The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

Hi,

Nokia have released a beta application, the Internet Tablet Video Converter. I've put up a summary on maemopeople.org:

http://www.maemopeople.org/index.php...et_video_conve

It's a very promising development, and complements tablet-encode quite nicely, IMHO.

Cheers,

Andrew

Re: Nokia release Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

Of course, it's Windows only. Ugh.

Re: Nokia release Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

Yeah a little lame. But still, nice to see.

Re: Nokia release Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

Thanks Nokia

(Un)fortunately I don't have windows

Waiting for a Linux release :)

Re: Nokia release Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

Windows XP?

No thanks.

Re: Nokia release Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

Meh, for Linux there's tablet-encode and mediaserv. Not GUI-based, but even my wife can handle:

Although a very simple Gtk+ app which shows thumbnails of all the DVD titles and allows easy selection to them is somewhere on my todo list.

Technically, cos ITVC is Mozilla-based, I wonder if it's possible to do a Linux port of it at some point.

Re: Nokia release Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

It just bugs me that Linux is good enough for running on the tablet but when it comes down to giving Linux users something like this, we don't. Just like all the games like WoW which run on Linux clusters, but there's no Linux client.

Re: Nokia release Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

I said in the OS2008 thread that videos weren't my reason for purchasing the N800...the power of a linux computer in my pocket was! (Although I'm using the hell out of FBreader!)

Even so, does this tool say that Nokia recognizes that the N8X0 tablet is an inferior video playback device?

Re: Nokia release Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

Well, you can't expect it to play something like a 720x580 xvid.

Re: Nokia release Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

You can also chalk me up to someone without Windows at home. As of last week (my girlfriend liked my Ubuntu install so much she wiped XP on her own) we're now Microsoft free.

I'd *love* a GUI though. So many open source projects get to the stage of working amazingly well at the CLI and then the work on polishing them off (ie a GUI) seems to stop or go nowhere. I know several hundred command line switches for various apps off the top of my head, but I do poorly when I need a hundred for a single media conversion command. :)

Flegg: tablet-encode does definately look simple enough though.

Re: Nokia release Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

@Hedgecore

There is a frontend to tablet-encode as far as i know (java based).
I wrote another one in python/qt but i will have to port it from 770-encode to tablet-encode sometime.

The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

Re: The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

I'm another Windowsless customer (all mac house + 2 NITs).

Not even going to read the article.

Re: The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

I was going to give this a try on my work laptop but administrative rights are required for installation.

At home I have only computers running Linux so this application is not useful for me. I'll keep on using tablet-encode instead.

Re: Nokia release Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

It's meant for newbies, who are almost certainly running Windows. They've deliberately kept features to a minimum so that it's as easy to use as possible.

The idea is to help sell the N800/N810 to the consumer market, who may find existing converters too difficult to use.

There are already more complex, much more advanced third party video converters for other OSes including Linux.

Re: The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

i am using XP on the laptop at work so I can give u some feedback regarding the application.

the GUI is very nice, same layout as the one one the n800 :) and the encodes are pretty fast.

on the maximum setting i can encode a music video very fast but aldo it plays flawlessly on the n800 the PQ is very low, and blocky so I dont really like it :(

Re: The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

Yeah, it sucks that it's Windows only, but Nokia is waking up. This, for example, was a huge deal a few months back, and with the exponential growth of open source OSes and OSX, plus the shift to web apps, the Windows only curse is being lifted. Plus, as noted above, there's still a large number of folks who are most familiar with Windows, and they (Nokia) want to expand the consumer base for the NITs. Of course they could be more egalitarian in their software offerings, but right now, it's a good move that gets them more potential users.

What's really big about this is that Nokia is hinting at a strategy for building a market for the NITs. Yeah, they may have skipped over some customers for now, but they're doing everything they can to encourage the platform itself. That's good for the future of the tablet.

Re: The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

common, windows isnt THAT bad ... !!! ;)
(im gonna get killed here, but i stand up to my choices :) )

Re: The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

I don't see anyone here making an OS war out of it. It's simply a matter of "most of us aren't running it, so why would we install it just for this program?" and "if Nokia wants to give a useful tool to its users, they should consider more than just windows for that purpose, esp. since the device they're supporting is itself running linux".

Re: Nokia release Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

Heh. I remember when that quote would have most certainly have ended with "a macintosh". :-}

Re: The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

I'm getting the following error when I try to run:

ALERT
Error when creating PythonPlugins instance:
TypeError: Components.classes['@tmm.com/pythonplugins/pythonplugins'] has on properties
[ OK ]

What the heck does that mean? O-: Anybody else getting this?

Re: Nokia release Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

Like I said before, I really don't think this is aimed at us, I think it's aimed at people who haven't even heard of Linux and never will do until it comes shipped with PCs as standard.

There's not really anything in this application for advanced users, we've already got converters which do everything this app does and more. It's meant to be a "converter for dummies", a way to build a larger userbase and not necessarily intended to please experienced tablet owners.


Well, Macintoshes tend to cost more while PCs nowadays cost peanuts. Most people don't want that much from their computers nowadays so they tend to go for the cheapest models.

Of course, PCs would cost even less if they were running Linux instead of Windows. :D

Re: The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

Mediaconverter works great for me. Have it on my MacBookpro and WinVista tower. Out-put quality is dang good

Re: The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

Care to put a sample of something encoded with that to the internet?

Re: The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned mediaconverter

Java, works on linux, gui, and it worked for me (it's a while since I used it). Note, although the page says n770, it works for the n800 as well.

Re: The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

Don't know whether that works for 770 but I just hate it when I check "compatibility" and there is nothing mentioned about 770, like it never existed in the first place!

Re: The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

very good app, i use it regularly. i hope konttori will have time to update it...

Re: The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

Yeah, that is bogus as usual but not to worry... if there is one thing good old 770 still does better than the shiny new N8x0s, it's video.

I have tried converting a home-made video (AVI in native DV format, about 700MB for three minutes) with the Nokia tool. It yielded a 17MB MP4 (on the "best" setting), surprisingly fast too (on a 4-year old, not too powerful PC). The file plays just fine on both the 770 and N800, sound & video are smooth (although it looks better on the N800 because the screen is livelier).

Another nonsensical "compatibility" indication on the download page is the requirement for an "Intel" Pentium" 4, Intel Centrino" processor". Of course it runs just fine on an AMD Barton 2500 :-)

Re: The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

Yes, that would be really helpful!
A small, legal one of preference :)

Howdy from Nokia
 

Hi guys,

My name is Victor Brilon. I am the Product Manager in Nokia that's responsible for the Video Converter app (among other things). I've been lurking here a while so I figured I should post and address some of the issues raised in this topic

The easy one first -- from Post #21 -- the reason you're seeing the error about the PythonPlugins instance is that the Windows .NET framework is not installed. You can check whether it is or it isn't by looking in the Control Panel->Add/Remove Programs. The Video Converter app should install .NET for you if it's not there already. Did you by any chance stop that part of the installer or something? In either case, if you can reproduce this bug with a clean install, please let me know (via PM or in this thread) and we'll look into it ASAP.

Ok on to some less easier to answer topics...

The most common comment I am seeing is "Why Windows only?". Let me preface this by saying we don't hate non-Windows users :) I am a full-time OS X and Linux guy as are many members of our team. This application is targeted at less sophisticated/experienced Tablet users. These are people who probably don't even know that ITT or garage.maemo.org exist (and frankly don't care). The reality is that the majority of these users are on Windows, and we have to cater to them on their platform.

Having said that, we definitely want to target other platforms. I am currently working on a project plan to release a version for Windows Vista as well as OS X. I don't want to commit to a time for these, but I really want to get them out as soon as it's feasible, given R&D/time/resource constraints that are inevitable in any project.

Several people have asked for a Linux version as well. Honestly we have not planned for a Linux version as most of these users are happy using the Open Source alternative that are out there (like Urho Konttori's excellent app). If we were to do a Linux version, what target do we have there? I.E., what distribution (RedHat and its famiy, Debian and its family, some other), what window system (KDE, Gnome, something else) do we shoot for? Please let me know your thoughts on this as well as what you'd like to see in this product feature-wise. I absolutely cannot commit to a Linux version now (not only because of the above issues, but there's quite a bit of technical issues to work out with codecs and such), but I am interested in your opinions on the matter.

Any other suggestions/ideas/flames/compliments you have, please post them here or PM me. I'm also working on setting up a maemo Bugzilla entry for this application so you are able to file any bugs you discover.

Thanks for your enthusiasm and feedback. You have no idea how gratifying it is for me to see people in the real world using products that we spent so much time designing and working on :) And stay tuned as we have some surprises planned for future releases of this software.

Re: The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

Your team did a great job. De application works very well and it even has good Dual CPU support! The simplicity is a very strong point. The cue function also works perfect. Hope to see more releases!

Re: The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

Victor, thanks for decloaking.

As I'm sure you know, a lot of us Linux users feel the whole "we're good enough for you to use, but not to support" feeling and hate it. Obviously, it's not really your fault. The logistics of Linux support are incredibly complex and that's why I personally would rather see you guys release it with binaries and source so that people like me (64-bit Gentoo) could use it too with a simple recompile... but I doubt that will happen.

And to clarify, I don't want to see this on Linux simply because the other open source options aren't good enough. I'm quite happy with those solutions, but if no one pushes for Linux support, we'll never get it and just be further ignored.

Anyways, thanks for being willing to talk with us. Looking forward to those surprises.

Re: The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

Zerojay,

You've nailed the issue straight up -- the 64 vs 32 bit support is yet another piece of the Linux puzzle we need to solve to get a proper release out. We have most definitely looked into what it would take to make this release Open Source, but the logistics of it, due to the codec support issues, are really complex.

So yes -- we'd love to support Linux users. And it'd make life easier for our own internal Linux users too :) I'll collect all the ideas presented and we'll do our best from there.

Re: The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

Victor, thanks for dropping in to communicate with us !

I, for one, liked the Windows version just fine :-)

Are you interested in reports/samples of video formats that DON'T convert ? Or do you already know exactly what should work and what doesn't ?

Re: The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

Great that you came here to talk to us Victor. Truly splendid application. My Kudos to you. I hope some third party developers will now take on and add some missing pieces to the puzzle.

Re: The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

I am very interested in any media type that your Windows Media Player is capable of playing (i.e., that you have codecs installled for and that WMP can play) but that the converter can't handle. Give me a little bit of time and we'll get Bugzilla set up specifically for these types of things.

EDIT: clarified what should play out of the box. I.E., the benchmark is files playable by WMP, not necessarily Windows in general.

Re: The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

No, they're not. Just release sources in good shape and with a suitable license, and let the distributions worry about the packaging.
Each distribution knows best how to integrate programs, and their users will simply have to use the distribution own easy gui to get the package installed and working. They won't even need to download it, since most linux package management nowadays do that for you, as well as resolving any dependencies.

Re: The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

I really wish it was that easy, but unfortunately in this case it's not since the application involves non-free (as in both speech and beer) codecs that do all the hard work. Nokia licenses these codecs and we don't have the right to distribute them as sources obviously. So now there's the issue of dynamic linking and proper architecture support for these codecs.

Re: The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

You're assuming that the distributions are going to pick the program up to begin with and that the program will be open source, which it probably won't or can't be.

I'm talking about distributing binaries.

Re: The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter
 

don't convert flv ... sniff