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ALL Secrets of making Pocket PC screenshots

It was a year ago that I’ve published my well-known (for example, it made to Sticky in the MobilitySite Applications forum) Making screenshots of the Pocket PC (alternates: MobilitySite, AximSite, PPCT, FirstLoox, BrightHand, PocketMatrix). Now that WM5 is out, I found it absolutely necessary to rewrite the old article to have, for example, WM5- and more gaming-related information.
In this article, you’ll find a LOT of secrets never published anywhere. You may already have been aware of all Compaq / HP iPAQ’s being able to take screenshots by themselves, but, for example, have you been aware of that you can take auto shots (shots taken one after another, without human intervention) by two Pocket PC-based screen capture applications, and with additional three with some manual “hacking” (don’t be afraid, it’ll be VERY easy!)? Did you know that, however much Vidya Pocket Screen Capture doesn't allow for suppressing the pretty annoying camera sound, you can get rid of it easily, by just deleting the WAV sound file it's stored in? Were you aware of the fact that many screen grabber applications that are considered NOT to be VGA compatible are able to be "forced" into VGA mode so that they take excellent VGA screenshots? Did you know Pocket Informant already has a built-in screen capture utility and the same developer has also released a free, stand-alone version excellent for taking periodic auto-screenshots? The list continues… Yes, you’ll find an explanation of all these in this article – and a lot more, never-before-published tips and tricks. This means that, as with all my similar roundups, this one will reveal a lot of secrets of the Pocket PC – read on!
Introduction: The basics
What's the point in writing so big an article on all these questions, you may ask. Isn't it as easy as just downloading an arbitrary screen grabber application off the Net, installing and starting it and just pressing its hotkey to take a shot (if it's a button based-application) or, if it has a timer, just quickly switch (before the timer is fired) to the application you'd like to take a shot of?
Yes, in many cases, it'll work, particularly if you "only" have a QVGA device, of which you'd only like to take screenshots in the default Portrait mode. As soon as, however, you will need to take shots of
full-screen games
VGA screens
Landscape screens
menus
screens that depend on the actual Internet (IP) address of the device
screens of the "HTC Camera" built-in camera client application (if any)
you will find that the screen gabber application you've chosen just doesn't work. It's particularly in these cases that you'll find this writeup useful.
Classification of screen grabber applications
First and foremost, there are two main kinds of screen capturer applications. The first group of them uses an active ActiveSync (or, in cases, any kind of TCP/IP (Internet) connection) and initiates screen grabbing from a desktop Windows PC; the second group only runs on the Pocket PC itself and doesn’t need any kind of desktop-based client. First, I elaborate on the first group.
1. PC & ActiveSync-based capture solutions
1.1 Introduction
You may already know at least SOTi Pocket Controller, the great PC-based application that makes it possible to control your Pocket PC hooked up to your PC (or being anywhere in the world if it has an Internet connection and your desktop is able to connect to it). SOTi Pocket Controller is one of the many applications that are not only controller apps but also themselves are able to take screenshots of the actual screen content of the connected Pocket PC device. In this article, I won’t discuss any of these programs (again, programs that not only allow for seeing the screen of your Pocket PC on your desktop computer, but also control it) because I’ve already done so. Please read this article for more information on how these applications can be used. Make sure you pay special attention to following the links to Part I of the series.
Seeing how I emphasized the word ‘control’, you may have already guessed there are desktop-based applications that don’t let for controlling the PDA (that is, you can’t use the PC’s keyboard and mouse to directly enter text / click objects on the virtual screen of the PDA), “only” passively show its screen. Or, more precisely, they don’t show it, “only” make a (savable) screenshot of it whenever you ask them to do so. This also means that, while “controller” applications (as they also need to show almost the same picture on the desktop as is on the PDA, with the least possible delay) may hugely slow down how the Pocket PC can be operated, desktop-based clients that only transfer the contents of the screen between the two devices can result in a much faster and more responsive Pocket PC. In this respect, solely screen capture apps (again, ones that can NOT be used to control the device) can be infinitely better: as they only transfer information between the PC and the Pocket PC when you do instruct them to take a screenshot, they don’t slow down the Pocket PC.
These applications (as with the “controller” type of applications; from now on, I’ll only talk about the ones that can’t control) all have the advantage of being able to capture (almost) anything. If you use a Pocket PC-only capture application, a lot of things may prevent you from taking screenshots on your device (for example, the given application’s blocking all hardware buttons or the inability to capture menus because they just close when you press the shortcut to make a screenshot). These problems are non-existent on applications that also have a desktop component. Then, you can, say, just open the menu or start the game you want to make shots of and just instruct the PC-side screenshot grabber to do the job when the screen / dialog you wanted to take a shot of is displayed.
Desktop-based screen capturer (or, again, controller) applications refuse to work in very-very few cases; for example,
when the given application (for example, Fathammer’s excellent 2700G-enabled 3D golf title, Toy Golf – it won’t start if the PDA is connected to the desktop PC via ActiveSync; the situation is the same with some other games that rely on the Intel 2700G GPU; for example, GeoRally EX) because it hates ActiveSync to be active. In this case, you can only make screenshots with Pocket PC-based tools. (In most cases, however, with a bit of playing with the time you connect the PPC to the desktop, you can still take screenshots through ActiveSync even with games like Toy Golf. For example, in order to take screenshots of Toy Golf from the desktop PC, start the game without the Pocket PC connected to the computer and only connect after the first “Loading” screen. Then, any server-side application will work – both specialized screen capturer apps and, as can be seen for example here, “full” Pocket PC controllers too. Note that, as far as this screenshot and the VGA 2700G-enabled devices – Dell Axim x50v / x51v – are concerned, if you use a plain screenshot tool, prefer the ViTO one (reviewed in this roundup) and start the game from native VGA mode so that the screenshots will be full-resolution ones. Forget GetPDAScreen, which, even as of version 1.1, is totally incompatible with VGA and will only take low-res screenshots.
when the additional network connection ActiveSync creates can cause problems. For example, if you take screenshots of an application or a game that displays or relies on for example a local network address, you can’t use an ActiveSync-based tool. The sole reason for this is that ActiveSync (as has also been pointed out by several of my ActiveSync & networking-related articles; for example, this) assigns another IP (Internet) address to the device. Then, the Pocket PC will have two addresses: one in the “real” network it’s supposed to talk to the outer world (in the following case, other PDA’s running the same game) and the other is that of ActiveSync. An example screenshot of this is here, where I took a screenshot of pocketadventures.com’s Travel Collection (also see The Definitive Multiplayer PPC Game Roundup). There, two IP’s are shown; one of them being assigned by ActiveSync, while the other being the “real” address of the device.
You will also need to keep this in mind when taking screenshots (or, for that matter, operating) local area network-based programs like the excellent 4Talk (review here) , or, when taking screenshots of for example the IP configuration screen of vxUtil, probably the best networking tool on the Pocket PC.
In most (all?) of the other cases, desktop-based screenshot taking will work just great.
1.2 Screen grabber / saver, desktop-based applications
There are, as far as user-friendly apps are concerned, two such applications (and one strictly for Pocket PC Phone Edition devices) right now (again, the rest also have controlling capabilities and, therefore, aren’t listen in here – check out the above roundup for a complete overview of them): GetPDAScreen and VITO ScreenCapture, both free and, unfortunately, both incompatible with the standard (SE) VGA mode of WM2003SE/WM5 VGA Pocket PC’s.
Note that Microsoft also has a (free - it comes with the free eVC 4.0) remote screen capturer application. It, however, is far from being user-friendly (particularly the connection initiation is a real pain in the back as it requires the user to always use different port addresses and, therefore, doesn't really allow for static .lnk files just to invoke \Windows\cemgrc.exe on the PDA) and offers really nothing additional compared to these applications. It supports landscape and native VGA as can be seen in here. it is, however, hopelessly QVGA in standard (SE) VGA and, therefore, not at all recommended.
If you really want to give it a try, you need to know the following: install eVC and execute c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows CE Tools\Platman\bin\cezoom.exe. Go to Connection / Configure CE Platform Manager and, after highlighting "Default Device" under "Windows CE .NET Default Platform" (there may/will be other top-level roots), click Properties. Change the settings to TCP/IP... in the top and Manual Server in the bottom drop-down menu. Click OK two times and select Connection / Connect to Device, highlight the same device and click OK. Now, you'll be presented the two DLL's and the one EXE file you'll need to copy from the c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows CE Tools\Platman\target\ subdirectory according to your CPU type to the \Windows subdirectory on your PDA. In the bottommost, non-editable textfield, you'll be presented the parameters (the IP address of your PC and the port the server will be listening on) you will need to pass to cemgrc.exe on your handheld. For example, in this example, you must supply the "/T:TCPIPC.DLL /Q /D:169.254.2.2:3359" parameters to cemgrc.exe; for example, via a link file with the following content:
99#"\WINDOWS\cemgrc.exe" /T:TCPIPC.DLL /Q /D:169.254.2.2:3359
Then, start the server on the PDA and immediately after this the client on the PC. Click OK and the connection will be built up. You can any time refresh the view by pressing F5 (or Connection / Refresh).
Note that the port number will change every time you reconnect the PDA to the desktop PC; this is one of the reasons I don't recommend this solution at all for simple screen grabbing purposes and haven’t even included in the comparison chart.
1.2.1 GetPDAScreen 1.1 by NewMad
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Its biggest problem is that it’s strictly QVGA (it doesn’t even take full-resolution shots in native VGA mode) and Portrait only. (The latter, fortunately, doesn’t mean it won’t be able to make screenshots of (most) games running in Landscape full screen – it will). It only takes QVGA shots of VGA devices, which is unacceptable in most cases. If you force \Windows\GetScreen.exe (the EXE component the desktop client, behind the scenes, deploys on the Pocket PC to grab the screen and send it over the ActiveSync connection) into VGA (with Tweaks2k2.NET or just copying the standard .mui file into \Windows), the result will only contain the upper left quarter of the screen as can also be seen in this screenshot.
Therefore, you will only want to use it on QVGA devices, preferably in Portrait only (or with landscape games).
1.2.2 VITO ScreenCapture 1.0
This application doesn’t support taking full-resolution screenshots of VGA devices in SE (standard) VGA either; only in the native VGA mode. It supports non-Portrait screen orientations. That is, it’s much more useful than GetPDAScreen. It is only able to export screenshots into BMP files; therefore, you will want to convert them further with, say, ImageMagick on the desktop or XnView on the Pocket PC (see the tips in the Full Roundup of Picture Viewers/Editors for the Pocket PC for more information & tips on conversion!) to the much more compact, say, PNG format.
1.2.3 Jeyo Mobile Companion 1.1
This application is a well-known, excellent Pocket PC Phone Edition SMS / contacts manager for the PC - highly recommended if you want to, say, backup your SMS messages or call history to your desktop PC or manage your phone contacts directly on the PC.
Unfortunately, it is only compatible with Pocket PC Phone Edition devices - that is, not with standard, phone-less Pocket PC's.
It, in addition to PIM handling, also has screen capturing capabilities, which is accessible via Tools / Capture Screen. It captures landscape screens without problems and is able to directly save images to both BMP and JPG files.
While, by default, it's not capable of capturing VGA screens in standard (SE) mode, forcing \Windows\CommMan.exe (the file auto-deployed by Jeyo to the PDA) into VGA does the trick. That is, this is the only desktop-based application that is able to correctly capture the VGA screen of, say, the VGA HTC Universal. That is, if you have a HTC Universal, you'll want to give it a try.
2 Strictly on-the-PDA screenshot applications
There are three types of them: some are part of picture viewer/editor applications (see the Full Roundup of Picture Viewers/Editors for the Pocket PC for more information on the latter) and the rest have been created solely for screen capturing capabilities (while, possibly, they also have image viewing capabilities to, for example, browse the screenshots already taken). Finally, there may be screenshot taker applications in strictly not imaging-related applications; for example, Pocket Informant.
They are all in common in that, as opposed to desktop-based screenshot and/or Pocket PC controller applications, they may prove useless to take screenshots in a number of situations. For example, if you want to take a shot of a game that runs in full screen mode (and, therefore, hides the taskbar where you could quickly switch to your picture maker app to take a screenshot), some of these apps (for example Resco - it can’t even be bound to a hardware button to take screenshots) become useless. In these cases, applications that have hardware button-based picture taking capabilities (most of them have except for the above-mentioned Resco application – or XnView) may be of help – unless the game disables all access to buttons (which, unfortunately, is the case with most games).
If the game does block all the access to hardware buttons and, thus, makes it impossible to invoke picture taker apps to take screenshots, you can only rely on Pocket PC-based screen grabber applications that have some kind of a (countdown) timer (making it possible to automatically, without human interaction, take a screenshot some (dozens of) seconds later) or multiple (“auto”) screenshot taking capabilities.
In this section, I first review all of the screen capturer applications that belong to the first category and, then, move on to self-standing screen capture applications.
2.1 Image viewers/ editors with additional screenshot taking capabilities
2.1.1 The built-in Screen Capture utility of Resco Picture Viewer 5.32
Resco Picture Viewer is, in my opinion, the best picture viewer application for the Pocket PC. It’s commercial and is bundled with some Dell Axim PPC's for free. After installing, it has a separate icon, “Screen Capture”, which makes it possible to take screenshots without invoking the main application (as opposed to how, say, XnView works):
As can also be seen, its configurability is really poor: you can’t configure anything except for a 10-second delay and saving automatically. This also means it can only be used for basic, non-involved screenshot making tasks – it can’t really be used to make screenshots of games. It, however, has something that very few other screen grabber applications have: it saves images in the best lossless (PNG) format, in addition to JPG and BMP.
2.1.2 XnView 1.35
XnView is a very nice, free (!) picture viewer / converter. The latest, 1.35 version, fortunately, fixed the Portrait-only bug of the previous, 1.31 version; now, you can make Landscape screenshots too. Unfortunately, as a screenshot application, it’s pretty poor (except for the really useful multiple output format capabilities) – all it offers is a settable 1/5/10/15s delay. No hardware buttons, no multiple shots, not invokable from external scripts. Nevertheless, if you don’t need the latter functionalities, you will want to give it a try.
2.1.3 Pocket Artist 3.2 by Conduits
Pocket Artist is a hugely popular Photoshop clone on the Pocket PC with (pretty weak) screenshot taking capabilities. All it offers is just a timer. The newly-introduced hardware button support, unfortunately, doesn’t let for assigning the screen capture functionality. It stores the result on the clipboard, which, then, must be manually pasted to a new file (via Menu/Image/ New, then, Menu/ Edit/ Paste and, then, Menu / Image / Save. Note that it’s only capable of saving images as Photoshop (.PSD) files). It, however, is compatible with every Pocket PC OS (even Handheld PC’s!), every video mode and is a great Photoshop replacement. As a “simple” screen capturer application (if you don’t need a mini-Photoshop on your PDA - that is, wouldn't use the other features), however, it’s not recommended.
2.1.4 CEPicture 2.7 by LimeLink
This very old picture viewer also has screenshot capabilities. It offers nothing particular (no timer, for example). It can take menu screenshots.
Note that if you change the screen orientation while it's active, it won't be able to take shots in the new orientation; that is, only change screen orientation while the app is not active. Then, it'll take Landscape screenshots too.
The same developer also has a free screen capture application, CECapture (see below). It, capturing-wise, is exactly the same as the screen capture module of CEPicture.
2.1.5 PictPocket Cinema 4.0
It’s WM5 / Landscape-compliant. It’s only able to use the Action button (it’s also able to capture menus using it); it has no timer capabilities. Not recommended because of the very high ($39.99) price and because most of its functionality it offers is implemented by either the free TCPMP and some much more superior & cheap image viewers.
2.1.6 Photogenics 1.0 Release 139
This is, as with Pocket Artist, another pretty pricey ($49.99) Photoshop-like application.
Note that Handango has release 133 while the latest release I know of is 139. I’ve tested the latter. Also note that while it’s said it’s not WM5-compliant, I haven’t really encountered problems when using it on my WM5 devices.
Unfortunately, unlike with Pocket Artist, it only takes QVGA images (and the GUI is also QVGA only) ; forcing \Program Files\Photogenics\ Photogenics.exe to VGA doesn’t work (it’ll display everything in the upper left corner); the same stands for using it in native VGA. That is, it’s not recommended if you have a VGA device.
As far as its capture capabilities are concerned, it has nothing to write home about: all it can boast with is just a simple wait timer.
2.1.7 PQV 3.0.10 by HanaHo Games
The screen capturer utility, “PQV Screen Capture”, as with “Screen Capture” in Resco Picture Viewer (and unlike all the other picture viewer/editor applications), is a separate entity from the main program. It’s, therefore, assignable to a hardware button and can be greatly used from external scripts when multiple, auto screenshots are needed.
Unfortunately, it only takes QVGA shots on VGA devices and forcing \Program Files\HanaHo\pqvscl.exe doesn’t help this. It doesn’t work in native VGA mode either. Furthermore, it isn’t able to take standard landscape shots (it’ll work with most full screen landscape games though).
Both the screen capture and the “main” application are WM5-compliant. However, never ever try to run the screen capturer application on a WM5 VGA device (it works OK on WM5 QVGA devices – apart from the inability to take non-Portrait shots). It will at least mess up the screen and, in cases, result in a lot of device.exe crash reports (tested on both the Axim x51v and the HP hx4700).
The main application, just like with WM2003SE, is buggy under WM5 (on QVGA devices too): it hides the drop-down tree lists in the file input dialog.
2.2 Self-standing, specialized screen capturer applications
These applications are primarily meant for screen capturing and are also advertised as (primarily) screenshot taker apps, as opposed to the applications in the previous, 2.1 section.
2.2.1 SnapIt 2.0 by Xoanan
This application doesn’t offer much as can also be seen in here:
Unfortunately, it also has compatibility problems: in SE (standard) VGA, it uses pixel halving (fortunately, by forcing it into VGA mode, it’ll work as supposed to). It can’t be used to make screenshots of menus either: it has no timer functionalities and, when invoked using a hardware button (configurable from inside the app), the menu disappears.
All in all, I don’t recommend it – there are much superior apps on the market for the same (Vidya) or even considerably less (BeniSoft ScreenShotCE) price.
2.2.2 Developer One Pocket ScreenSnap 6.10
This app is definitely better than the above-reviewed Xoanan SnapIt 2.0; for example, it entirely supports VGA and it allows for making shots of menus with hardware buttons or timers (it does support timers). It, however, isn’t as good as the (equally priced) Vidya or the (much cheaper) BeniSoft application – for example, it only supports BMP as the output format and doesn’t support taking continuous screenshots – unless you invoke it from an external script (see below), when it works just wonderfully.
2.2.3 BeniSoft ScreenShotCE 1.10
This application, in my opinion, is a very good one for the price if you don’t need to take screenshots of fast-paced games or menus (it only supports taking menu screenshots by the, for this, pretty awkward serial screenshot taker).
It even has a ZIP plug-in (which, unfortunately, needs separate registration, which doesn’t seem to be available for causal users), which makes it possible to compress the output screenshot files (which can be pretty important with huge BMP shots). It’s the only title that allows for record voice with shots (2). It, however, is different from how for example digital cameras offering additional- voice-recording- with-keeping -the-button- depressed work and is definitely inferior.
Unfortunately, it has no timers - however, the auto (serial) screenshot mode is usable in this case too.
It’s one of the applications to have (native) serial screenshot taking capabilities (not counting in the screen contents change-triggered Auto mode of SuperSnap). It, however, can’t really be used in fast-paced games. While PC-based apps will take correct screenshots of all fast-paced games as can be seen for example in these screenshots: 1 2 3 (of the 2700G tech demo PowerVR Racer - see section 2.1 here, in the Roundup of All 2700G-enabled Games and Demos), ScreenShotCE is definitely slower as can be seen for example in this and this screenshots. This problem is common in all other games; for example, here and here are screenshots of ToyGolf, also showing this problem. The situation is even worse in Fathammer’s Stuntcar Extreme as can be seen for example here – actually, I haven’t been able to take a single screenshot in that game without these kinds of problems.
Unfortunately, non-2700G-based games can also suffer from this problem; for example, here’s a screenshot of Acky’s Breakout with a doubled ball image (it’s a fast-moving object).
These won’t be an issue with any desktop-based screenshot taker or controller applications. Also, Vidya Pocket Screen Capture has considerably less problems with fast-paced games if you want to stick to taking screenshots strictly on your Pocket PC, without using any desktop-based client. Finally, I haven’t encountered so (many) problems with the other three, scriptable-for-auto-shot apps either (PQV, WebIS Screenshot and DeveloperOne). Therefore, if you want to make a lot of screenshots of fast games, check out the just-listed titles first.
2.2.4 Vidya Pocket Screen Capture 1.0.9
This application, in my opinion, is the best of all. It has very few shortcomings: for example, the lack of (single) timed screenshots (fortunately, the app offers great button-based menu capture capabilities) and the fact that, unlike with the Benisoft title, auto screenshot sounds can’t be disabled. Unless you delete \Windows\VidyaCameraClick.wav (this is highly recommended!), that is.
When it comes to making screenshots of fast games, it fares considerably better than the Benisoft title. Some examples: very few Stuntcar Extreme shots show (slight) artifacts (for example this). The same stands for the PowerVR demo: I’ve only found one screenshot (of some 10-15) to be (slightly) faulty. Finally, few of the ToyGolf screenshots were bad (1 2). I haven’t found any Acky screenshots to be faulty. This means definitely this is the app to go for if you want to take game screenshots without using a desktop-side application and you don’t want to mess with my scripts that make it possible to also use PQV and the DeveloperOne app to take continuous shots.
2.2.5 Kilmist SnapShot 1.0
Definitely not as powerful as Vidya Pocket Screen Capture or BeniSoft ScreenShotCE. For example, it offers neither timers nor auto-shots and it isn’t able to take high-resolution shots of VGA screens in standard (SE) VGA mode (only in native VGA) without explicitly forcing it into VGA mode. At least it has button-based menu capturing capabilities, unlike the BeniSoft title.
I wouldn’t get it – after all, it costs as much as the really superior Vidya Pocket Screen Capture.
2.2.6 Magic SS 1.1
This has been a famous, free application. Unfortunately, compared to the alternates, I'd say it’s not really worth getting – it offers nothing compared to even some of the free alternates (no timers, no menu capture capabilities – the assigned hardware button exits the menu – etc). On the positive side, it’s small and standard (SE) VGA compliant.
2.2.7 Epiphan Screen Grabber (CECapture 1.0)
This free application is in no way recommended – there are much better free (!) apps that are able to do much more. For example, it isn’t compatible with the standard (SE) VGA mode (unless forced) and doesn’t even have timer capabilities (both, for example, XnView and Resco have the latter). Actually, it is only able to make screenshots of the Today screen because it can only be invoked using its green E icon on the command bar there (see the above screenshot). You can’t make it grab a screen when you directly invoke it.(Also see the user opinions here).
2.2.8 iTask’s built-in (Delayed) Capture
All iPAQ models that have iTask on them (that is, all iPAQ’s starting with PPC2k2) have a built-in screen capturer application in iTask. It has nothing to write home about (BMP output only and non-configurable delay) but it’s still good to have around. Please read the previous article on configuring and using it - there is a full tutorial on this question in there, packed with screenshots.
2.2.9 CECapture 1.0 (5002) by LimeLink
(Note that I could only find a Chinese page; there doesn’t seem to be an English one.)
This free and very old screenshot application is produced by the same folks as CEPicture.
As with CEPicture, it’s able to save in both BMP / JPG. The similarities don’t end up here: it doesn’t dynamically get the list of the available buttons; it’s also capable of taking screenshots of menus with the assigned hardware button; it (\Program Files \Limelink\ CECapture.exe) must be forced into VGA in order to make standard (SE) VGA screenshots and isn’t able to capture non-Portrait screens.
2.2.10 Pocket Screen Capture v1.0 by CEToolbox
(Note that almost all references still refer to the old CEToolbox address. It no longer works.)
This free application, if you don't need any fancy, extra capabilities and only look for a simple, but usable application, can prove pretty good.
It's non-VGA compliant without explicitly forcing \Program Files \Pocket Screen Capture\ psc.exe into VGA. It's landscape-compliant and timer-based (5 sec only). The only output format it offers is BMP. It is not scriptable.
2.2.11 ScreenShooter 1.0 by KaonTech
(The original homepage is no longer accessible; hence the PocketGear link.)
It's a commercial (in trial mode it's useless because of the watermark it puts on all images - only the Vidya app is the other that watermarks the shots). It's landscape- and WM5-compliant. In SE (standard) VGA, you must force \Program Files\ScreenShooter\screenshooter.exe to make high-resolution screenshots. It can only be invoked via non-assignable (!) hardware keys. Screenshot taking is wired to Button 1. It is not scriptable and has no timers.
All in all, it's a really weak application at the price tag - many freeware applications offer the same (or even better) functionality. Not recommended.
2.2.12 Screenshot by WebIS
This very simple (no GUI, no timer capabilities, only BMP output, only stores its files in the main storage, in \My Documents etc.), WM2003+ utility (which takes a screenshot when it's executed - that is, its icon is tapped or the button, which it's assigned to in Settings / Button, is pressed) is highly recommended for scripted (auto / periodic) screenshot taking). It's VGA and Landscape-compliant and pretty fast when it comes to taking game screenshots.
Note that the WebIs Beta server used to host a standalone, older version of this screenshot maker application (see Alex’ last post here and here) but it’s no longer available. The new version, however, is accessible.
2.2.13 SuperSnap by PocketDevelop.com
(Note that while the developer does have a homepage, it's empty. This is why I've provided a PocketGear URL.)
This is a pretty good, WM2003+, WM5- and VGA-compliant, albeit a bit expensive ($14.90) product. It has a unique feature: in the Auto mode, it takes screenshots whenever the screen content changes (that is, it won't take shots in auto mode when there is no change in the screen contents). It works wonderfully in games too.
2.3 Screenshot takers in non-imaging applications / utilities
2.3.1 Pocket Informant by Web Information Solutions, Inc.
Pocket Informant (which comes with the HP iPAQ hx4700 and, given the popularity of the application, is also installed on many thousands of Pocket PC’s) also contains a (pretty rudimentary: all it offers is a 5-second timer and isn’t invokable using a hardware button or from an external program) screenshot taker application.
To use it, go to Menu / Tools & Settings / Utilities and select Screenshot… at the bottom.
Note that the developer has also released a standalone screen grabber available here, which is highly recommended particularly for scripted (auto / periodic) screenshot taking. See section 2.2.12 for more information.
3. Hacks – how can you run screenshot taking periodically?
In addition to Vidya Pocket Screen Capture and BeniSoft ScreenShotCE, there is still a way to make a strictly Pocket PC-based screen capture application take screenshots periodically: by invoking it from an external program – a script in this case.
For this, I recommend nScriptm, on which I’ve already elaborated a lot (please see for example this article and the scripting programming-related articles linked from there).
There are three applications that can be directly invoked (by just executing the program to take a screenshot, which can also be easily checked if you configure your Pocket PC to invoke the application straight from the Settings/Button applet or just click its icon in Start/Programs) and, therefore, be periodically run: PQV (for Portrait-only or game screenshot taking, strictly on QVGA devices), WebIS Inc. Screenshot and Developer One Pocket ScreenSnap (for screenshot taking on any kind of device and screen orientation). (Please see the comparison chart for the explanation why other apps can NOT be executed from an external application – I’ve elaborated on them all.)
To configure your system to execute these three applications, you’ll need to get nScriptm from here; unzip ARMPPC\ns.exe to the newly-created \Program Files\ns directory on your PDA (that is, create a directory named ‘ns’ under ‘\Program Files’ in the main storage). Now, get this file and copy PeriodicallyInvokeScreenCapturer.ns from \DevOne , \WebIS or \PQV (depending on which screenshot app you’d like to periodically invoke) in the same directory (\Program Files\ns) on your PDA. Finally, transfer PeriodicallyInvokeScreenCapturer.lnk (also in the same RAR file) to \Windows\Start Menu\Programs so that the auto invocation can be easily started from Start / Programs.
Note that you may want to modify the two .ns files if you want to in/decrease the frequency of taking screenshots (it’s now (at least – don’t forget that if the CPU / the file system is overloaded, it may take much more time to save a screenshot) six seconds). Also, you’ll want to modify the paths to the picture taker executables if they aren’t in the main storage (RAM in pre-WM5 devices). Please note that I couldn’t use loop constructs here (for some reason, nScriptm just didn’t like either while() or for() loops so don’t come to tell me “hey, you don’t even know what looping is about?!” ).
After all these files have been deployed, just click the PeriodicallyInvokeScreenCapturer icon in Start / Programs (with Developer One Pocket ScreenSnap, manually starting the app first, making sure the post-shot taking dialog is suppressed and going into the Hide mode – see the comments and screenshots in the comparison chart on all this) and then, just click it for the screenshots to be taken. Note that you’ll need to explicitly stop the .ns file from any task manager (Settings/System/ Memory/Running Programs by default) if you don’t need it any more and it still hasn’t finished.
4. The comparison / feature chart
It’s available here (sorry, it’s too wide to be included in here).
4.1 Explanation for the chart
Where does it run?: if it’s “PPC”, then, it only needs the Pocket PC. If it’s "PC + PPC", then, it also requires a computer running a desktop Windows and connected to the PDA via ActiveSync.
Pic formats: a list of the save format. Most apps only know BMP (the least storage-friendly format – but, at least, as opposed to JPEG/JPG, the format that is also supported by some screenshot apps, it isn’t lossy). Unfortunately, PNG (probably the best image format for taking screenshots) is only supported by few applications.
It stores the captured images in the file system: This is also pretty important. About half of the screen grabber applications put the files into the main storage (RAM in pre-WM5 operating systems) in, in most cases, the \My Documents, \Temp or simply the root (\) directory. This, especially when done on a VGA device and/or using BMP files and/or using auto (periodic) shooting and/or you use a WM5 device very sensitive to mass-writing operations (like the WM5-upgraded Dell Axim x50 or the HP iPAQ hx4700; see this for more info), can really quickly fill up the (storage) memory and/or result in lengthy filesys.exe cleanups. Therefore, it's very important for the screen grabber application to be able to store the screenshot files on a storage card. In this test, I've scrutinized each application in this respect. Ones with the ability to store the files "anywhere" are generally preferable.
OS compatibility with real device tests group: here, I’ve elaborated on the Pocket PC / Windows Mobile version compatibility of the tested applications. Of these, I’ve tested all, except for the oldest PPC2k (Pocket PC 2000). (Incidentally, compatibility with the 12-bit iPAQ 36xx also means that all these apps are able to capture screen contents of both 12 and 16 bits. This may also mean they are also compatible with 18-bit screens as, as far as I know, the underlying data is still 16-bit, just like with the case of 12-bit screens like that of the 36xx/37xx iPAQ series.)
VGA compatibility with real device tests group: does the given application support VGA screens – that is, does it make full, high-resolution screenshots of them?
The majority of them support SE (standard) VGA (the VGA mode that is by default active on VGA devices, unless you explicitly switch it to the so-called ‘native’ VGA mode; please see my older, VGA-related articles for example in my blog on these questions); many of them that don’t can be “forced” to do so. There are only four applications that can’t take high-resolution screenshots in SE (standard) VGA mode.
Native VGA WM2003SE/ WM5: the non-default, “magnifier is needed!” screen mode of VGA devices. Three applications are hopelessly incompatible with it.
Non-portrait orientation support group: are the given applications compatible with non-portrait (that is, right- and left-hand landscape) modes. Very few applications aren’t.
Pocket PC-based group: questions that only pertain to Pocket PC-based (that is, not ActiveSync-based) screenshot applications (again, you can take a screenshot through ActiveSync any time – this is why it’s not important whether, say, a desktop screen grabber has periodic screenshot taking capabilities). Of them, the following are the most important:
Auto shots: does the given application have built-in (!) support for taking screenshots periodically? Only two of them do (Vidya, BeniSoft ScreenShotCE).
Direct programmatic invocation to make screenshots in auto mode?: if they don’t have built-in support for periodic (auto) shots, are they “hackable” to do so? Three of them are; I’ve also described in the chart how this must be done.
Gaming group: is it a right program for making screenshots of games? In the 2700G tests, I’ve also listed some of my remarks on how it behaved (in Auto (periodical) mode) during my tests.
Menu/button group:
One-time timer: is it possible to set a timer in the program to make a shot x seconds later (making it possible to, say, take a screenshot of a menu or even a game that otherwise blocks all access to button-based screenshot making). With many applications, it’s possible; unfortunately, the best application, Vidya, doesn’t support this.
Hardware key (PPC-only apps)?: is it possible to make screenshots with a hardware button press? If yes, does the application offer all the available buttons to be used (le’ts not forget some high-end Pocket PC’s like the Pocket Loox 720 have some six buttons and all of them can also be used in hold mode, doubling the number of accessible functions), or just the standard four or five? Unfortunately, very few applications let for assigning the screenshot shortcut to all the available buttons. (Also see my old, button-related articles on how the actual number, the currently assigned programs and icons of the available buttons can be get programmatically – developers, hear me? It’s time to read all my past articles to find out how this all must be done!)
Able to capture menus? (Via HW button or timer): many times, you’ll need to take screenshots of opened menus. This can prove pretty tricky as menus are known to be closed when another program is started or a button is pressed. In this test, I’ve examined if it’s at all possible with the given app to make menu screenshots and if it is, how it can be done. That is, does pressing the assigned screenshot button close the menu and if there are no button assignment capabilities, are there at least timing (delaying) capabilities.
PC-based group: here, I’ve listed whether the PC-based client is able to take not only screenshots but also a video (as with, say, SOTi Pocket Controller or dotPocket) of the PDA screen. (Neither of the two PC + PPC apps are able to do this). Also, the Manual orientation change to take pics of for example Thunderhawk & games? Correct orientation? and the Remote (not just ActiveSync), IP-based connection? EDGE-based test if exists tests may be well-known from my old Remote Controller Roundup(s).
5. Taking screenshots of the built-in HTC Camera application?
A widely asked question (see for example the below-linked XDA-Dev thread on some practical uses) is taking screenshots of the standard HTC Camera application that comes with all HTC models (and some other HTC-manufactured Pocket PC's like the Pocket Loox 720) without the camera content being totally left out as can be seen in the following screenshot (taken with CEZoom in standard SE VGA mode; hence the pixel-halving):
Unfortunately, to my knowledge, it is not possible to do this (except for using CoolCamera, but, then, you won't see the standard HTC Camera GUI in the screenshot - see below). None of the tools I've tested was able to do this in not any mode. I've tried all the reviewed stand-alone, Pocket PC-based screen grabber tools, all the three reviewed screenshot-only PC-based applications (GetPDAScreen shot here; ViTO here, CEZoom shot above) and all the "real" remote controller apps (some example screenshots: SOTI Pocket Controller, VH Capture not even in capture mode, VNC Server etc.)
Note that according to XDA-Dev forum member levenum, (some of?) these tools work on HP's Pocket PC Phone Edition devices like the hw6915 with the HTC Camera app.
Also note that, right now, there is an alternate camera applications of HTC Camera: ATEKsoft's CoolCamera (reviewed here). You can freely take screenshots of it on both the PDA (see the screenshots in the review) and the desktop. Then, however, you won't see the standard camera controls of the HTC Camera application (as CoolCamera has nothing to do with the HTC Camera application). All PC and PPC-based tools were able to capture the screen of CoolCamera, as opposed to that of HTC Camera.
As far as the infamous CECam is concerned, it doesn't support built-in cameras - that is, it doesn't support any of the new(er) HTC models.
6. Verdict
It all depends whether you need fast gaming and/or automatic screenshots. If you want to take game screenshots (topped with easy menu screenshot taking), go for either Vidya Pocket Screen Capture or SuperSnap. Unfortunately, both are pretty pricey. If you don’t need to take game / (easy) menu screenshots but would certainly welcome auto shots, check out the much cheaper BeniSoft ScreenShotCE. If you aren’t afraid of a bit of manual work and script deploying, definitely need auto screenshot capabilities and, say, already have PQV or Developer One Pocket ScreenSnap, you can safely use these two applications too. (Note, again, that PQV is unable to work on VGA devices and will not save operating system-level Landscape screens, only Landscape games). Alternatively, you may want to give a try to the free WebIS Screenshot - it's VGA-compliant and works just great in (scripted) auto screenshot mode.
Finally, if you need no periodic shooting capabilities (because, for example, a timer-based single shot will do the trick), check out the comparison chart: there will be a lot of applications to choose from. Make sure you base your choice on the most important things you need (for example, operating system version / VGA / Landscape compatibility; the ability to store screenshots right on a storage card; support for timers and/or buttons etc.). You'll find all the information you need in the comparison chart to base your decision on.
UPDATE (09/05/2006 9:22AM CET): PPCT frontpage
UPDATE (09/13/2006):
justanothermobilemonday frontpage
UPDATE (09/17/2006): AximSite frontpage; Allen Gall's thoughts on screen capturing. In the meantime, I've also published a full article How do I take screenshots of great multimedia player TCPMP (or, any other decent video player) playing videos.
UPDATE (09/20/2006): Added Jeyo Mobile Companion 1.1.
UPDATE (09/23/2006): Added SuperSnap 1.0

One thing you don't seem to say is if each program works properly with 18 bit screens. Another good thing to know is if any can get a screen capture of the built in camera when in preview mode.

OdeeanRDeathshead said:
One thing you don't seem to say is if each program works properly with 18 bit screens. Another good thing to know is if any can get a screen capture of the built in camera when in preview mode.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have a point there - upon the next article upgrade (dunno when though), I'll also include this info.

I find that the "powertoy" called ActiveSync Remote Display downloadable free from Micro$oft does the job ver nicely. Displays on the Windows desktop, allows you to use the mouse and keyboard too. 8)
It does not do landscape and I've no idea whether or not it handles VGA though. :?:

TheBrit said:
I find that the "powertoy" called ActiveSync Remote Display downloadable free from Micro$oft does the job ver nicely. Displays on the Windows desktop, allows you to use the mouse and keyboard too. 8)
It does not do landscape and I've no idea whether or not it handles VGA though. :?:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It does landscape (after a manual reconnection - it can't dynamically change):
It also supports VGA if you explicitly force /Windows/cerdisp2.exe .
(I've elaborated on all this here.)

Updated the roundup with PSC-related info.

Another update (sorry guys and gals): a new introductory section, the addition of ScreenShooter 1.0 by KaonTech and a completely new, very important row (“It stores the captured images in the file system”) in the comparison chart.

Yeah, another update: Alex from WebIs Inc. wrote in ( http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=1201&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 ) to announce the availability of their stand-alone, free Screenshot application. It’s, fortunately, scriptable and delivers very good results in taking periodic game screenshots.

You seem to have left out one very basic, but free tool which a lot of people on this forum probably already have, and it can handle VGA, any orientation, almost any device (including pure CE devices) and the camera preview.
MS's own remote zoom-in utility which comes with eVC or VS2005.

levenum said:
You seem to have left out one very basic, but free tool which a lot of people on this forum probably already have, and it can handle VGA, any orientation, almost any device (including pure CE devices) and the camera preview.
MS's own remote zoom-in utility which comes with eVC or VS2005.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You mean CeZoomIn.exe? Yup, you're right - I'll include it in the next iteration.

Windows Ce Remote ZoomIn can't actually see the camera preview (I mean the moving image seen while trying to obtain the shot). On my XDAIImini all I see is the brown mask colour and the icons. The image that I can see on the device is not seen on the monitor. Any way to grab this data would be very usefull. I have a use for close to real time screen data from the camera but cant get it. I can set the device up to take a shot at close intervals, then read the screen when it shows the result but that is not fast enough and the timing can be affected by other things going on in the device.

OdeeanRDeathshead said:
Windows Ce Remote ZoomIn can't actually see the camera preview (I mean the moving image seen while trying to obtain the shot). On my XDAIImini all I see is the brown mask colour and the icons.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here too (tested on a Pocket Loox 720). Besides, it's QVGA only in SE (standard) VGA - it's only in native VGA that it delivers hi-res VGA shots. (Yes, I've tried "hacking" all the EXE's and DLL's into VGA.)
Neither can the two other grab-only clients; also tested Soti Pocket Controller in this respect. (No-go either)

Menneisyys said:
Neither can the two other grab-only clients; also tested Soti Pocket Controller in this respect. (No-go either)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tested stand-alone, PPC-only clients on the Pocket PC too (this time on a HTC Universal); none of them was able to take a screnshot of the camera.

Hmm, I tried it on HP 6915 and it go the preview. I guess, HP camera app works differently than the XDA one.

levenum said:
Hmm, I tried it on HP 6915 and it go the preview. I guess, HP camera app works differently than the XDA one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
BTW, have you managed to get Hi-Res (VGA, not crappy QVGA) images in SE (standard) VGA mode with CEZoom?

OdeeanRDeathshead said:
The image that I can see on the device is not seen on the monitor. Any way to grab this data would be very usefull. I have a use for close to real time screen data from the camera but cant get it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use CoolCamera - please read the latest version of the article on this.

Added a lengthy section on how you can take shots of the built-in HTC Camera application (if it exists). I’ve also elaborated a lot on CEZoom, Microsoft’s own desktop-based, free screen grabber tool.

Thanks, thats one program I would actually pay for. I just wish I knew how to access the memory the camera was using myself. Still, at the end of the day $14 is not that much.

How do I take screenshots of great multimedia player TCPMP (or, any other decent video player) playing videos on my Dell Axim x50v/x51v?
Now, after publishing my roundup of capturing the screen of Pocket PC’s where I’ve also elaborated on the chances of capturing the screen of HTC Camera, I’ve received a question regarding doing the same with the great multimedia / video player TCPMP on Dell Axim x50v/x51v devices.
On these devices, by default, TCPMP playing videos can not be captured – the active video area shows the same symptoms as that of HTC Camera (that is, nothing can be seen on the capture, let it be captured on the PDA itself or through a Pocket PC controller application). An example screenshot of this situation is here.
Fortunately, as opposed to HTC Camera, there is a very simple solution to this problem: go to Options/Video and select anything but the default Intel 2700G Decoder (and Intel 2700G); that is, DirectDraw, Raw Framebuffer and GDI will all work. (Of course, after you've made the screenshots, switch back for optimal performance if you watch a lot of videos on your device.)
After this setting, the video playback can be captured as can be seen in here.
What about other devices?
All of them can be captured in all modes. A breakdown and a lot of examples (packed with screenshots so that you can see they do work) follows, separating Pocket PC’s on the ground of the default (most optimal) play mode TCPMP defaults to on them:
Intel XScale: for example, the Pocket Loox 720
ATI ImageOn (GPU): for example, the HP iPAQ hx4700 (here with WM5)
Direct (screen access): for example, the Compaq iPAQ 36xx/37xx series
DirectDraw: for example, the HTC Universal
Raw Framebuffer: for example, the HTC Wizard
GAPI: for example, the HP iPAQ 2210 and the Pocket PC 2000 Casio Cassiopeia E-125.

Article slightly updated.

MS releases first beta of MS Portrait 3.0 – supports built-in cameras! GO GET IT!

Microsoft Portrait is one of the best VoIP / chatter app for the Pocket PC. Also, it’s the only Pocket PC application to offer video phoning capabilities. I’ve often elaborated on (see for example this) its excellent capabilities and compared them to the alternates (for example, 4Talk or Gphone).
Up to now (as of version 2.3), the biggest problem with MS Portrait was the absolutely lacking support of built-in cameras (old versions only supported external, CF- and SD-based cameras as can be seen in here and here). Fortunately, the excellent folks at Microsoft have listened to for example my complaints and have come out with a beta version that already supports some (but not all – more on this later) built-in cameras.
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(This is the app showing the HTC Wizard in action, showing what the Universal is sending it; a Universal screenshot HERE while in active video phone connection with this Wizard)
It’s available HERE and is a free download.
Compatibility and co-existence with version 2.3
Upon testing interoperability between the old and new versions, I haven’t encountered any audio or video compatibility issues between them. Both video phoning and (even full-duplex) audio transmission worked OK between 2.3 and 3.0 clients.
Also, you can install both versions on the same (WM5) device (if you prefer having 2.3 on your device too); they can co-exist without any problems.
Audio – it is full duplex capable by default!
As far as the audio is concerned, there is a cryptic new “LH 48” audio codec listed in the selectable audio codec list. I don’t know what it’s referring to – I’m pretty much into audio codecs but, frankly, haven’t ever heard of this codec. Version 2.3 didn’t support it. Note that it haven’t worked when I’ve tested it as can also be seen in here – as with Mobile Voice 2.4, which has been removed from PPC2k2 (see this for more info on this) but is still (erroneously) listed in both versions: in both 2.3 running on PPC2k2+ and 3.0. MS should, finally, remove this item from there - it's only causing confusion for anyone not having read my Bible of Pocket PC Sound Recording.
Please note that while there is no Half / Full Duplex switching capabilities any more in the setup (as opposed to 2.3 as can be seen in here), 3.0 DOES support full duplex audio and it’s the non-overridable default. This is certainly good news for newbies / beginners that didn’t really know what to do when, for example, the warning dialog visible in the previous 2.3 screenshot was shown. With the full duplex by default approach, the new version is much easier to configure than before and, in this respect, 4Talk is not better any more.
Please note that, as usual, unless you use it on an, in addition to VoIP-optimized PPC’s like the Pocket Loox 720, PPC PE device (with a dedicated, low-volume, already acoustic feedback-free hardware), you may want to stick to using wired / Bluetooth headsets to make use this mode. Also remember to switch the “Select preferred manner for audio recording” drop-down list in the Audio tab to “Click to talk” mode; then, the two parties only need to click “Talk” once and, after that, both can simultaneously speak.
Caveats, problems
First, it’s WM5 only. Unfortunately, it seems Microsoft Research has forgotten previous operating systems at least as far as free tools / apps are concerned, as was the case with the also excellent Windows Mobile Network Analyzer PowerToy. That is, if you have a WM2003SE Pocket PC with a built-in camera (for example, the Pocket Loox 720), you won’t be able to use it.
Second and, given that the vast majority of current camera-enabled PPC devices run WM5, the more important is that it only supports backside cameras – not ones in the front (ones that are meant for video calls). While on Pocket PC’s with one camera only (for example the Wizard) this isn’t a problem, on more recent devices (and the HTC Universal) with two cameras, this is a real pain in the back.
On these two-camera devices, you can in no way activate the front camera. For example, on the Universal, the camera selector drop-down menu only has one item as can be seen in here (a Wizard screenshot is here; note that the Wizard only has one camera).
Finally, sometimes it’s very hard to activate the application after minimizing it – sometimes, when you try to switch back to it, only the program name or “ActiveMovie Window” is displayed on the taskbar. This can be a pain in the back because, in these cases, you will need to kill Portrait.

Lol:
I've still got one of those in my drawer at home!
Good post Menneisyys, Portrait is a great app.
V

imho then the whole video call thing is stil a bit ½baked on windows mobile
what i want is live messenger with the same video support as on pc
what i want is skype with video support as on pc
a normal dialer with normal umts video call support
i know that all require faster interface then gprs
and the last one require umts

I tried installing, it basically made my system slow to a crawl. Uninstalled it..
Running an XV6700

Download link is dead,
Can someone post the file on the FTP server of XDA-Developers?
Best Regards Tom

rlith said:
I tried installing, it basically made my system slow to a crawl. Uninstalled it..
Running an XV6700
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup, when you enable video phoning, it can really slow down the device

vijay555 said:
Lol:
I've still got one of those in my drawer at home!
Good post Menneisyys, Portrait is a great app.
V
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
doh! i still got one, a really dead one! everytime i see any pic of ipaq i go sad as mine is dead and noone knows what happened to it :/ eh, it's so cruel, life...

My feedback for microsoft portrait 3.0 (beta)
I tryied on a TYTN. Sorry to say but this version is more in a alpha than a beta phase!
- Powerconsumption is extreme
- Portrait uses the inbuilt back camera (2 mpixel maybe this is too much for UMTS network) and that is why the bright mode display starts (as usual when Cameraprogramm starts on the TYTN) wich is draining the battery. If the front camera would be selectable this would not happen (for example as “ATEKSOFT webcam” program can do). Msportrait is only interesting for users who own a Videophone (2nd camera and UMTS speed) so I do not understand why the frontcam can not be selected.
- I can not see a video on the PC althoug I tried different settings of bandwidth and framerates. With GPRS-monitor I checked and the average speed of TYTNS´s networkconnection was about 350 Mbit/s (so I guess its not because of low bandwidth)
- Sometimes after switch on/off portrait only a static picture is transferred to the PC (but no video)
- Audio is not realy full duplex. PC is receiving the audio signal only if I keep pressing on the audiobutton of the TYTN (as in the old version 2.3). Basicaly the audiosignal from the PC can be heared on the TYTN gapless, but sometimes audio transmission stops and works only after I press the audio button on the TYTN again.
- TYTN receives color video from PC very well (128 kbit/s). But there is a strange bug on the screen. The TYTN Video picture is visible in the background at the same time as the received video from PC (like overlaying). The green mask of the MSportrait menue is not transparent but everywhere else the TYTN´s camera picture is shining trough. (for example at the top taskbar)
- After cancel portrait the last taken picture of TYTN´s camera keeps staying in the background. This goes away only after a softreset. I tried to make a screenshot but on the screenshot the wrong background image was not visible!?
- Portrait is not really reducing the speed of my TYTN (allthough other users mentioned)
I hope MS research will work it out because if this programm works then it’s a real “MUST HAVE” application.

andreasfuntastic said:
- Audio is not realy full duplex. PC is receiving the audio signal only if I keep pressing on the audiobutton of the TYTN (as in the old version 2.3). Basicaly the audiosignal from the PC can be heared on the TYTN gapless, but sometimes audio transmission stops and works only after I press the audio button on the TYTN again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you read my review? I've explained how thts can be helped - switch to "Click to talk" mode.

andreasfuntastic said:
- Portrait uses the inbuilt back camera (2 mpixel maybe this is too much for UMTS network)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It uses a far smaller video size - around 160*100, as can also be seen in the video setting menu.
(Of course, the app, in its current form, is pretty useless if you'd like to use the front camera.)

Sorry read your article too quick.
It is right, if i select "click to talk" instead of "press to talk" audio is real full duplex -- great.
I also use a videosize of 160x120, but the video on the PC is not a real video but only static pictures which refresh aprox. every 4 sec. On the TYTN the video can be seen continous.

has anyone tried this with any generic sip server ?
I am looking for some sip application which would work with my company SIP server.
I am using SJPhone but that does not support video. (only audio)

Is it possible to video/audio/text chat with another person on a PC and MSN Messenger? can it interact with MSN Messenger?

Menneisyys said:
Microsoft Portrait is one of the best VoIP / chatter app for the Pocket PC. Also, it’s the only Pocket PC application to offer video phoning capabilities. I’ve often elaborated on (see for example this) its excellent capabilities and compared them to the alternates (for example, 4Talk or Gphone).
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
Will this work 'as is on an XDAorbit?'
Thanks
Ann

Menneisyys said:
First, it’s WM5 only.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess that's because WM5 is the first version of the OS with the camera API.
Menneisyys said:
Second and, given that the vast majority of current camera-enabled PPC devices run WM5, the more important is that it only supports backside cameras – not ones in the front (ones that are meant for video calls).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't tried it myself, but I read somewhere on these forums that the camera API on the TyTn only enumerated the backside camera. Perhaps this is also true of the Universal? Maybe HTC need to improve their drivers.
andreasfuntastic said:
If the front camera would be selectable this would not happen (for example as “ATEKSOFT webcam” program can do).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Coolcamera/Webcamplus are very device specific. Ateksoft has had to write their own drivers for each device, I believe, which is why some images are rotated, they don't have control over the flash on all devices, etc. They have to manually add support for each new device that comes out.

Menneisyys said:
(Of course, the app, in its current form, is pretty useless if you'd like to use the front camera.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A low-tech workaround is to use a small mirror to see the incoming video. Nasty...

Review: decent phone call (!) / note / MP3 recorder VITO AudioNotes 1.3 out!

I’ve reviewed ViTO SoundExplorer, the big brother (and, to some degree, a predecessor) of VITO Technology’s new title in the Windows Mobile Audio Recording Bible, the definite resource of EVERYTHING audio recording-related. In the meantime, ViTO has also come out a specialized version of SoundExplorer, targeting the folks that would prefer making quick voice notes (or, for that matter, record any kind of audio at high quality) and / or record phone calls.
While most Windows Mobile-based Pocket PC Phone Edition (in the new, WM6 parlance, “Windows Mobile Professional”; from now on, I refer to them as “PPC PE” devices) models aren’t capable of making quality phone call recordings, some (not very common) PPC PE models have no problems at recording.
With the “little brother”, the MS Smartphone (WM6 Standard) platform, the situation is far better about the half of the current models allow for recording phone calls, even the pretty new, cheap and recommended HTC Oxygen (aka Orange SPV C100, HTC S310). Unfortunately, some other models, for example, the otherwise HIGHLY recommended HTC Vox (aka HTC S710, Orange SPV E650) do NOT support call recording. (Just ignore if somebody states the opposite – unfortunately, many people just don’t know what they speak about when talking about call recording quality. My measurements are VERY reliable as I do all of them on MY devices and, therefore, my info isn’t based on hearsay.)
Please see the article Windows Mobile device manufacturers & Microsoft, we DO need phone recording capabilities!, paying special attention to following the links; particularly the PPCT one – it explains EVERYTHING about all these questions.
Other call recording apps
Up until recently, the only really useful call recorder application had been the free PMRecorder. While having its share of problems (the need for using a third-party tool to convert its output to be playable with any other tool; the need to manually start it before automatic call recording and the fact that it runs as a process, which can easily result in its purging from memory; the lack of sophisticated audio codecs like MP3 or Speex), it’s an excellent and reliable tool really worth checking out; particularly if you’re into free and/or Smartphone-compliant apps.
Then came the beta versions of the forthcoming Resco Audio Recorder 4, which, while keeping (and, Speex-wise, even enhancing) its really great codecs, added call (auto)recording support. It’s a really excellent app well worth giving a try. Its three major problems are only the following:
no Smartphone-compliance as of yet (YES, I’ve tried even on my WM6 QVGA HTC Vox)
its MP3 encoder is really bad and should never be used
the Speex encoder (the best encoder for voice storage, memory usage / quality-wise) uses a lot of CPU time. This means you MUST overclock your slower (for example, 195/200 MHz TI OMAP-based) devices so that it can work OK. And, even at running your TI OMAP device at 273 MHz, you will encounter occassional stuttering when playing back the recording.
Finally arrived VITO AudioNotes 1.3, which, while keeping its excellent MP3 encoder (it’s capable of making really QUALITY recordings even at 64 kbps, unlike Resco Audio Recorder, which is unable to make quality recordings at any bit speed), added the necessary framework (autostart, storing caller / callee ID / number, the date etc) needed for call recording.
Getting, using
Get it from HERE. Note that the PPC (PE) and the Smartphone versions are exactly the same and are interchangeable. Install, start.
To enable call recording, go to Menu / Recording and tick in “Calls autorecord”. If you have a PPC PE / Smartphone not supporting direct call recording, you may also want to tick in “Speakerphone” in here. Then, your handheld will automatically enable the speakerphone upon all calls so that the built-in mike of your handheld will have an easier time picking up the voice of the other party. (Of course, it won’t at all work with (wired / Bluetooth) headset-based configurations. Then, nothing of the other party will be heard on the recording. Also, you will still have a hard time hearing the other party made on a recording on a noisy street.)
Finally, in the same “Recording” submenu, you will want to configure where your files should be stored at in “Record to”. It uses the built-in storage by default.
You may also want to review the recording format in the “Recording format” menu here; however, I don’t think you’d want to change to some other format from the really high-quality and memory-efficient “MP3 Medium quality” (64 kbps, 44 KHz).
After this, all your calls will be auto-recorded in the target directory (\My Documents\My Audio Notes), the files containing both the caller/callee ID / number (and if it’s not available – for example, it’s an incoming call from a hidden number -, “Record”) and the exact starting date / time of the call as in the following screenshot:
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This is VITO’s app running on a VGA PPC PE device. Note that I’ve also made screenshots showing it running on Smartphones:
A standard 176*220 MS Smartphone (WM6 Standard) screenshot; the same on a QVGA WM6 Smartphone (HTC Vox) in Portrait mode and in Landscape.
Compared to the alternative call recorder apps,
The latest version of VITO AudioNotes is indeed highly recommended, particularly
if you have a Smartphone (and not a Pocket PC PE, where you could also consider Resco’s app)
want quality MP3 recording capabilities (PMRecorder doesn’t support non-standard audio encoders at all and Resco’s MP3 support is VERY bad)
you have a Pocket PC PE with a slower CPU (for example, the TI OMAP) and you can’t / don’t want to overclock it, meaning you won’t be able to use the Speex encoder of Resco’s app
want to be sure recording will always work (which is an issue with PMRecorder which, again, runs as a process and is, therefore, prone to operating system-level process shutdown in case of memory / process shortage)
want to make advantage of the auto-speakerphone functionality (you don’t want to rely on activating it yourself manually)
I’ve also created a comparison / feature chart summarizing most of the points I’ve elaborated on above.
Note that I do NOT include LivePVR by LLC Softtrends and mVoice 5.5 by MotionApps in this review. The former title is definitely inferior to all the three titles and I still haven’t checked out the latest, 5.5 version of the latter. I wasn’t particularly happy with the earlier version (version 5) of the latter and, as with LivePVR, I recommend it NOT to be taken seriously by anyone wanting to record her or his phone calls. With version 5.5, the situation may have changed. However, as version 5.5 still doesn’t offer the much more memory usage effective MP3 / Speex codecs, I still wouldn’t consider it a really decent alternative to the apps of Resco / VITO.
Also note that, in this review, I’ve elaborated mostly on the call recording capabilities of the app. That is, I haven’t tested features like one-button quick recording, protection against unintentional screen activation (something Resco 4 REALLY excels at) and the like. The REAL tests were done on the HTC S310/Oxygen (an excellent budget Smartphone, highly recommended ), HTC S710/Vox (a brand new high-res (QVGA) WM6 Smartphone; it’s really cool except for the inability to record calls flawlessly), HTC Universal and HTC Wizard (the latter two being PPC PE devices; of course, neither of them allow for flawless call recording).

va
why all show record without any number that my caller call in?thanks

are you aware that Vito Audio Notes don't record anymore phone calls on Mteor ROM: 1.34.251.1 ? Could someone confirm me if phone calls could be recorded in previous rom versions?

[TUT] Recording phone calls on Smartphones

I’ve reviewed ViTO SoundExplorer, the big brother (and, to some degree, a predecessor) of VITO Technology’s new title in the Windows Mobile Audio Recording Bible, the definite resource of EVERYTHING audio recording-related. In the meantime, ViTO has also come out a specialized version of SoundExplorer, targeting the folks that would prefer making quick voice notes (or, for that matter, record any kind of audio at high quality) and / or record phone calls.
While most Windows Mobile-based Pocket PC Phone Edition (in the new, WM6 parlance, “Windows Mobile Professional”; from now on, I refer to them as “PPC PE” devices) models aren’t capable of making quality phone call recordings, some (not very common) PPC PE models have no problems at recording.
With the “little brother”, the MS Smartphone (WM6 Standard) platform, the situation is far better about the half of the current models allow for recording phone calls, even the pretty new, cheap and recommended HTC Oxygen (aka Orange SPV C100, HTC S310). Unfortunately, some other models, for example, the otherwise HIGHLY recommended HTC Vox (aka HTC S710, Orange SPV E650) do NOT support call recording. (Just ignore if somebody states the opposite – unfortunately, many people just don’t know what they speak about when talking about call recording quality. My measurements are VERY reliable as I do all of them on MY devices and, therefore, my info isn’t based on hearsay.)
Please see the article Windows Mobile device manufacturers & Microsoft, we DO need phone recording capabilities!, paying special attention to following the links; particularly the PPCT one – it explains EVERYTHING about all these questions.
Other call recording apps
Up until recently, the only really useful call recorder application had been the free PMRecorder. While having its share of problems (the need for using a third-party tool to convert its output to be playable with any other tool; the need to manually start it before automatic call recording and the fact that it runs as a process, which can easily result in its purging from memory; the lack of sophisticated audio codecs like MP3 or Speex), it’s an excellent and reliable tool really worth checking out; particularly if you’re into free and/or Smartphone-compliant apps.
Then came the beta versions of the forthcoming Resco Audio Recorder 4, which, while keeping (and, Speex-wise, even enhancing) its really great codecs, added call (auto)recording support. It’s a really excellent app well worth giving a try. Its three major problems are only the following:
no Smartphone-compliance as of yet (YES, I’ve tried even on my WM6 QVGA HTC Vox)
its MP3 encoder is really bad and should never be used
the Speex encoder (the best encoder for voice storage, memory usage / quality-wise) uses a lot of CPU time. This means you MUST overclock your slower (for example, 195/200 MHz TI OMAP-based) devices so that it can work OK. And, even at running your TI OMAP device at 273 MHz, you will encounter occassional stuttering when playing back the recording.
Finally arrived VITO AudioNotes 1.3, which, while keeping its excellent MP3 encoder (it’s capable of making really QUALITY recordings even at 64 kbps, unlike Resco Audio Recorder, which is unable to make quality recordings at any bit speed), added the necessary framework (autostart, storing caller / callee ID / number, the date etc) needed for call recording.
Getting, using
Get it from HERE. Note that the PPC (PE) and the Smartphone versions are exactly the same and are interchangeable. Install, start.
To enable call recording, go to Menu / Recording and tick in “Calls autorecord”. If you have a PPC PE / Smartphone not supporting direct call recording, you may also want to tick in “Speakerphone” in here. Then, your handheld will automatically enable the speakerphone upon all calls so that the built-in mike of your handheld will have an easier time picking up the voice of the other party. (Of course, it won’t at all work with (wired / Bluetooth) headset-based configurations. Then, nothing of the other party will be heard on the recording. Also, you will still have a hard time hearing the other party made on a recording on a noisy street.)
Finally, in the same “Recording” submenu, you will want to configure where your files should be stored at in “Record to”. It uses the built-in storage by default.
You may also want to review the recording format in the “Recording format” menu here; however, I don’t think you’d want to change to some other format from the really high-quality and memory-efficient “MP3 Medium quality” (64 kbps, 44 KHz).
After this, all your calls will be auto-recorded in the target directory (\My Documents\My Audio Notes), the files containing both the caller/callee ID / number (and if it’s not available – for example, it’s an incoming call from a hidden number -, “Record”) and the exact starting date / time of the call as in the following screenshot:
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This is VITO’s app running on a VGA PPC PE device. Note that I’ve also made screenshots showing it running on Smartphones:
A standard 176*220 MS Smartphone (WM6 Standard) screenshot; the same on a QVGA WM6 Smartphone (HTC Vox) in Portrait mode and in Landscape.
Compared to the alternative call recorder apps,
The latest version of VITO AudioNotes is indeed highly recommended, particularly
if you have a Smartphone (and not a Pocket PC PE, where you could also consider Resco’s app)
want quality MP3 recording capabilities (PMRecorder doesn’t support non-standard audio encoders at all and Resco’s MP3 support is VERY bad)
you have a Pocket PC PE with a slower CPU (for example, the TI OMAP) and you can’t / don’t want to overclock it, meaning you won’t be able to use the Speex encoder of Resco’s app
want to be sure recording will always work (which is an issue with PMRecorder which, again, runs as a process and is, therefore, prone to operating system-level process shutdown in case of memory / process shortage)
want to make advantage of the auto-speakerphone functionality (you don’t want to rely on activating it yourself manually)
I’ve also created a comparison / feature chart summarizing most of the points I’ve elaborated on above.
Note that I do NOT include LivePVR by LLC Softtrends and mVoice 5.5 by MotionApps in this review. The former title is definitely inferior to all the three titles and I still haven’t checked out the latest, 5.5 version of the latter. I wasn’t particularly happy with the earlier version (version 5) of the latter and, as with LivePVR, I recommend it NOT to be taken seriously by anyone wanting to record her or his phone calls. With version 5.5, the situation may have changed. However, as version 5.5 still doesn’t offer the much more memory usage effective MP3 / Speex codecs, I still wouldn’t consider it a really decent alternative to the apps of Resco / VITO.
Also note that, in this review, I’ve elaborated mostly on the call recording capabilities of the app. That is, I haven’t tested features like one-button quick recording, protection against unintentional screen activation (something Resco 4 REALLY excels at) and the like. The REAL tests were done on the HTC S310/Oxygen (an excellent budget Smartphone, highly recommended ), HTC S710/Vox (a brand new high-res (QVGA) WM6 Smartphone; it’s really cool except for the inability to record calls flawlessly), HTC Universal and HTC Wizard (the latter two being PPC PE devices; of course, neither of them allow for flawless call recording).

Ultra Mobile 3GP Video Converter is a powerful 3GP converter which can convert almost all popular video formats to 3GP/3G2/MP4 video clips and play them in mobile phone or other software 3GP player.No other program can convert so many video formats.
http://mobile-video-converter.com/

To convert PMRecorder recorded calls into wav, use either one of these two softwares which work as good as the other one

This links does not work
http://www.vitotechnology.com/en/products/audionotes.html
can anyone post this software here ?

how high is the memory usage your talking with PMRecorder?

found this: **** link removed by Menneisyys - sorry guys, it contained a cracked EXE file - please do NOT link in pirated warez! *****
not working without speakerphone on Dash
Also, not saving caller name in the filename.. basically crap for Dash owners

Andrewcheese said:
how high is the memory usage your talking with PMRecorder?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
About 500 kbytes when running in the background.

jsp_m said:
not working without speakerphone on Dash
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately, few Smartphone (and even fewer Pocket PC) models support two-way call recording.
EDIT: at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=1454677 , there is a forum emmeber that reported success with the Dash - let's keep an eye on his further reports.
EDIT2: bad news: the Dash has turned out NOT to support reording calls either

Wonderfull! Menneisyys, you are a real saver!
I tested it once on my Vox and it seems like Vito is working perfect.
Edit: VITO records only my voice not the caller's one

Grand Central
Another option us using Google's Grand Central to record phone calls. Of course that means getting a phone number from them....

you have to use speakerphone mode for your voice + caller's
I uploaded vito
http://rapidshare.com/files/65411617/1193256266_vito_audionotes_v132.rar.html

Is there any list of smartphone models capable for phone recording?

Hey Menneisyys, thank you for the GREAT REVIEW! Such an overview was missing. Here are 2 more free recording apps:
Keep Recordin' 1.0 by AXYZ Mobile
RJV Sound Recorder 1.2 by Rey Vegafria
But I'm not sure whether both can record phone calls, I think they are just good for audio notes.

Search for ICR... It'll solve the issue with only be able to record your own voice.

Just tested with my Samsung i780
Vito Audio Notes
Activated Calls Auto record
Saved files to Storage Card
Works!!

benq e72 call recording problem
friends, I'm using BenQ E72. But do not call for audio recordings. When interviewed, but the program opens a file at 10 kb in size is so. I've used programs vito, Resco, pm, keep recording. Do you have help. BenQ E72 users are also able to register call you

Save through the web, not locally
Easiest and quickest way to record any phone call is through CallTrunk. Cloud-based, keeps the call saved and available forever, free for the first 25 minutes. Contact me at [email protected] com for more information.

The H.264 (a.k.a. MPEG-4 Part 10 and AVC) Bible

Many of you may have already heard of H.264 (Wiki page HERE) or AVC (for Advanced Video Coding), the latest-and-greatest video standard, widely used in everywhere where the best possible video quality is required with the least possible storage and/or bandwidth usage. It’s pretty much comparable to HE-AAC v2, the latest-and-greatest encoding in audio technology, which allows for quality (!) stereo Web radio streaming at even 24 kbps, and CD-quality recordings at 48 kbps. (Pretty much unbelievable, particularly at 24 kbps, with traditional compressed formats like MP3, WMA or even OGG, isn’t it?)
AVC is way better than the “old” MPEG-4 Part 2 or “ASP”. The latter is more commonly referred to as “DivX, Xvid”; in this article, I only refer to it as “ASP”, while I refer to the above-introduced H.264 format as “AVC”). While it gives you the same (or even better!) video quality, it is, in general, between 50 to 100% smaller and decidedly more flexible.
A lot of misconceptions or plain false info is circulating in the Windows Mobile, Palm and Symbian community; this is why I’ve found it extremely important to publish my AVC guide well before finally publishing my long-promised all-in-one Multimedia Bible.
Now, I take a look at whether you want to use it at all.
1.1 Pros and cons
First, let’s elaborate on why you would want to go for AVC files instead of the well-established and supported, plain, “old” ASP ones.
1.1.1 Cons
1.1.1.1 Battery life considerations
Decoding AVC, depending on the special AVC features used, the bit speed and the resolution, can require up to five times more CPU cycles than doing the same to ASP. In this section, I elaborate on what this results in in practice.
You may know it well enough that the more CPU cycles a given app uses, the less battery life you’ll have. This in itself may be a stumbling block for you.
Of course, this wildly differs between different CPU’s. For example, TI OMAP-based devices (particularly newer, latest-generation ones like the Nokia N95) consume far less power than Xscale-based ones. To demonstrate this, some examples.
A Nokia N95 playing an 320*144
* ASP encoded at 83 kbps (resulting in about ~30% CPU usage)
* AVC encoded at ~400 kbps (resulting in slightly less than full, 100% CPU usage)
results in the following power consumption:
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(the first half of the chart shows playing back the first, the second half the second video).
As can clearly be seen, the difference really isn’t much – about 280 mW, which roughly corresponds to ~90 minutes battery life decrease using the stock 950 mAh battery. That's about 30-35% battery life decrease.
(Note that I couldn’t make the same on TI OMAP-based Windows Mobile devices as it’s not at all possible to measure the current on them – “only” the CPU usage.)
Now, let’s see how other CPU’s behave in this respect. Let’s see the same test on the 624 MHz Intel Xscale PXA 270-based Dell Axim x51v. (Backlight level: as with the Nokia, the lowest.) In here, I’ve tested a 320*144 AVC encoded at ~400 kbps (about 30% CPU usage at 624 MHz) without any manual quality degradation and a 640*272 AVC encoded at ~460 kbps, without deblocking (near 100% CPU usage). For the test, I’ve enabled dynamic CPU scaling (that is, I didn’t run it on external power) so that the CPU could switch down to a lower frequency while playing back the lower-resolution video to increase the battery life to some degree.
The upper chart shows the power (in mA), the lower the CPU usage. As can clearly be seen, the power usage of playing the high-res AVC video at ~100% CPU usage required about 70% more power (480 / 280 mA) than doing the same with the QVGA-resolution AVC video. That is, while, on the TI OMAP-based Nokia, you will “only” encounter a 35% battery life decrease, on anything (!) Xscale-based, about 70% (!!!!). Yes, the (newer) TI OMAP platform does have a lot of advantages, one of them being not chewing through the battery when running CPU-intensive tasks, while still delivering excellent performance.
What does this all mean?
If you have an Xscale-based handset and have plenty of battery / a spare or an extended one OR you’re running a (particularly new-generation) TI OMAP-based handset (Nokia N95 etc.), you don’t need to be afraid of the battery life: go for the best quality; that is, AVC providing you with the best watching experience.
If, on the other hand, battery life is of extreme importance for you and you use a Xscale-based device, make you will still want to prefer ASP (or, low-quality AVC) to AVC.

1.1.1.2 You’ll be forced for (slow!!) recoding – unlike with ASP
First and foremost, as can also be clearly seen based on my very thorough tests, you in no way can play your familiar, “torrented”, full PAL/NTSC-resolution video clips / movies on current hardware. This is diametrically opposed to the case of ASP, where you, in most cases (except for the slowest TI OMAP-based Windows Mobile devices), can.
This means you MUST recode your videos before watching. You can’t just quickly drop your fresh-torrented, PAL/NTSC full-resolution (720*480 or 576) AVC’s on a memory card and just use CorePlayer (or TCPMP) to watch them. When they become available, that is; currently, on the Torrent scene, mostly, “only” HD (720p / 1080p / 1080i) videos are encoded in AVC, traditional, “low-res” PAL/NTSC rips are (still) all ASP’s.
Not even the best, most powerful handheld devices are able to play full PAL/NTSC-resolution videos (let alone 720p / 1080p / 1080i ones!). You must recode everything to either the native screen width of your device (which, again, isn’t the case with traditional ASP videos) or less and, in cases (for example, with VGA devices and/or slow (200 MHz) TI OMAP-based Windows Mobile handsets), you must deactivate some of the advanced features. This, again, isn't the case with "traditional" ASP files.
As noone not having a mobile device him or herself will deliberately rescale his videos (primarily meant for desktop watching) to a 640 or, God forbid, 320-wide one and, probably, even remove some features, which results in a visible quality decrease. With ASP files, you can just watch files originally meant for desktops on a handset; with AVC files, you can’t.
In addition, recoding, as opposed to creating ASP files, is a time-consuming process. In general, creating an AVC video takes 2-3 times longer than doing the same with an ASP one.
1.1.2 Pros
If you MUST use the least possible video sizes (because, for example, you don’t have an SDHC-enabled handset) with the best possible quality, H.264 is the way to go. It’s simply unbeatable and is way better than ASP at the same (low) bit speed. Again, it’s like how HE-AAC v2 compares to MP3.
Also, the MP4 container format used by the recommended Nero Recode makes it possible to have two (!) sound tracks in the same file. This was very hard to achieve with AVI files without some manual work. To my knowledge, there aren’t any Windows Mobile (Symbian, Palm etc.) related tools that let for storing two sound tracks in an AVI file. (It’s, technically, not impossible.)
Finally, once you learn how to navigate around in Nero Recode, ripping DVD’s or converting your other videos becomes very easy. No command-line tools are necessary – albeit, of course, you can use them too. For free, I should add – the most important command-line tool to encode into AVC, x264, is highly recommended and is of high quality. It, however, takes a while to learn – this is why I tend to recommend Nero Recode instead.
Nero Recode is, at first, seems to be a bit more complicated to use than well-known, established Windows Mobile DVD / video conversion tools like Pocket DVD Studio, Pocket DVD Wizard etc. Also, it’s a lot more expensive (around US$ 90). However, taken into account that several other AVC encoders are more than five times more expensive and you also get a complete suite of for example CD / DVD burners, the price can be justified. And, again, it only takes, say, an hour to completely learn to master the tool - unlike with x264.
(Note that, as the aim of this Bible is NOT showing you all the necessary encoding tools and tricks, I "only" discuss Nero Recode. It's readily available for download as a pretty much usable trial, isn't much overpriced and is MUCH easier to use than free tools. It's particularly because of the latter that I've chosen it to be featured in this Bible. Should you need another tool, look around HERE. I particularly recommend the decoder comparisons linked from HERE.)
1.1.2.1 Sample videos
In order to show you how much better AVC videos are than plain ASP ones, I've uploaded several of my test videos for you to evaluate. They're all 29-second, bilingual (English & German) and with two subtitle streams (English & German) and have been encoded for best quality (two-pass encoding with the best quality defaults).
In order to play them, you'll most probably need an AVC-compliant video player (if you don't already have a H.264 decoder on your system; for example, Cyberlink's newer PowerDVD versions do have a pretty good one - albeit in no way as efficient as CoreAVC, which I'll talk later. To play back these videos, it's more than sufficient). The easiest is getting VideoLAN VLC. Just download & install it (no need to fuss around with separate codecs - it contains all), start and open the video files.
320*144 videos:
87 kbps:
ASP (the worst - at 87 kbps and 320*144, using traditional ASP produces pretty bad results). As with the other bitrates & resolutions, this file is called "ASP.mp4".
AVC with all AVC goodies enabled - now, compare the quality of this title to the above-linked ASP one. Quite different, isn't it? Yes, AVC is WAY better at really low bitspeeds like 87 kbps. The file is named "default.mp4" - as will be the case with other bitrates.
AVC without bilinear prediction / CABAC support: this video has been encoded without two major AVC features to heavily reduce the load at runtime (and help speed up playback). (Note that I'll speak of bilinear prediction / CABAC later.) Nevertheless, even without these features, it's way better than ASP.
The same videos, encoded at 273 kbps and 320*144. As can clearly be seen, ASP produces much better results at this speed than at 87 kbps; still, AVC still has the lead, even without bilinear prediction / CABAC.
Sample videos encoded at three different bitrates (204k, 366k and 464 kbps) and at 640*272. Note that, with the second group, I've also made available two other videos. THIS one demonstrates the video quality degradation with bilinear prediction disabled; THIS with CABAC disabled. (Again, the 363k group also has the video that shows the "combined" effect of disabling both features - it's, again, named "nobilinNoCabac.mp4").
I really recommend scrutinizing these videos. For example, in the next scene at second 13 into the sample movie:
it's really worth checking out the following:
- the wall (it'll be "moving" all the time, producing a very bad effect, particularly with ASP and/or deblocking disabled)
- the effective resolution of the balls on the pool board (it'll be decidedly lower with 320-wide ASP videos than AVC ones, showing ASP not only sacrifies at quality (blockiness), but also at resolution at such low bitrates)
- the "blockiness" of the green pool board around the balls.
As you'll see, ALL these test videos show how much better AVC is, image quality-wise.
Now that you’ve seen both the advantages and disadvantages of AVC, let’s take a look at what players there are to play them.

1.2 Available players for mobile platforms
(Note that this guide doesn't cover the features not directly related to AVC playback - for example, AVRCP support, equalizer etc. because they can also be utilized playing back other content. They'll be all elaborated on in my forthcoming Multimedia Bible.)
1.2.1 Windows Mobile
1.2.1.1 CorePlayer
Without doubt this is the best player out there to play H.264 content. It’s by far the fastest, most compatible and featureful. If you’re seriously into H.264, you MUST buy it: it isn’t THAT expensive.
1.2.1.2 TCPMP
For this free app to be able to play your AVC videos, you MUST download THIS (originally linked from HERE; mirror HERE) add-on CAB file. Install it after having installed TCPMP. The CAB file contains a beta version of an early Windows Mobile CoreAVC port and the well-known AAC decoder already discussed and linked to HERE. (A quick note: CoreAVC is the main AVC decoder of all multimedia products of the CoreCodec folks. CoreAVC, on desktop operating systems, is unrivalled in speed – it’s even faster than some hardware-supported, much more expensive solutions. The speed advantage is certainly visible with the mobile ports as well.)
Note that there is another AVC decoder, the official ffmpeg codec, which is WAY slower than this beta and is, therefore, in no way recommended.
While the app has certain strengths (most importantly, it’s free), I don’t recommend it for serious AVC freaks – it’s just not powerful enough.
1.2.1.3 Nero Mobile Pro
Unfortunately, while the encoder (“Nero Recode”, part of the Nero 8 Ultra Edition) of the same developer is without doubt excellent and highly recommended, their Windows Mobile player, the commercial Nero Mobile Pro, is not recommended for playing back AVC content. (Or, for that matter, currently for anything else either: in my tests, other media players have turned out to be much more efficient and featureful in almost every area. It seems its only advantage is the native ability to play back HE-AAC v2 audio. To do the same, however, you can always use the free TCPMP with the AAC plug-in – and it’ll still result in better battery life than Nero Mobile Pro.)
Unfortunately, there’s no trial version of this app any more. While Nero 7 Ultra Edition Enhanced did have a trial of Nero Mobile Pro, Nero 8 doesn’t. Before a trial is (re)introduced, you can safely take my word: it’s, currently (as of version 1.4.0.9), just not worth the price (I’ve paid some 15 euros + VAT for it). And, it costs the same as the technically VASTLY superior CorePlayer – why would you, then, go for it at all?
As far as its performance is concerned, on VGA Pocket PC’s, it’s only usable with 320-only (QVGA) videos; of them, ONLY with ones without CABAC and Bidirectional Prediction. This pretty much rules it out as a decent player. If you do enable these (important) features, there will be a lot of dropped frames – on even the fastest handsets like the Dell Axim x51v.
640-pixel-wide videos, even ASP ones, badly lag; the AVC ones, in addition, have stuttering sound, even at the lowest stream speeds. That is, it’s impossible to play back VGA content under Nero, not even if you do all the recommended performance tweaks.
On QVGA devices, the situation isn’t better either: it’s only able to play the lowest-speed QVGA AVC movies. On my 400 MHz HP iPAQ h2210, the video was stuttering even when using a 83 kbps video stream (a ~230 kbps one was even worse). I haven’t tested it with deblocking-disabled videos but I don’t think it’d improve the situation.
All in all, stay away from this app. While their encoder (Nero 8 Ultra Edition) is certainly worth purchasing (if you don’t want to manually convert your DVD’s or other files to AVC with alternative tools like x264), Nero Mobile Pro is in no way.
1.2.1.4 In no way recommended, other apps
Philips’ Platform4 player (no longer developed, entirely abandoned, low-quality)
GPAC Osmo4/Osmophone
VideoLan – long-abandoned and has never really worked. When it did, it only produced at least an order of magnitude worse speed than TCPMP / CorePlayer.
1.2.2 Symbian
To play AVC videos under Symbian, your only real choice is CorePlayer.
Note that the built-in RealPlayer is also stated to be AVC-compliant (not only ASP). If it is, then, it must only be compliant with the simple Baseline profile, which isn’t what you will really prefer. I’m absolutely sure it’s not compatible with the Main profile, not even without Bidirectional Prediction and CABAC.
As far as other Symbian players are concerned, SmartMovie (as of version 3.41) doesn’t support AVC videos at all (it doesn’t even list MP4 files). The recently-released MMPlayer (as of version 1.01) doesn’t support AAC sound (see their official list of what’s already supported and what is planned HERE). This means it can’t play back AVC videos either because AVC videos generally use AAC sound tracks.
1.2.3 Palm OS
Here, CorePlayer is your only choice. MMPlayer doesn’t support AVC and, unlike with Windows Mobile, the Palm version of TCPMP doesn’t have an AVC add-on.
1.3 MP4 as a container; compatibility
AVC videos can be delivered in many so-called “containers”. The most widely used is the MP4 container, which, in addition to the video itself, can also have two (AAC) sound tracks, two subtitle streams and chapter support. Nero Recode supports these features. If you would really want to include two sound tracks in your videos and plan selecting your players based on these needs, then, you will find this section useful.
In the following chart, I list the compatibility of mobile players with these features.
http://www.winmobiletech.com/122007H264Bible/t1.png
As can clearly be seen, both Nero and Symbian’s RealPlayer are unable to switch to the second soundtrack. They don’t support chapter information either. The latter may turn out to be a letdown with direct DVD conversions.
Finally, none of these players support the Nero Recode subtitle format – unlike for example the free VideoLAN on desktop operating systems.
1.3.1 Matroska (.MKV) support
There is another, compared to MP4, more advanced container format called Matroska, which is especially popular on the High Definition ripper / Torrent scene (as opposed to “plain” DVD-only resolutions). Matroska files generally contain AVC video. CorePlayer supports these containers.
Note that, however, CorePlayer is only able to play back videos no wider than 1008 pixels. That is, it will NOT play back for example torrented 720p (meaning 1280-wide videos) content – most of current MKV files contain these kinds of videos. This is pretty much understandable if you take into account that most (particlarly QVGA) mobile hardware is simply unable to play back even 640-wide videos, let alone ones with much higher (twice the size!) resolution.
1.4 Fixing the frame drop problem
Unfortunately, as has already been pointed out, playing back AVC files requires a lot of computing power. On especially slower and/or (W)VGA or other hi-res devices, you MUST make some tradeoffs in order to be able to play back your AVC contents without problems (dropped frames).
In addition to lowering the resolution if you use a non-QVGA (read: (W)VGA on Windows Mobile, 320*480 on Palm OS or the screen resolution of communicators like the E90 on Symbian), you have four choices:

1.4.1 Using the simplest (Baseline) profiles instead of Nero’s “Standard – AVC”
Sticking with the simplest (Baseline) profiles means avoiding using the (standard) Main profile. This will still result in considerably better-quality results than with ASP, but, in my opinion, isn’t the best way to go because it’s definitely an overkill. That is, by fine-tuning the much more featureful Main profile, you can get much better results.
That is, if you stick to the Baseline profile (by, say, using the “Mobile AVC” or “Portable AVC” profiles in Nero Recode – as opposed to “Standard AVC”, which roughly corresponds to the “Main” profile of the H.264 standard), you will not have access to a lot of goodies that, otherwise, wouldn’t decrease your playback performance that much but still add a lot of additional functionalities and subtly increased image quality.
For example, if you don’t use the “Standard – AVC” Nero profile, you won’t be able to select HE-AAC for audio encoding, only the substantially worse AAC-LC. As has already been explained in the recently published 2nd Multimedia Bible sneak peek: crossfade / gapless playback, (audio) media compatibility and power usage, CorePlayer (as opposed to most other players; for example, TCPMP) doesn’t use considerably more CPU time for decoding HE-AAC audio; therefore, you’ll want to use HE-AAC with CorePlayer and not AAC-LC. If you, however, use a “dumb” profile, you won’t even have a chance to select HE-AAC.
However, when you do plan to watch your videos with TCPMP only (or, other, technically not so advanced multimedia players), you must keep in mind that the situation is pretty much the opposite. Then, you WILL want to switch back to AAC-LC by selecting the “Settings” radio button (highlighted in HERE, the mouse hovering over it), clicking the “Custom profile:” radio button and selecting AAC-LC as can be seen in HERE.
There will be other cases (for example, playing back AVC on slow TI OMAP CPU’s), when this (using “simple” profiles) is what you will want to prefer. Note that, again, the video quality will still be better than that of traditional ASP at the same bitrate – that is, it’s still a usable tradeoff. On other (faster) platforms (practically, anything non-TI OMAP-based, except for the newer Nokias, which already are based on a vastly enhanced TI OMAP), you will ALWAYS want to stick to the Main H.264 profile (accessible as “Standard AVC” in Nero).
Note that Nero Recode also has some other, device-specific profiles. Of them, many recommend for example the iPod 5.5G profiles for VGA users (it, using the default, automatic settings, encodes 640-wide video at 728kbps). However, I don’t really recommend it because the iPod 5.5G profile doesn’t support a number of advanced features (for example, CABAC and/or Bidirectional Prediction) – why not stick with the Standard profile, then?
Also, many recommend the Sony PSP profiles of Nero. I didn’t find them particularly useful either, particularly if you’re a high-res (VGA etc.) user. The sole reason for this is that it only encodes in low resolution.
1.4.2 Switching off Deblocking
Deblocking is a genuine AVC (not available in ASP) feature to heavily (!!!) reduce blocking effects and really increase image quality. It’s really-really useful, particularly with slow (80…120 kbps QVGA or 200-250 kbps VGA videos), while “only” consumes about 10-20% CPU cycles.
Disabling it will, therefore, increase playback performance by 10-20%. Note the following:
1. You should ONLY disable it when there is simply nothing else to do to increase performance. The two other (encoding-time) tweaks I’ll introduce in the next two sections, that is, disabling CABAC and/or Bidirectional Prediction, result in a much better performance gain, while retaining much better playback quality.
2. Some people state (example HERE) that switching off deblocking at video (re)coding time should be preferred to (plain) runtime switch-off. I’ve thoroughly benchmarked this and found out that, with the recommended CorePlayer, this is not the case (unlike what the original poster stated) - you won’t see almost any performance increase of not encoding your videos with deblocking support at all.
That is, with CorePlayer, where deblocking can be disabled by hand when you play back your video, disabling deblocking at encoding time isn’t necessary – there’re simply no advantages of doing it. With TCPMP or other players that don’t allow for disabling deblocking at runtime, however, you might still want to do this at encoding time. The speed increase will be pretty much similar to that of CorePlayer. (But, again, if you’re seriously into AVC, I simply don’t see the point in sticking with alternative and, technically, inferior products like TCPMP or Symbian’s RealPlayer – CorePlayer is THE fastest and THE best AVC player definitely worth its price.)
Disabling deblocking at runtime (again, only in CorePlayer) is pretty easy: just go to Tools / Preferences, select the Advanced page and scroll down to the “Disable AVC deblocking filter” checkbox. Tick it. Screenshots of this:
(Windows Mobile)
(Symbian)
Disabling deblocking at encoding time (again, if you do NOT use CorePlayer but (inferior) alternatives) is pretty easy too. If you use Nero Recode, after clicking Next on the main screen, click “Nero Digital Settings” in the left list (over the ? and the More >> buttons) and, after enabling the “Expert mode” checkbox under the tree view in the center (it contains a single item, “Encoder”, in non-expert mode, only allowing for switching between one- and two-pass modes) go to AVC Encoder / Encoding Tools. Then, just untick the Deblocking checkbox in the lower center.

1.4.3 Switch off CABAC at encoding time
CABAC is another, new and advanced technology used in the Main profile of AVC. Unfortunately, enabling it also consumes some additional CPU cycles at decoding time. Therefore, you might want to disable it – at encoding time only.
To do this in Nero Recode, go to the same AVC Encoder / Encoding Tools as was the case with disabling Deblocking, and untick “CABAC” (the uppermost checkbox) as can be seen in HERE.
Note that if you don’t see this checkbox, make sure you use the Standard – AVC profile inside the Nero Digital AVC category. In simpler profiles / categories like iPOD, PSP, Nero Digital AVC’s Portable etc., they are inaccessible (because they aren’t used at all by simple profiles).
1.4.4 Switch off Bidirectional Prediction at encoding time
As with Deblocking and CABAC, Bidirectional Prediction is another brand new feature of the non-basic profiles of H.264 (and, consequently, Nero). Unfortunately, it also consumes some additional CPU cycles at runtime and it can, as with CABAC (and unlike Deblocking), only be disabled at encoding time.
To do this in Nero Recode, go to the same AVC Encoder / Encoding Tools as was the case with disabling Deblocking and CABAC, and untick “Bidirectional prediction” (the uppermost checkbox) as can be seen in HERE.
(Note that you can disable both CABAC and Bidirectional Prediction at the same time. Do this if you do need the maximum performance. Don’t forget that, while disabling both results in a huge speed increase, disabling them both will still produce better results than disabling deblocking. Only disable the latter when you’ve already disabled the former two and there still are dropped frames. If it still isn’t working, then, consider using a lower resolution or entirely switching from AVC to the traditional ASP.)
1.4.5 Effects of en/disabling deblocking, CABAC and Bidirectional Prediction
The following chart shows the effect on performance of doing all these hacks. The results have all been measured using the current version (1.1.1 on Windows Mobile, b2 on Symbian) of CorePlayer. The test machine was a VGA Dell Axim x51v – video-wise, probably the fastest handheld around.
The first chart shows the performance gain of not only the combined disabling of CABAC and Bidirectional Prediction, but also the separated results. As can clearly be seen, the performance gain of not using CABAC roughly equals to disabling deblocking - while, again, it maintains MUCH better visual quality and should ALWAYS be preferred over disabling deblocking. The latter should always be the last resort to (try to) get rid of (heavily) dropped frames or bad performance. Disabling Bidirectional Prediction, on the other hand, results in a much higher performance gain: it’s like disabling deblocking AND CABAC at the same time.
The chart also shows the results of disabling the Intel 2700g hardware accelerator acceleration (a single checkbox in CorePlayer). As can clearly be seen, 2700g helps a LOT when playing back ASP videos – particularly high-resolution ones. With the latter, the performance gain can be even 60%. As the Intel 2700g doesn’t help at decoding AVC at all, the results would have been the same in both cases.
I’ve used several test videos with either 640 or 320 width. They all had two HE-AAC soundtracks (default of the Standard – AVC profile of Nero – as opposed to lower-quality profiles, where only AAC-LC is accessible) and two subtitle streams. The latter, of course, (still?) aren’t displayed by CorePlayer. All of the videos have been encoded using two passes and all optimizations. Note that removing one of the sound tracks and the two subtitle streams wouldn’t have resulted in a major speed gain (probably a 0.5% one – at most), which will also be shown in a later chart.
Note that most AVC benchmarks contain two values. The first shows the benchmark with enabled deblocking; the second (after a slash) with disabled one. (Again and again, disabling deblocking, unless your source is high-quality, is NOT recommended. Try creating your AVC videos with either bilinear prediction or CABAC (or both) disabled if you REALLY need some additional speed – the quality degradation will be far less visible than without deblocking.)
The chart also shows the effect of the bitstream speed on the decoding efficiency. It’s a well-known fact that the faster the bitstream, the more CPU it takes to decode it. As can clearly be seen, there is some difference. For example, a 204 kbps 640*272 AVC stream can be decoded with a 91% benchmark, while, when using a 464 kbps stream, this decreases to 82%, which, visually, is much worse (about two times more dropped frames). Fortunately, as AVC behaves extraordinary good at low bitrates (again, just like HE-AAC v2 in sound encoding), you will want to strive for using as low stream speeds as possible. Again, a 204 kbps 640*272 AVC stream is pretty much enjoyable – no need for using a faster stream. Let me emphasize again: a faster stream will only decrease performance.
1.4.5.1 Some other, bitrate-dependent tests
To prove my point and show how increasing the video stream speed decreases performance, I’ve made several other, bitrate-dependent tests with fixed streams. Note that, in here, the stream was a 640 * 384 (with QVGA, 320 * 192) one – that is, considerably thicker than the 640 * 272 stream used in the previous test. The results certainly show this has reduced the performance.
HP iPAQ hx4700:
HP iPAQ h2210:

HTC Universal:
Nokia N95:
1.4.5.2 Dell Axim x51v + TCPMP
The following chart shows how the x51v behaves with TCPMP (the free and, for playing back AVC files, not really recommended predecessor of CorePlayer). In here, I’ve benchmarked both the beta CoreAVC codec (the third and fourth columns) and the official (and much slower) ffmpeg codec (fifth column). As can clearly be seen, the ffmpeg codec is about 100% slower than the beta CoreAVC and the latter is about 26% slower than the one in the commercial CorePlayer. Note that this 26% also contains the additional slowdown introduced by TCPMP’s far less efficient HE-AAC audio decoder. With an AAC-LC test video, the difference wouldn’t have been this bad. (Again, as can be seen in HERE, the (old) HE-AAC decoder of TCPMP is 2.5 times slower than the AAC-LC one. As opposed to the CorePlayer case: There is almost no difference with CorePlayer’s AAC decoders.)
1.4.5.3 Other VGA Pocket PC’s
Let’s continue with some other test devices – in this section, Windows Mobile only. Let’s take a look at two other VGA devices, the 624 MHz HP iPAQ hx4700 (with an ATi chipset) and the 520 MHz HTC Universal phone (the latter without any hardware graphics accelerator). The tests, of course, have all been made with the latest CorePlayer (TCPMP was only used with x51v to show how slower it is compared to CorePlayer). As can clearly be seen, in AVC mode, the two devices performed equally well – and slightly (but not much!) worse than the “speedking” Dell Axim x51v. This also means if you have any of these devices (just like me), you may want to prefer them to x51v because of the far better-quality screen (much better color reproduction, no polarization problems etc.)
As can also be seen in these charts, the lack of any (previous-generation like the Intel 2700g in the Dell Axim x51v or the ATI chipset used in the hx4700) hardware accelerator in a VGA device isn’t a problem. The hardware acceleration of ATI and Intel 2700g (currently, the two chipsets supported by CorePlayer and TCPMP – no support for GoForce 5500 and Qualcomm 7200 yet) only helps ASP playback, not AVC one. It’s only the latest Marvell (ex-Intel) XScale 3xx (Monahan) series that has support for AVC decoding – not earlier designs. (Unfortunately, currently, only the brand new iPAQ’s (will) have the new Xscale CPU’s and nothing else.)
This also explains why, it’s only in the not recommended, old ASP mode that the (hardware accelerated) Dell and iPAQ are considerably faster than the non-accelerated Universal (or, the same devices themselves with disabled acceleration).
HTC Universal:

HP iPAQ hx4700:
Note that the “Video” setting dialog also contains a “Video quality” drop-down list. It should never be used because in the “Medium” setting, it severely degrades video quality (it effectively halves (!) the original (!) resolution – that is, VGA source becomes QVGA) and, in “Low” setting, almost noting will be visible. The speed gain its usage results in is pretty low too. Finally, it only has an effect on non-AVC (for example, ASP) source; this is why I’ve added the MQ (“Medium Quality”) remarks in there. (For example, (MQ: 319) with the HTC Universal playing back a 204 kbps VGA movie means 319% benchmark when the video quality is set to Medium.)
Halving the original resolution means that, if you play back a VGA ASP movie on a QVGA device that supports the quality setting, in general, you can give a try to switching to Medium quality – you won’t see much image degradation (as opposed to what you would see on a VGA device). This especially pays off if, otherwise, you couldn’t play back the video without dropped frames.
1.4.5.4 QVGA Pocket PC’s and MS Smartphones
Now, from VGA Pocket PC’s, let’s move to QVGA devices (Pocket PC’s and MS Smartphones alike): the pretty old, WM2003 HP iPAQ 2210 (run by a 400 MHz Intel Xscale PXA-255) and the new, low-speed HTC Vox (s710) MS Smartphone, run by a 200 MHz TI OMAP CPU. (Note that, as far as other TI OMAP-based models are concerned, I’ve also benchmarked the HTC Wizard. I’ll show the results in a later chart.)
HP iPAQ 2210:
HTC Vox / s710:
As can clearly be seen, the 400 MHz iPAQ 2210 is just able to play back QVGA movies without having to resort to manual quality degradation (bilinear prediction / CABAC / deblocking). With the 200 MHz TI OMAP Vox, the situation is far worse – you cannot watch QVGA-width AVC videos on Windows Mobile models based on this CPU without manually decreasing the quality in encoding time (in runtime, just disabling deblocking won’t suffice).
1.4.5.5 Nokia N95
Finally, let’s see how probably the best multimedia smartphone of today, the TI OMAP-based (running at 330 MHz) Nokia N95 (firmware version v20, which is a bit faster at video playback (too) than v12) fares:
As can clearly be seen, it’s just able to play back 640*272 ASP videos without dropped frames – unlike the Vox or anything Windows Mobile based on the TI OMAP platform (without heavy overclocking).
1.4.5.6 Note that…
I haven’t benchmarked any Qualcomm MS7200-based devices because the next, soon-to-be-released, 1.2 version of CorePlayer will have much better support for it. Also, GoForce 4000 / 5500-based devices like the O2 XDA Flame are promised hardware support sometimes next year – see THIS for more info. Therefore, I haven’t tested them either. According to serveral users, both Acer (GoForce 4000) and the Flame (5500) have severe problems with playing back video – as is the case with the Qualcomm MS7200-based devices right now.
The source video I used was a 640*272 / 320*144 one – that is, a traditional 2.39:1 (35 mm anamorphic / Panavision / 'Scope) movie. With, vertically, considerably bigger movies (1.85:1, 16:9 (1.78:1) or even plain 4:3 – see THIS for more info) will result in a somewhat worse results.
For example, with a real 4:3 (640*480, VGA) 550 kbps ASP source, the Nokia N95 benchmarks at about 93%, as opposed to the ~111% of the “thin” 2.39:1 movie resized to 640*272 (keeping the aspect ratio).
1.4.6 Other tweaking
I’ve also thoroughly tested the performance gain using other checkboxes in the already-known (it’s there that you need to disable deblocking) Advanced tab of CorePlayer. Note that the test video was a fast one (the Standard - AVC 640-wide one was 1995 kbps, the Standard 320-wide one was 1468 kbps etc.); with much lower (and, therefore, much more recommended) bitrates (between 80…450 kbps, depending on the resolution), the absolute numbers would have been considerably higher, while the relative rations would have stayed approximately the same.
As can clearly be seen, trying to increase the performance with the other, Advanced checkboxes are pretty much futile. As a rule of thumb, it’s only the three parameters (Deblocking both runtime and encoding time and CABAC / Bidirectional Prediction at encoding time) that you should pay attention to. Also note that, by default, CorePlayer defaults to the best and most effective playback method (video output). It’s only with some ATI-based devices that you MAY want to override its decisions, should you encounter for example the infamous greenish effect.

1.4.7 Resolution-dependent benchmarks
I’ve also made some resolution-dependent benchmarks to see how the players behave with non-QVGA / VGA source videos. In this test, I’ve let Nero Recode set the target resolution depending on the manually set bitrate.
Incidentally, this (Nero Recode itself decides the best resolution for a given bitrate) is the default how encoding works. This may be an overkill in a lot of cases. For example, even a 200 kbps 640*272 AVC stream looks great, while Nero Recode insists of only allowing for this size at the bitrate of 533 kbps. This is a big overkill if your premium concern is storage space. Again and again, even 200 kbps 640-wide streams can look great, particularly those of “traditional” “35 mm” (2:39:1) movies. No need for wasting almost three times more storage on the video stream.
Therefore, if you do want to ALWAYS force the Nero Recode to convert your videos / DVD’s to either 320- or 640-wide videos, you must manually click the Video button (the lowermost large button on the right), go to the Resize tab and fill in both the horizontal and vertical size. In THIS screenshot, I’ve filled in 640 for the horizontal and 272 the vertical size. Uncheck the “Letterboxing” checkbox (if ticked).
Note that, as there’s no “keep aspect ratio” functionality in here, you must manually compute the vertical size, based on the original one. That is, if the original is, say, 720*300, then, you’ll need to
1, divide 300 (the original size) by the result of 720/640 = 1.125 (or, if you plan to watch the video on a QVGA screen, 720/320 = 2.25). The result is 266 (or, with the QVGA case, 133).
2, now, you’ll need to find the least multiple of 16 closest to the result. To find it, divide 266 (133) by 16 and round up. The results are:
266 / 16 = 16.625; rounded up: 17
133 / 16 = 8.3125; rounded up: 9
3, multiply the rounded-up integer with 16 (272 and 144, respectively); this will be the new vertical size.
Now, the chart:
With exactly the same video files (and, in addition, with a one pass, one soundtrack, no subtitle file and a iPod 5.5G –specific one to see whether they result in a better performance), I’ve also made some other tests with the three VGA devices to see how they play them back. As can clearly be seen, there isn’t much difference.
First, the results clearly show including a second soundtrack and/or subtitles doesn’t really cause any real speed hit. That is, feel free to do it if you’re either a language buff (and like watching movies in different languages) or would like to listen to the commentary soundtrack, if any. (Note that, currently, few desktop-based media players can display the Nero subtitle streams: of course, Nero’s own Showtime and VideoLAN.)
As can also be clearly seen (just compare the 640-wide result to that of the 624 and the 688-wide: as can clearly be seen, there isn’t much difference), the overhead caused by having to resize the video to (horizontally) fill in the entire screen is pretty low (as opposed to what some people state).
Still, as you won’t take advantage of the extra 80 pixels of the original 720-wide video, there isn’t much point in NOT reconverting it. Again and again, with AVC videos and current hardware (that is, before the VGA iPAQ 2xx series with the Marvel Xscale CPU’s hits the street and CorePlayer receives support for it), you MUST convert your videos to be enjoyable on your handsets – as opposed to most ASP videos played on most Windows Mobile / hi-end Symbian handsets.
The other direction (not using a full 640-wide stream), on the other hand, can pay off. If you don’t want to disable any of the special AVC features (deblocking / CABAC / Bidirectional Prediction), then, resizing your videos to be 544 pixels wide will still yield an above-100 benchmark, meaning flawless playback (mostly) without dropped frames.
There is another usage area where you can make good use of the almost non-existing performance degradation caused by CorePlayer’s reisizing the non-320/640-pixels-wide content to the screen. For example, take the example of the QVGA Nokia N95, which has an analogue TV output. A 320 pixels wide video is pretty much pixelizated; a 400-pixel-wide isn’t so. The latter is still on the verge of playability without (many) dropped frames (and, if you’re lucky enough, even without having to disable deblocking). Therefore, in cases like this, it’s preferable to create a 400-pixels wide video, which can be played back pretty well on both the built-in QVGA (320 pixels wide) screen and an external TV set. (Also see THIS for more info on this subject.)

1.4.8 High-bitrate tests
Earlier in this article, I’ve already presented some bitrate-related tests to find out what effect the stream bitrate has on the playback speed. I’ve also decided to test some additional situations – extremely large stream bitrates to find out how the players react.
Note that, in these tests, I used the ffmpeg codec (instead of the much more recommended beta CoreAVC port) to benchmark TCPMP’s AVC playback.
Also note that the first two tests show how official trailers like those of Get Smart can be played back. This also shows that high-res, official AVC trailers created for desktop players (read: no CPU optimizations took place: with CABAC, deblocking and Bidirectional Prediction are all enabled), in general, can’t be played back, not even on the, otherwise, fastest x51v.
As the previous chart, Windows Mobile-wise, only contains data on the x51v (as far as CorePlayer, the recommended player is concerned), I’ve repeated the tests on all the other test Windows Mobile Pocket PC’s, including the 400 MHz Samsung & ATI-based HTC Trinity.
1.5 Using Nero Recode
There is an excellent and pretty much up-to-date tutorial on using Nero Recode HERE. This is why I haven’t elaborated on basic subjects like importing a video file or a DVD. Keep in mind, however, that the subjects not discussed in the Doom9 tutorial (forcing the 320/640-wide output with manual resizing; unticking the two (three) checkboxes to dramatically increase performance etc.) are only discussed in my tutorial.
1.6 Verdict
With the hacks / performance improvements I’ve thoroughly explained in section “1.4 Fixing the frame drop problem”, I’m absolutely sure you’ll love AVC, particularly if you don’t mind having to recode your movies and/or you absolutely need the least possible storage usage. AVC, sometimes together with the hacks, is indeed a killer video compression format, even on low-power mobile platforms.

UPDATE (12/24/2007):
TCPMP has turned out to support the same tweaks as CorePlayer. Most importantly, it supports disabling deblocking at runtime – as opposed to what has been stated in the Bible. (Sorry – I won’t re-edit the original Bible.)
Thanks to BrightHand forum member jigwashere, I have been pointed to the AAC and AVC plug-ins for the Palm OS version of TCPMP.
The AAC plug-in is the same as with the Windows Mobile version; that is, it even allows for decoding HE-AAC v2 sound. This is certainly very good news.
The AVC plug-in, unfortunately, only supports the standard Baseline profile (corresponding to the Mobile / Portable AVC profiles of Nero Recode), unlike on Pocket PC, where also the standard Main profile is supported. Nevertheless, it’s, on the T3, blazingly fast playing these “simple” AVC videos - I wouldn't have thought my old Tungsten T3 is SO fast with TCPMP in full screen mode. Remember, even the baseline profile of AVC is WAY better, image quality-wise, than ASP at the same bit speed. (Assuming low bit speeds, of course – not, say, over 1000 kbps.)
Still speaking of the T3, the 204 kbps 640-wide ASP test video benchmarked at 124% in fill full screen and 135% in non-filling (that is, keeping the original aspect ratio and showing everything) mode. These results are definitely better than the 640-wide ASP playback results on QVGA Pocket PC’s, even under the, otherwise, faster and more optimized CorePlayer. Frankly, I wouldn’t have ever thought the 4.5-year-old Tungsten T3 is so nice a device for ASP playback, even with TCPMP – again, even in full screen.
A new version of Nero Recode (3; in Nero 8.2) has been released in the meantime (some 6 days ago); see THIS for more info & changes.

UPDATE (12/29/2007): AAS Top Story (!) frontpage (screenshot)
UPDATE (01/03/2008): let me also present the standard benchmark results of the QVGA, 400 MHz Samsung + ATi-based HTC Trinity / P3600. This chart belongs to Section 1.4.5.4, “QVGA Pocket PC’s and MS Smartphones”.
Also note that I’ve made some CPU usage tests to find out how the power usage on Samsung-based Windows Mobile handsets and PDA’s increase with increasing CPU usage. The results are pretty good: pretty much close to the (excellent) Nokia N95 results shown in Section “1.1.1.1 Battery life considerations” and WAY better than the Intel Xscale PXA-27x figures. These results can be found in my Radio Stream Transcoding Bible, in the “UPDATE (01/03/2008)” section at the bottom.

UPDATE (05/03/2008): For my just-published HP iPAQ 210 in-depth review, I’ve thoroughly tested the H.264 (and ASP) performance of the latest, 1.2.3 CorePlayer version. With Intel Xscale PXA270-based handsets, there is absolutely no difference. On models based on the Marvell Xscale PXA310/320, on the other hand, there is between 30…50% performance increase, making the Xscale PXA310/320 platform definitely better to play back AVC (H.264) than PXA270. You can find more info in Section 1.4 HERE (cross-posted to: PPCT, AximSite, XDA-Devs, BH, HF, MoDaCo.)

UPDATE (01/25/2009):
1. CorePlayer 1.3 has been released for both Windows Mobile and Symbian in the meantime. I've made some very thorough tests on it to find out whether it's faster at playing back H.264 than the 1.2.x series or whether there is H.264-specific decoding acceleration support of the Xscale 3xx series (tested this with the 310-based HP iPAQ 210) or the TI OMAP 2xxx-series (tested this on the Nokia N95 equipped with an OMAP 2420), two chip(set)s announced as ones that might receive hardware support in the future. Unfortunately, there isn't. Nevertheless, if you have a previous version of CorePlayer, you will want to update to the new version – it has much better YouTube support. For example, it supports iterating over all the search / category results and also supports the latest YouTube video formats. Unfortunately, HE-AACv2 and, on Symbian S60, WMV support is still painfully missing – I really-really hope they'll be added before long.
2. I've also played a bit with the latest (1.8.5.0) version of the desktop version of CoreAVC, the desktop decoder for H.264 and directly compared it to the recently-released DivX Player 7.0, which, among other things, has a brand new H.264 decoder. I've also thrown the latest (0.9.8a) version of VideoLan VLC player to see how the two compare to the well-established (but not very efficient, H.264 playback-wise), free, all-in-one video player.
All my tests have been conducted on a 2 GHz IBM ThinkPad t42p with a Pentium-M Dothan running at 2 GHz, 2GB of RAM and an UXGA screen, under the recently-released build 7000 of Windows 7 beta. I've run the tests in full screen mode. (Note that, unlike with, say, the IBM ThinkPad a31p and HP TC1100, video acceleration is fully supported on the t42p. Without it, watching high-resolution videos would be a painful experience.)
I've mostly used (torrented) 720p material like Ratatouille (video encoded at 1280x528 @ 4380 Kbps, bilingual audio left at the default 640kbps AC3) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, encoded using very similar parameters. Of the former, I especially took care of checking switching between the two soundtracks (English / German); of the latter, I paid special attention to the jerkiness of the animation at the end of the movie, starting at 2:31:05. In addition, I've thrown in some 1024*768*15 fps Canon IXUS SD960 video clips encoded by the latest (version 2009 build .35), highly recommended SUPER (Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer) using 1200 kbps, 15 fps video and LLC-AAC 64 kbps 44 kHz mono audio.
The results are as follows: VLC, as one could easily guess, was by far the slowest to render. It just couldn't produce enjoyable results – the 720p videos stuttered so bad. (The much simpler 1024*768*15fps videos were, of course, played back without problems.)
The free(!) DivX Player was much-much better. It delivered far less stuttering. A quick note: it, by default, doesn't support AC3. Therefore, you'll want to install AC3filter [latest, tested version: 1.51]. Note that, as is explained in section 4.10 HERE, you'll also want to do this if you use other players and find the audio volume low while playing back movies with an AC3 soundtrack; this also applies to CoreAVC and any compliant player like the built-in Windows Media Player or, in newer Windows versions, Windows Media Center. (Note that these do play back AC3 soundtracks – at least under Windows 7 – without installing any codecpack; just pretty quietly) Just install the driver and, under XP, follow the just-linked tutorial; under Vista / Windows 7, go to All Programs / AC3Filter / AC3Filter Config and raise the gain level.
CoreAVC was still (a bit) better than DivX Player. While the difference between CoreAVC and DivX Player was certainly much-much lower than between VLC and DivX Player, I do think it's still worth paying for the standard version of CoreAVC (unfortunately, the Professional version still doesn't support hardware acceleration and it'll unlikely receive any, based on the comments HERE) if you want to minimize CPU utilization.
Note that I've tried very hard to remove (or reduce) stuttering in all players. In CoreAVC, setting "Deblocking" to "Skip always" from the default "Standard" didn't seem to have any effect at all – the video, with very fast panning / action, occassionally stuttered, while the CPU usage, interestingly, remained around 30-40%. In Divx Player, under Tools / Preferences / Video, the "Post-processing mode" drop-down list turned out to be uneditable – it is set to "Custom deblocking". Finally, I didn't really bother with VLC as it was bad enough and in no way recommended for H.264 playback. If you absolutely must use a free H.264 player (and can't shell out $8 for the Standard edition of CoreAVC), go for the (in this regard, much superior) DivX Player 7 instead.

3. I've found the above-mentioned SUPER (Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer) a very-very easy-to-use tool to convert your stuff into H.264. While in my previous H.264 bible I recommended Nero Recode for the task (because of its simplicity), now, I tell you to go for SUPER instead. It has a very simple and logical user interface you'll learn in a minute: no need to use x264 (the famous encoder) from the command line any more, with a lot of cryptic options and commands. You can do the same right from SUPER, without having to read a lot of manuals on the different switches of x264. Also, it's capable of batch processing: you just drop some source files in it and, after setting the output audio/video/container parameters, just start transcoding. It's really easy and the encoder itself is, according to most people, both better and faster than that of Nero – and, yes, it's completely free!
Note that SUPER, being "just" a front-end to some command-line codecs like x264, doesn't support cutting / editing video files before being re-encoded (transcoded). For this task, I recommend SolveigMM Video Splitter the most because it's capable of cutting videos without re-encoding them. This way, it's both very fast and doesn't introduce any kind of quality decrease. Unfortunately, it isn't free (it costs 35 euros); however, it's well worth the price if you need to cut / edit video files often. Note that the 21-day evaluation version is completely usable and has no restrictions. It's perfectly usable unless you have MKV files as source – "traditional" AVI, MP3, WMV, WMA etc. files are all supported. Note that DVD's are also supposed to be supported; however, I've repeatedly received "Can't start trim process (The parameter is incorrect HRESULT: 0x80070057)" messages as of version 2.1.901.22, upon trying to edit / trim VOB files from DVD – without, of course, protection. WMV, AVI etc. files worked without problems.
4. Still speaking of desktop Windows, I’ve also tested the video / audio streaming offers to be able to save streaming or non-streaming content. You might also want to read the following section if you ever wondered how you can save for example streaming WMV videos, MP3 broadcasts and the like.
First, if you’re watching a non-live source (that is, pre-produced videos like those of YouTube), in a Web browser, there is chance it’s sent to you in Flash format. (Most video sites like YouTube use flash.) The easiest way to save these videos is using Opera as your main browser and navigating to \Users\username\AppData\Local\Opera\Opera 10 Preview\profile\cache4\ in Vista/W7 (in XP, change the leading “Users” to “Documents and Settings”) and, before navigating to the page containing the video, just entirely delete the contents of this directory. Then, you’ll easily spot the FLV videos downloaded to the cache upon navigating to the page with an inline videos and, then, starting to play it. Remember to rename the videos to something.FLV. These FLV files can be directly played back by, for example, the free and (unless you want to play back H.264) excellent VideoLan VLC player.
Most of the Flash-based video sources (YouTube, Google Video etc.) allow for quickly finding their FLV videos this way. Note that the above-explained way of finding them also works with Internet Explorer; however, then, you’ll need to make some searches with, say, Total Commander’s built-in file search routine (Alt-F7) unless you’re ready to traverse all the (numerous) subdirectories IE creates. This is why I recommend Opera for this task (too – after all, Opera is an excellent browser worth switching to not only because of this.) I’ve found only one exception – a regional TV broadcaster “ATV” (an example video is HERE), which uses some special, non-caching format I could only save with WMRecorder 12.3+ (but not with previous versions, not even 12.1).
Streaming video formats are another question. WMV, which is, today, the most commonly used (see for example the direct TV stream library HERE) format, saving the stream is way more complicated. With some (few) WMV streams (offering only pre-recorded stuff), you can just create a HTML file pointing to the WMV server / file you can easily get if you examine the page source for the original address and just trying to save the contents with a right click. With real live streams, however, this won’t work – then, you’ll need to use a third-party app. In my tests, WMRecorder has turned out to be the best in this respect when operated in ADA mode. Make sure you give the trial version a try to see whether your particular hardware configuration is supported so that it can run in ADA mode. It works wonderfully on both my HP TC1100 and IBM ThinkPad t42p (2373W6M) under both Windows 7 and Windows XP – and also on my IBM ThinkPad a31p (2653AG9) under XP (haven’t checked it under Windows 7 on my a31p). Note that, under Windows 7 on my t42p, I’m always receiving (with version 12.1; haven’t checked the latest, 12.4 version in this respect) “URL Finder has stopped working” errors; nevertheless, it does catch streaming download initializations issued before the URL finder being killed. And, if you do encounter URL Finder problems, just close and restart WMRecorder.