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Movies On Your Clie

If you want to play video clips on your Clie you currently have 2 options- gMovie and TealMovie. They both allow you to view video clips but do it in very different ways.
TealMovie TealMovie
could be considered by some to have some disadvantages compared to gMovie such as sound support only through Clie external speaker, $19.95 cost and slightly complex conversion of movies to a format it can read.

BUT it also has some advantages- the main one being the smooth playback which can be acheived quite easily with your own peronal video clips and the acceptable size of movies (average 2mb for 60 second clip).

I personally use TealMovie to watch video clips I have taken of my Son (19 months old and very cute!) when I'm feeling a bit stressed at work or need a pick me up.
TealMovie

I have never really bothered with the audio side of things as it has not been too impressive on the pre-formatted clips I have downloaded so far although TealMovie does support direct playback of standard uncompressed .WAV files which is a nice bonus. I use a webcam to catch short clips and then convert them with the included MakeMovie which allows direct conversion from .AVI format video files. If you wish to convert MPEG files you will need a third party utility to first convert it to AVI and then use MakeMovie again to view on the Clie (all a bit of a hassle but the results can be perfectly adequate for a quick watch).

TealMovie supports Memory Sticks very well which is a requirement if you want to carry loads of movies with you and the speed at which it accesses the files is superb. The makers of TealMovie, TealPoint, have over 90 video clips available for download ranging from Cartoon animations to TV promos and they are all free.

This software has been updated often to keep up with VFS etc. and I would suspect we may see a hi-res version in the not too distant future (let's hope the Clie processors can handle it). Here are the specs:- full screen movies Letterboxed movies Speed up to 25fps Synchronized sound Sound-only files Pause, restart, and step control Beaming of movies Full external VFS card support Plays standard (.WAV) files off VFS Supports SD/MMC devices Supports Memory Stick Supports VFS compact flash Supports MemPlug Smartmedia Includes movie creator Variable data compression Store up to 60 secs per Mb space Grayscale and color support Same files play on all devices Optional audio compression Optional audio filtering.

gMovie gMovie
has the advantage of coming bundled with the Clie's and is held in ROM which saves approx 100kb of space. If you own a 760/770 model it also supports good quality stereo playback through your supplied earphones which adds to the enjoyment of your video clips. It has excellent Memory Stick support and like TealMovie will load video clips almost instantly.
gMovie
It's not all good news though as there is one pretty large problem- the quality of the movies and the amount of 'tweaking' required to get an acceptable video clip. The surprising part is that even the bundled video clip is a bit jerky and the sound can become displaced from the animation itself. I do not belive this is a fault with the product itself but with the processing capabilities of Palm compatible machines and Generic Media should be applauded for attenpting such an ambitious task.

I have converted a couple of music videos using gMovieMaker and they play without too much jerkiness (I use AfterBurner set to 45Mhz to ensure reasonable playback) from my Memory Stick. You will need a fair amount of free space if you want to watch long clips- my two clips are just over 4 minutes in length each and take up a grand total of 44mb!

Although gMovie comes pre-loaded on the Clie's remember that you will need gMovieMaker to convert other formats at a cost of $29.97- this does work extremely well though and is quick and easy to use.


Movies
There are various resources on the web for downloading small video clips and here is a small selection to get you started (with some comments from nXt- visit his Yahoo Clie group):-
CORONET
Soothing and relaxing music along with scenic video (be warned they're big 2-4 megs each if you select 700/710/750/760 version)
NEWVENUE
People submit their mini movies and etc.. you can then download them in gmovie format. (make sure you click on "show all movies") there's about 60 movies! Some are color, some are 16 grayscale. some have sound some don't. File sizes range from 100k to 7 megs!
DREAMSPAN
Click on ShowCase. there's 10 very cool gmovies complete with audio.
SPE
good quality trailers for Seinfeld, Final Fantasy etc.