Shooting in MP4
I was delighted to read Steve’s Multimedia group test of smartphones over at AAS. And not only because latest Nokia Nseries devices running S60 beat Windows Mobile offerings by a margin 
The article makes a good point about MPEG-4 video recording, which has been getting somewhat lesser attention lately than megapixel cameras and improved optics. Video recording has been around since the very second S60 phone, Nokia 3650. What has been disappointing is that the quality of recording hasn’t really improved over the years, most devices still encode in the ancient H.263 codec and low resolution. Video clips don’t look good even on the phone display, not to mention transferred to PC or shown on TV. Video recording was long time seen only as an application for MMS sending, and the limitations needed because of MMS interoperability have kept the quality low.
Starting from S60 2nd Edition, Feature Pack 3 there is an option to record video also in MPEG-4 format (or MP4 in short), which is superior in quality and quite suitable for viewing on PC or TV. You can check out the quality on Symplification (make sure you have Quicktime or some other MPEG-4 player installed), the clip is one of the Nokia’s funny promotional clips for N90. Although it might not always be explicitly stated in the marketing materials, most devices running S60 3rd Edition have MP4 recording as a standard feature. You can check out the hard data at forum.nokia.com/multimedia.
There are some usability issues watching MP4 videos on a PC however. Windows doesn’t support it out of the box, you need to download some player containing the MPEG-4 codec. This is not a big problem for most users, but might still come as a surprise. Quicktime is the most obvious choice, and also Nokia’s PC Suite application package has a player. Apple user’s don’t need to care, Mac OS supports MP4 video natively.
Having shot your MP4 masterpiece, you might want to put it on your web site or blog for everyone to see. This might bring some problems, since many web servers don’t recognise this format. There is a text at Forum Nokia that might be helpful in this case. Most video bloggers using a mobile phone as a camcorder seem to convert the videos to Flash or some other format to avoid problems.
I’m sure we will see lots of improvements in the near future, things like AVC encoding, higher frame rates and resolutions. Like most multimedia related features, those are also highly hardware dependent. It will be also interesting to see more multimedia-oriented Windows Mobile and Linux devices!
Actually, my main point wasn’t about MP4 versus H.263 - it was about the resolution being effectively four times higher. 352 by 288 pixels is ‘old’ TV quality, also used in Video CD.
MP4 helps, of course, but it’s the resolution that helps most!
Steve Litchfield
PS. Any chance of adding 3-Lib into your blog links panel?
Steve: we are both right
I just wanted to promote MP4 since it’s fundamentally a big step to the right direction, AVC hopefully following soon.
Interesting background info that one of the reasons video quality is still poor has something to do with backwards compatability of MMS. Thanks! MP4 is generally a nice format. I have Quicktime installed on my PC and used Firefox to surf to the page with the embedded video you linked to. Crashed Firefox… Some way on the PC and Web to go as well before we can enjoy good quality and fairly compressed video…
Hi,
For just playing clips the Ace DivX Player is also ok (free).
I just got a N70 and these video things are new to me. For a blogger like me and maybe for others too a good editing software for your PC would be great. Can you recommend some?
Actually I was suprised how much you can do with the default editor on the phone, but if you want some more features it´s not enough.
Well, I’m not typical. But I tend to use Quicktime Pro to convert MP4 to generic AVI (encoded in something nice and non-lossy like Cinepak or Indeo) and then use any video editing software to muck around. I use VideoStudio 9. It’s trickier to mess around with video when it’s tightly encoded in something like MP4.
Steve Litchfield
VideoBlogging With Nucleus
I thought it would be nice to do videoblogging so I spent one evening to find out how this could be done. I use Nucleus for blogging, but I guess my tutorial is valid for most other blogging software…
I don’t use Mac but I guess messing around in MP4 is not a problem in it since it’s the native codec in Mac OS.
If I use Quicktime Pro it saves to .mov (?)
Can I save it in some format that can be opened by the Windows Movie Maker?
If not do you have some recommendations for a .mov -> .avi converter?
Thanks!
You need to use ‘Export’ rather than ‘Save as’.
Steve
One possibility is to use 3rd party recording application, like ETI Camcorder. It outputs AVI files. Haven’t tried myself, so cannot say anything about the quality.
I just downloaded the free RAD Video Tools. It converts .mov -> .avi.
have you ever use MOV Converter ,it’s really good!
if you want to find some audio software, you can go http://www.purchaseshareware.com/
nice blog
thts good
Giving good information for MPEG-4 video recording.
MP4 Movies format is great for shooting tjrough a Mobile camera as well as with the Camcoder.
The implications of shooting your own mp4s are astounding, especially for those who own an iphone, ipod, or any other handheld device that already plays them. Why limit this article to a PC?
The implications of this are astounding for hand held devices like ipod, iphone, and all the other popular brands. I love being able to show my mp4s from my digital camera to my friends…