S60 and Mac - from first principles - part 3

[Rafe]

Continuing Steve's series of 'S60 Mac virgin' walkthroughs, he tackles the thorny subject of video, both transferring it to the phone and doing useful editing on footage from the phone. Do any of the Mac video solutions play better with Nseries MP4 video files than the current crop of PC editors? In previous parts, he connected up and synced via Bluetooth, and he transferred media and bookmarks using the USB cable.

Read on in the full article.

Alternatively, you could use iTunes to manage the video, in much the same way as you use iPhoto in this article. Not sure if mixing video and music is much better than mixing video and photo though.

Hi Steve,

Did you get the 6220 and Nokia Multimedia Transfer to work together or did you just bluetooth/USB file across as drag and drop?

I've tried them together and I just get message saying 6220 isn't supported.

Also, no iCal conduit, but that's another moan

[Ratkat]

Steve, you should read through the comments in your previous articles.

The best way to get your video in your required format is to use VisualHub.

http://www.techspansion.com/visualhub/

Quite simply the best video conversion software I have ever used, very fast with a simple interface covering just about every format you will ever need.

A friend of mine uses it to format news clips for many of the leading news sites in the UK.

Just create your video clip in iMovie etc, save it, then convert in VisualHub, it doesn't get any simpler

[predicaments]

I think most of the problem here is being a mac virgin rather than the software being 'poor'. Final Cut Express is a GENIUS editor. You don't have to render your clips inside FCE at all - the reason the red bar is there is because your project doesn't have the same video size / resolution as the clips. The beauty of FCE IS the fact that it can use unlimited RT which allows for live preview of transitions and so on.

Also if you google around you'll find a fantastic way to get video onto S60 devices. The best way is to use Quicktime PRO (About £20) and export as 3GP making the bit rate 700 and keeping the aspect ratio via CROP. This will provide awesome video playback of the highest quality but keeping the file size down. Typicallly I can get an entire feature film onto my N95 8GB at around 700mb.

Once you have this setting in Quicktime you're laughing and video will look amazing on your S60 device. Oh i forgot - make sure it's 320x240 as your export size.

I think a future article on mac / S60 integration would be best written by someone who uses macs everyday and is familiar with the pros and cons of the whole package.

My only main criticism of the whole Nokia / Apple thing is that transfer is slow between the two devices. Also why on earth didn't apple just partner with Nokia? They're so similiar in so many ways!

[stuclark]

You get exactly the same video export dialog boxes, producing exactly the same results, if you use the Windows version of Quicktime.

I have to agree with predicaments - shell out for QT Pro and suddenly you have the full ability of this excellent program to export in whatever format you want and make it work... easily!

I use QT all the time on my XP and Vista machines; and never trust any of the builtin MS products which either refuse to work with MP4 (it essentially being an Apple format), or will only output in some nasty WMV format which I can't then playback on anything other than Windows.

[sapporobaby]

@Gideon,

What do you need an iCal conduit for. iSync is all you need unless you want to use MissingSync or something like that. I have been using iSync and Nokia's for about 5 years and it just works. No loading software (unless the phone is so new it is not in the iSync database and Nokia supplies the sycning data) like in Windows.

You can also use Handbreak, and FFMPEG. Both are free.

@sapporobaby,

Sorry, that's what I ment.

I just can't find the 6220 iSync conduit on the Nokia Mac page and Apple no longer add support for new handsets, it is down to Nokia (or 3rd parties) to provide for their phones.

As for Missing Sync, I don't see that it provides any extra features compared to Nokia Multimedia Transfer and iSync conduit. Or am I missing something.....

[mattrad]

I have to agree that whatever the video export options, VisualHub is a great conversion tool. Failing that, Quicktime Pro, which seems to take considerably longer (IMHO).

Steve, if you want to try either out, you're welcome to try them on my MacBook.

Cheers

Hi Steve, like many have commented before: with iMovie 08, just go to share - then itunes.

Then open up VisualHub to convert it to ur preferred video formats even those playable on the devices itself.

[Sergey Zak]

Hi Steve, nice to see you try "new tricks"! huh, no offense OK?
I use macs since they were macintoshes (1994) and I used Apple][ way back in 1988.
For the messaging part of your reviews, take a look at BluePhoneElite of which I am an active user and beta tester; I mentioned this product here some time ago. Works a treat, especially for typing SMS on N-series which lack qwerty. Has features that Nokia PC Suite only ponders about (incoming call/message notification/processing on mac screen).
Also of a note is Salling Clicker remote control (which I think you've already mentioned somewhere).

[slitchfield]

The whole point of the articles was to look at the practicalities of a hardened pc owner switching to a mac and exploring the initial learning curve. i.e. How would this affect smartphone integration? Are there any drawbacks or showstoppers?

And I specifically wanted to avoid trickery or third party non-obvious apps.

We'd welcome proper articles from mac geeks showing how to do far more. Email us if you want to contribute.

Steve (via mobile)

[sapporobaby]

@Steve,

I was a Windows user until I got the hourglass of death. I switched to Mac about 4 or 5 years ago and would not consider going back. I only run Windows on my Mac just to do the updates for my N82. NOKIA WHERE IS A MAC VERSION???

Sorry about that. Anyway, I was an SE man at the time as well but they said they had no plans to support Mac. Funny how times and a greater marker share can change your mind. Being Mac'd and Nokia'd, if there is any particular thing you would like demo'd tried, etc..... let me know and I will run it through for you. Considering I use my Nokia and Mac together daily I no longer even notice them. I wrote a script that does a nightly update of my N82 via my Mac without me even having to initiate it. I just add the script (Automator) to the calendar and the Mac does the rest.

[sapporobaby]

Originally Posted by Sergey Zak

Hi Steve, nice to see you try "new tricks"! huh, no offense OK?
I use macs since they were macintoshes (1994) and I used Apple][ way back in 1988.
For the messaging part of your reviews, take a look at BluePhoneElite of which I am an active user and beta tester; I mentioned this product here some time ago. Works a treat, especially for typing SMS on N-series which lack qwerty. Has features that Nokia PC Suite only ponders about (incoming call/message notification/processing on mac screen).
Also of a note is Salling Clicker remote control (which I think you've already mentioned somewhere).

Good call Sergey,

I beta BFE as well. Been a user since the early days.

One good thing about installing apps on the Nokia via a Mac is that you simply send the app and click on it. No need for the PC suite. The installer in the phone takes care of the rest. I can install 10 apps via Bluetooth in the time it takes to install one via the PC Suite.

[davidmaxwaterma]

Originally Posted by Rafe

Continuing Steve's series of 'S60 Mac virgin' walkthroughs, he tackles the thorny subject of video, both transferring it to the phone and doing useful editing on footage from the phone. Do any of the Mac video solutions play better with Nseries MP4 video files than the current crop of PC editors? In previous parts, he connected up and synced via Bluetooth, and he transferred media and bookmarks using the USB cable.

Read on in the full article.

Steve,

What's that complaint about FCE displaying a dialog *every time* you start it. Didn't you *read* the dialog? You even put a snapshot of it. It clearly tells you what to do, *and* it has a checkbox saying "Don't warn me again"....what more could you ask for? Did that option not work, or did I miss something? Perhaps you're just commenting from a usability point of view or something...

Max.