Wednesday, December 29, 2010

How to Send Videos to Your Cell Phone

Want to send some of your favorite videos to your cell phone? It's not as hard as you may think, once you know what to do. First, check and see if you can find what kind of format your phone supports. Videos come in a few formats, and just sending any format to your phone may not work. For example, most youtube videos are in .flv format. Most phones don't support this. You will get an error like "file format not supported." My particular phone is LG ENV touch with keyboard. When I looked up what video format is supported for this phone, the suggestions were .3gp or .wmp. WMP is Windows Media Player. That sounded like the easiest to use, so I tried it first. Total bust! I didn't work at all. I suggest converting your videos to the 3gp format. To do this, you need a converter program. Don't buy one. The one I recommend is Prism. There are a few free websites to download this program. Here are three I found: 1. prism-video-converter.en.softonic.com, 2. www.brothersoft.com, 3. www.nchsoftware.com. I wouldn't use a site like cnet or a few others that offer free downloads, but you have to be a member and pay a membership fee to get their "free downloads."
After you download the converter, the rest is easy. See my post on how to download and keep youtube videos if this is where you want your video to come from.

Step 1
Once you have the video or even a full length movie loaded on your computer, all you have to do is open your Prism Video Converter. You can open the source file that your video is in and "drag and drop" it into Prism, or you can use the option from Prism's tool bar "add file." It has a big plus sign icon. Now you should see your file listed in some spreadsheet looking boxes.

Step 2
Underneath this is a box that says "save to folder." Choose what folder you want your converted file to go to. I recommend it is not the same folder as the original video. It may overwrite and replace your original video file.

Step 3
Underneath the "save to folder" box are some more boxes. The first words are "output format." Click on the first box. You will see several options to convert your video to here. Choose 3gp.

Step 4
Then just click "convert." The program even makes a noise to let you know it's done converting your file.

Step 5
Next, go to the folder you chose to save the converted video in. Right click on the file and choose "properties." You should see that the file is now saved with the title of the file and .3gp.

Step 6
Now you are ready to send your video to your phone.

I don't recommend you try to sync your video to your phone through Windows Media Player. Since .3gp is not a WMP supported format, you will get "error" when you try to sync the file. If you use a USB cable, I would try to open your "removable drive" folder and send your newly converted file there - by either "drag and drop" or "copy and paste" methods, whatever usually works best on your computer. I prefer to use Bluetooth. I plug in my Dongle Bluetooth adapter to the USB port, and turn on your Bluetooth on your phone. Open your "file transfer service" and "copy and paste" your converted file there. Your phone then shows the message, "receiving file." You can also use the "send to" option if your computer recognizes your Bluetooth adapter through Windows (usually XP). Now check your file on your phone and make sure that your video plays. If it doesn't play, delete it off your phone and try again. You may need to try the conversion again. Enjoy your videos on the go.

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