sync problems. Some problems are a gradual loss of sync at usually one frame per minute. Others have indicated immediate loss. PART OF THE PROBLEM, is the 32MB MMC Nokia ships with the phone. It appears to be first generation which means the read rate is too slow to support fluid playback on anything but very short clips. THIS SHOULD BE IN THE FAQ! Rule one for video end users - get a fast MMC card!. I believe the gradual loss is a timing error at the system level. Why? Because sync can be reset by hitting pause/play to re-index audio and video. This could be fixed in the 6230 firmware if the player was forced to read the index every thirty seconds.

2. A top system bitrate of 64KBs per second is just not acceptable for anything other than a very static talking head shot. Everything else looks and sounds pretty bad. Doubling the bitrate of both system streams makes for a great looking file. You say 128Kbs can be used on some phones but don't list them! THIS SHOULD BE IN THE FAQ! This rate is way too much for the 6230 processor and even at 96Kbs it will lose sync in less than two minutes. This could be fixed with the indexing trick mentioned above. It could ALSO work if a long file was broken into bits that would auto-play sequentially. Nokia has a video playlist function for the PC 3GPP player (NPL file), why not on the cell phones? That would probably be the easiest fix. BTW - this would also solve the lack of inter file navigation / bookmarking too. to skip ahead or back in a film, all you would have to do would be to click up or down on the selector to play the next or last clip!

3. There is no tool that I am aware of for joining 3GPP files without recompression. Since the quality of these files is marginal at best, the only way to cut together short clips without making them look and sound worse, is by appending them WITHOUT recompression! Any ideas on demuxing / joining H.623 and AMR / re-muxing them back to 3PPG would be a MAJOR help!

4. Widebamd AMR sounds a LOT better - can the 6230 support this codec? If so, see point #3 about muxing / re-muxing OR add that as a selection in Converter 2.0.

These are just a few obvious problems and solutions off the top of my head. Since I am working on free LEGAL commercial content for all Nokia users, a contact with a Nokia compression specialist would be a major help for Nokia, end-users and myself. Please email me at tomdugan2 (at) yahoo.com for a more information on the free content and a relationship working out video problems on the Nokia! Please use your nokia.com email so I know it is you! Everyone else, please save this address for Enstedt. I can't help or send you content anyway without solving these problems with him. Thank you!

Site Problems (not important to me - tor your information only:

1. You must sign in to read. Re-sign in to post. Navagate your way back to the post you want to reply to and sometimes have to sign in a fourth time before you can finally post!

2. Slow auto respond. You need a key and user name for Converter 2.0 but it takes DAYS to get it. You can see that here with several users begging for help.

3. Why is the requested information for Converter 2.0 based on your business and programming skills when it is an end-user tool and almost all of the users here SEEM to be end-users?

4. OK I just found what appears to be a real developer board, at Nokia but it costs $3,000 per year to join! That is a lot for a start-up whose work will benefit Nokia sales. Isn't there an option less costly - like supporting this site a bit more?

Enstedt, thanks a lot for taking the time to read this and respond to the questions!

jaura

Concerning the number 1. bullet: (1. You must sign in to read. Re-sign in to post...)

I don't have to sign in to read or re-sign in to post in this discussion board, i.e. I am already singed in (logged in) automatically when I enter here. I suppose this is because I have selected "yes" in my options either or both of the following questions?

Automatically login when you return to the site? (uses cookies)
Browse board with cookies?

Jarkko

tomdugan2

Jarkko - cookies of course! Now if only a smooth system 40 compression were as easy as that!

enstedt

Hi,

Quote:

Originally posted by tomdugan2

For The Record:

1. Most of my material comes from 320x240 10fps Microsoft audio video interleaved raw masters scanned from original content (35mm motion picture negative scans).

Frame rate for the starters could be higher, e.g. 15 fps. 10 fps doesn't offer very smooth video in quality wise.

Quote:

Originally posted by tomdugan2

2. Most of my material is between 40 to 90 minutes long.

I guess this is the first contradiction. These devices weren't meant to be used for full movie viewing. The main use case is short video clips that can be sent OTA to the phone.

Quote:

Originally posted by tomdugan2

Nokia Problems:

1. Nokia Converter 2.0 works with short 2-5 minute AVI master compressions. However on forty minute files the video pre-processing freezes at 93%. This has happened to others posting here too so it is the program not my use or computer. My GUESS is that your program is failing on video demux on large files. Maybe a buffer problem? Whatever that limitation is - it should be noted in your sticky FAQ as a limitation or known issue, especially if you can't fix it!

How big are your files in size? At least we have been converted succesfully 1 GB files.

Have you tried to use other tools, such as Real's Mobile producer? If not, it could be worth to try...

Quote:

Originally posted by tomdugan2

2. Although you provide an interesting FAQ zipped with Converter 2.0, it is a general introduction to compression (developers know this). You leave out all critical information on specs so that developers who use pro level tools have no idea what they are compressing for and what the processor limitations are (developers need this).

Do you mean the limitations of the devices or converting software or both? What kind of critical specs do you mean? About 3gpp video?

Quote:

Originally posted by tomdugan2

System 40 Problems:

1. Everyone here has complained of sync problems. Some problems are a gradual loss of sync at usually one frame per minute. Others have indicated immediate loss. PART OF THE PROBLEM, is the 32MB MMC Nokia ships with the phone. It appears to be first generation which means the read rate is too slow to support fluid playback on anything but very short clips. THIS SHOULD BE IN THE FAQ! Rule one for video end users - get a fast MMC card!. I believe the gradual loss is a timing error at the system level. Why? Because sync can be reset by hitting pause/play to re-index audio and video. This could be fixed in the 6230 firmware if the player was forced to read the index every thirty seconds.

Here's the biggest issue on this. As you already said there's HW limitations in the devices nowadays. MMC interface is only one of those. Maybe the bigger issue in this case is that there isn't enough processing power available in these devices at the moment for heavy tasks as decoding these huge video files. As I said earlier, the use case with video in these devices is usually different. The future will of course bring us more processing power, better codecs etc. But this is the situation at the moment and we all have to live with it for now. The hardware in the device is what it is, and it won't be changed during the product lifecycle unless there's something wrong.

Anyway, for your use case, the better solution would be to use Series 60 as a target. It provides much more processing power and better screen resolution. You could also choose between different audio codecs, AMR-WB, AAC-LC, RealAudio 8/9. And for video you could also use RealVideo 8/9.

Quote:

Originally posted by tomdugan2

2. A top system bitrate of 64KBs per second is just not acceptable for anything other than a very static talking head shot. Everything else looks and sounds pretty bad. Doubling the bitrate of both system streams makes for a great looking file. You say 128Kbs can be used on some phones but don't list them! THIS SHOULD BE IN THE FAQ! This rate is way too much for the 6230 processor and even at 96Kbs it will lose sync in less than two minutes. This could be fixed with the indexing trick mentioned above. It could ALSO work if a long file was broken into bits that would auto-play sequentially. Nokia has a video playlist function for the PC 3GPP player (NPL file), why not on the cell phones? That would probably be the easiest fix. BTW - this would also solve the lack of inter file navigation / bookmarking too. to skip ahead or back in a film, all you would have to do would be to click up or down on the selector to play the next or last clip!

We have a document available about our products supporting video, Video and streaming in Nokia Devices. It includes for example the max. bitrates for the phones.

Quote:

Originally posted by tomdugan2

3. There is no tool that I am aware of for joining 3GPP files without recompression. Since the quality of these files is marginal at best, the only way to cut together short clips without making them look and sound worse, is by appending them WITHOUT recompression! Any ideas on demuxing / joining H.623 and AMR / re-muxing them back to 3PPG would be a MAJOR help!

I don't quite get what you're after here. 3gp is just a file format/wrapper provided by 3GPP for the video and audio stream. It doesn't do any recompression, if that's what you mean. Or do you mean full featured video editor supporting h.263 and AMR? As far as I know, there's only one: In the new Nokia Series 60 devices. For PC/Mac environment, as far as I know, that kind editor doesn't exist.

Quote:

Originally posted by tomdugan2

4. Widebamd AMR sounds a LOT better - can the 6230 support this codec? If so, see point #3 about muxing / re-muxing OR add that as a selection in Converter 2.0.

6230 doesn't support AMR-WB and new codecs won't be added as a software update.

Best regards,
V / Forum Nokia

tomdugan2 · *Last edited by tomdugan2 : 2005-01-22 at 23:16.*

Enstedt - great post! This is exactly what should be in your sticky!

OK, before I do line by line answers here is the big picture

A- You, say the 6320 is not the best for video, but users say it is! It is tiny, the display is pretty good and the phone is FREE in the USA with a contract.

B - it doesn't matter what the manufacturers want or do or say. People who want video, don't want ten second clips and they don't want HUGE cellphones like the system 60 series. My girlfriend uses her 6230 every day on the subway home to watch timeshifts of her favorite soap opera (42 minutes without commercials). SHE LOVES IT and it looks great!

C- Contact me at tomdugan2 (at) yahoo.com for a 42 minute demo video and a complete eBook for the 6320 so you can see what I am talking about!

-----

>Frame rate for the starters could be higher, e.g. 15 fps
*If the overall quality of the picture is important, 10fps can look very good when done right AND it leaves bandwidth that can be applied to the existing 10 frames!

>The main use case is short video clips that can be sent OTA to the phone.
*Wrong! Ask any user on this board. OTA is expensive. You do your work on a PC and drag and drop the file to the MMC in a flash drive (what is with the MMC UNDER the battery????)

>How big are your files in size?
*Master files are up to 2.5GBs and work fine compressed for PDAs.

>Real's Mobile producer?
*I think most people here will tell you - users HATE Real. Real takes over your computer and generally hides anything that they can't make money on. I will take a look, but I would rather live on bread and water for the rest of my life than have to use a Real installation.

>What kind of critical specs do you mean?
*Everything! This is supposed to be a Developer board! For instance, why was Converter 2.0 freezing at 93% pre-processing? Well if I knew what pre-processing was (de-muxing?) I might have been able to figure out the problem. Or, if I knew that the program was only able to compress X minute files... Or, if I knew if the player is locked and does not drop frames to keep up sync... Or, if I knew how the player worked I might be able to create video playlists... Or, if I knew what the video buffer was...

>Hardware limitations...
*But I beat the limitations with good looking files running in sync as long as I manually re-index the file every few minutes. BUT since I have this running manually, that means there has to be a way of making this work normally! That can happen IF I either have the right system information OR can hook up with a Nokia engineer to work with my results...

>I don't quite get what you're after here (3gp)
*3GP is a wrapper with a header. Higher bitrate files work fine as long as the files are about two minutes each. If there was a way of JOINING 3GP clips without changing the file structure or recompressing the headers remain intact AND if the player reads the headers, THAT might be used to reset the index so that long, higher bitrate files would maintain sync automatically.

>6230 doesn't support AMR-WB and new codecs won't be added as a software update.
*That is good to know and should be in the FAQ. ANOTHER bit of critical information is are we capped at 12.20Kbs? Another 6Kbs of bitrate would give a 50% boost in apparent quality. But your converter is locked so that means finding muxing tools to manually substitute streams - unless you have or can recommend a program without the locks. Another good point is - I can understand dumbing down a tool for end-users, but once again this is a developer's board...with people like myself working to improve existing quality for our Nokia users.

To sum up:

*3gp mux/demux and join utilities would be VERY useful because developers could use third party compression tools with more muscle to produce better looking video streams for the Nokia. This was done for years with MPEG1 before VBR was an option to handle jumps in bitrate. If you have something like this but can't share it I would be happy to upload sequential clips for YOU to join to see if my idea on holding sync at higher bitrates will work.

*Since we are "developers" it might be a good idea to release an open compression tool so that we can tweak compressions without using third party tools.

*Easy access to tech information on each system is a great idea on a developer board because you have hundreds of people working to build your platforms and spread the word on Nokia phones!

Dumb Non-Compression Question: on the 6320 - how do I find what firmware my 6320 is running, how do I find what is current, and where/how do I find the latest firmware to update the phone?

tomdugan2

Enstedt, as far as the above request for help, I am a real person, doing real mobile content with a recent international publication on mobile media. I am very serious about providing content for Nokia users. If you can't help out please tell me who can. I am willing to meet with compression techs in the USA, Denmark or Finland. Please contact me at tomdugan2 (at) yahoo.com for some more work on this issue and legal test compressions and content I will ship to you on a disk.

Finally, I really want to express my appreciation for your help here so far. If you are doing this as a volunteer, that is WAY above the call of duty and I think I speak for all of us here in thanking you for your help. Tom Dugan Jr.

enstedt

Quote:

Originally posted by tomdugan2

A- You, say the 6320 is not the best for video, but users say it is! It is tiny, the display is pretty good and the phone is FREE in the USA with a contract.

Users like it 'cause it's cheap. From the technical point of view, it has it's limits concerning heavy tasks, e.g. video encoding.

Quote:

Originally posted by tomdugan2

B - it doesn't matter what the manufacturers want or do or say. People who want video, don't want ten second clips and they don't want HUGE cellphones like the system 60 series. My girlfriend uses her 6230 every day on the subway home to watch timeshifts of her favorite soap opera (42 minutes without commercials). SHE LOVES IT and it looks great!

I definitely agree with you that vendors are not in a position to say what end users want. (Un)fortunately they have the power to define what kind of devices they offer.

Quote:

Originally posted by tomdugan2

>The main use case is short video clips that can be sent OTA to the phone.
*Wrong! Ask any user on this board. OTA is expensive. You do your work on a PC and drag and drop the file to the MMC in a flash drive (what is with the MMC UNDER the battery????)

I'm not saying that your view is wrong, but I have a bit different view of mobile devices. For me mobile means freedom in a sense that I can access data whereever I am. That means video/music download OTA, streaming live TV broadcast, news, music etc. or browsing the web etc., so that I'm not tied with PC.

And what it comes to MMC... Beats me. Maybe it's the size that matters. In this case the smaller the better...

Quote:

Originally posted by tomdugan2

>Real's Mobile producer?
*I think most people here will tell you - users HATE Real. Real takes over your computer and generally hides anything that they can't make money on. I will take a look, but I would rather live on bread and water for the rest of my life than have to use a Real installation.

I guess here you're referrering to end user products like RealOne player. Real's developer tools are a bit different. And if you hate Real that much you could also try Quicktime Pro from Apple.

Quote:

Originally posted by tomdugan2

>What kind of critical specs do you mean?
*Everything! This is supposed to be a Developer board! For instance, why was Converter 2.0 freezing at 93% pre-processing? Well if I knew what pre-processing was (de-muxing?) I might have been able to figure out the problem. Or, if I knew that the program was only able to compress X minute files... Or, if I knew if the player is locked and does not drop frames to keep up sync... Or, if I knew how the player worked I might be able to create video playlists... Or, if I knew what the video buffer was...

We have two different documents available concerning video. Other one is a sticky on this board and to the other one I gave you a link in my earlier post.

Quote:

Originally posted by tomdugan2

>Hardware limitations...
*But I beat the limitations with good looking files running in sync as long as I manually re-index the file every few minutes. BUT since I have this running manually, that means there has to be a way of making this work normally! That can happen IF I either have the right system information OR can hook up with a Nokia engineer to work with my results...

Could you send me one of your encoded example files? You can send it to smart.messaging@nokia.com.

BTW. I am a Nokia engineer...

Quote:

Originally posted by tomdugan2

*Since we are "developers" it might be a good idea to release an open compression tool so that we can tweak compressions without using third party tools.

This is one of the reasons why Nokia relies to industry standards. Also 3rd parties, who have maybe more experience on that particular area, can provide tools for content creation.

Quote:

Originally posted by tomdugan2

*Easy access to tech information on each system is a great idea on a developer board because you have hundreds of people working to build your platforms and spread the word on Nokia phones!

This is exactly what we are trying to do by providing documentation about our device capabilities in this area and also documentation about how to create content to our devices. Of course, those documents are not perfect, but those will improve in the near future.

Quote:

Originally posted by tomdugan2

Dumb Non-Compression Question: on the 6320 - how do I find what firmware my 6320 is running, how do I find what is current, and where/how do I find the latest firmware to update the phone?

In all Nokia devices you can get firmware by typing *#0000# in the idle state. You can get the latest firmware from the nearest Nokia service center.

Best regards,
V / Forum Nokia

tomdugan2 · *Last edited by tomdugan2 : 2005-02-02 at 18:30.*

Enstedt, I just logged in, wrote a detailed response - and then lost it when I hit submit (you must log in). So the short answer is... "PLEASE check your email."