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If you were lucky enough to receive some form of electronic gadgetry in your Christmas stocking this year, there’s a good chance that said device will play video.
iPods, iPhones, portable gaming systems and even the most basic mobile phones all have de rigueur colour screens that display movies even if they sometimes are of eye-wateringly small dimensions.
But there’s a problem and it’s one that I get asked about regularly.
Most of us can use our mobiles to watch a video that we shot with it, but how do watch stuff on your phone or MP3 player that you obtained elsewhere?
The bad news is that the web is awash with so-called video conversion software and much of it is of very poor quality or can even contain viruses – those would-be hackers realising it’s a commonly requested tool that people are regularly searching for.
Another common experience is that the software you downloaded which said it was free is actually a trial that stamps your clips with a watermark which requires a paid license to remove.
Sound familiar? If so, you’re frustration is about to be soothed thanks the The Pirate Bay.
Yes, the very same Pirate Bay, based in Sweden, that indexes and tracks all those BitTorrent files has released some software called Vio, specifically designed to convert full movies, film clips, music videos to a format that you can then play from your favourite portable device.
When converting your video you simply select what you want the conversion to be optimised for (phone make, iPod etc) and decide on what you expect from the output. This can be based either on picture quality or a required final size if storage space is an issue. Choosing the latter will simply compress your file sufficiently to fit the size you specify.
Vio is currently Windows only software and unfortunately I couldn’t find mention of any plans to release it for Mac or Linux, but I deemed it worthy of my Windows box and was very pleased with the outcome.
If you want a simple and yet powerful video conversion application that actually works the way it’s supposed to and doesn’t cost anything, head over to http://vio.thepiratebay.org/
This festive period you can watch The Wizard of Oz on a 2 inch screen!
This lunchtime I finally got my hands ok an upgrade to my iPhone and I’m now proudly rocking the iPhone 3G.
I’m out and about this afternoon so I’m making this post from the iPhone WordPress app again. So far I’m really impressed with it but I’ve run onto quite a major snag with the iPhone.
A few months ago I bought an Apple Bluetooth headset. Rather nicely it included a new iPhone ‘double’ dock that took both the phone and the headset and kept them both nicely charged. Great.
However, due to the shape of the iPhone 3G case being a little different to it’s first gem cousin, none of the old docking stations fit any more, so I’ve nowhere to charge up my headset.
Worse still, Apple mo longer provide a docking station of any kind with the iPhone 3G, so that when you’re charging or synching it at your desk it has to lie flat and you don’t see incoming calls of texts. Do Not Like.
In typical Apple fashion you can now BUY a docking station that will fit the 3G (but without the headset dock, of course) for £19. Thanks for that.
Apple, you try even my patience at times.
A few weeks ago I wrote how we Brits can feel cheated by having to wait for new gadgets that usually surface first in America.
A case in point was Apple’s iPhone which won’t see the light of day here until November, some five months after its American debut.
I must admit that the gadget and Apple fan within me was starting to get really tempted into shelling out for a UK iPhone but having seen what’s on offer, how much I’m going to have to pay for it and, crucially, how Apple is treating its American iPhone customer-base, I’ve decided to steer well clear.
The phone will cost a not inconsiderable £269 but more importantly you will be locked into an 18 month account with the O2 network at a minimum tariff of £35 per month. A quick bit of mental arithmetic calculates that at a total cost of ownership of at least £899 – and that’s for a service that offers no 3G coverage.
Perhaps more importantly, those owners in America who hacked their devices to use other networks or install third party applications saw those devices rendered unusable by a software update to the phone.
Such harsh treatment by Apple lowers their standing in the opinions of many.
Last week finally saw the release of what must surely be one of the most hyped and anticipated gadgets in history.
After being revealed six months ago, America was finally able to get its collective paws on an Apple iPhone.
As is the modern tradition, queues of people formed outside Apple shops for a day or two before the launch (despite the promise that there would be no shortage of stock) and the company managed to shift over half a million units in the first couple of days which, at $600 a pop, won’t do the coffers any harm.
So now that it’s officially out there, does the iPhone live up to its monumental hype? Sadly, we Europeans shall have to wait until late autumn before determining that for ourselves, but Stateside reviews have been almost unanimously positive.
As a pocket-sized internet device, the iPhone with its large, colourful screen is clearly without rival, featuring a version of Apple’s Safari web browser that shows full web pages. The email and Google Maps applications also look great as, of course, does music and movies.
Apparently it also works as a telephone. Madness!
Apple has been criticised for not making the phone available on a high speed 3G network in the US but with any luck that won’t be the case when it’s finally available here.
Reaction to Apple’s iPhone has cooled considerably after the fevered initial wow factor died off.
The device, which merges a phone, music player and web browser in a sleek looking, button-less form factor, won’t be available in the UK until the end of 2007.
Tech analysts point to the fact that existing smartphones do everything the iPhone will do and more.
This may be true but Apple are clearly hoping to impress a share of the ‘Average Jo(e)’ market, despite the promised hefty price tag.
Last week Apple chairman, Steve Jobs, made his annual Macworld keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in America.
As is Apple’s custom, the event was hyped beyond belief.
The company keeps information on its new products and services incredibly secret and in the past has tried to sue websites that have even attempted to leak anything.
There are, of course, good reasons for this fanaticism in starving the tech industry of any early information.
Firstly it sends the rumour mill into a frenzied overdrive (apparently there’s a legal difference between rumoured speculation and outright leaking) and secondly it ensures maximum eyeballs and coverage of Jobs’ eventual speech which, it has to be said, it always delivered with a kind of coolness and quiet enthusiasm that the other Steve (Ballmer, chairman of Microsoft) could well learn a lesson or several from.
So what was this year’s big news?
Well, speculation about new video iPods has been around for a while but not quite as long as the ‘legendary before it actually exists’ iPhone – Apple’s entry into the mobile phone market.
Both products were announced – sort of. Apple has merged the two.
The new iPhone is, in spite of the unparalleled hype it received, is quite an extraordinary looking device that combines a phone, a widescreen video iPod and a ‘mobile internet communicator’ in a unit with no physical buttons that comes in at just 11mm – that’s under half an inch in old money – thick. Call it hyperbole if you will, but it really does look like something from the future. It’s almost impossible to believe that so much stuff can be crammed into something so thin.
The internet side of things includes email, web browser and Google maps. This thing runs a stripped down version of Mac OS X so there’s also support for Widgets.
It’s Bluetooth and Wi-Fi enabled, stores and plays music, widescreen movies and pictures and includes an onscreen QWERTY keyboard for those all-important text messages.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that it’s not available here until the end of the year which might just give you enough time to save for it.
At a US price of $500 for the 4GB version and $600 for its 8GB sister, you can probably expect similar figures when those prices are converted to sterling – and that’s with a contract.
More at Apple’s website.
