Watching Movie Files On My W960i

According to the scant information in the phone help file the built in Video Player supplied with the Sony Ericsson W960i supports 3GPP (.3gp), MP4 (.mp4)  and Real Media (.ram, .rm) video formats.

Most video files cause an error...

I have various video files on my PC including .wmv, avi, .mpg and mov. All these videos will play on my PC using Windows Media Player or QuickTime but when I copy them to the media memory of my W960i not one of them will play using the built in Video Player.

Even .mp4 video files that work perfectly on my PC will not work on my W960i.

H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC

H.264 is a standard for video compression which is also known as MPEG-4 Part 10 or more commonly as MPEG-4 AVC (for Advanced Video Coding).

Sony Ericsson Media Manager 1.1

Sony Ericsson Media Manager 1.1 is a very slick program which is available as a free download from the Sony Ericsson website but the Sony Ericsson Media Manager 1.1 Pro version costs an additional $9.99 and apparently it will convert video files to the format supported by my W960i.

According to the help file a Sony Ericsson phone supports some .mp4 and .3gp video files and mention is made of .mp4 (Sony AVC/AAC) and .mp4 (MPEG4 part 2) but there is no information on the exact format and settings.

3 Choices

If I want to watch movies or films on my W960i then I think I have 3 choices:
1. Purchase Sony Ericsson Media Manager 1.1 Pro at a cost of $9.99
2. Use a 3rd party Video player such as PowerMovie at a cost of $19.99
3. Convert my video files into a format supported by the W960i Video Viewer at a cost of $??.??

Not surprisingly my choice is option 3 and if at all possible at a cost of $Free.

The tricky part is to find a video converter program which will accept the greatest number of source video formats and to then work out which video formats and bit rates work best with the W960i.

PSP Video 9

The PSP Video 9 homepage is located at http://www.pspvideo9.com

PSP Video 9 is a free program which runs on a PC which is intended for converting video files to view on a Sony PSP portable games console but the good news is that converted video files will also run on other devices.

So far I have converted .wmv, avi, .mpg and mov files in sizes from 20Mb to 1.5GB and so far not one video file converted to MPEG-4 (.mp4) has failed to convert and run perfectly on my W960i.

Step By Step Guide To Using PSP Video 9

At first sight PSP Video 9 can be a little confusing to use. By default it uses a wizard screen to manage the conversion and of course it assumes that you are using a Sony PSP.

W960i phone users should bypass the wizard and go straight to the Convert tab and click Convert Video. Now find and select the video file to be converted...

PSP Video 9 conversion in progress...

Depending on the size of the movie the conversion will take several minutes but it is generally quicker to convert a video file than to watch.

Select a profile...

PSP Video 9 supports a multitude of formats and after extensive experimentation and testing the profile that I recommend for the W960i is Fw2.80+ MPEG4 320x240 768kbps Stereo/128kbps. This profile was able to convert every video file and every video file worked on my W960i.

This profile has the correct screen resolution of 240x320 pixels for the W960i so the video player does not have to use extra processing power to resize the video output.

The video bit rate is set at 768kbps which seems to be a rate that the W960i can handle. I noticed that video files with a higher bit rate would not play on the W960i.

The audio bit rate is set at 129kbps which again seems to be a rate the the W960i can handle.

Other profiles include Fw1.50+ MPEG4 320x240 768kbps Stereo/128kbps and Fw1.50+ MPEG4 320x240 768kbps Stereo/128kbps 2-Pass. Using these profiles it was not possible to convert all video files. I could not see any quality advantage of the 2-Pass conversion over the 1-Pass conversion.

Settings Galore

PSP Video 9 Profiles...

Choose your profile carefully. The correct profile will ensure that firstly your video file will convert and secondly that the converted video will play on your W960i.

Select the Encoder...

Sorry I don't know my MI from my MH and my MIMB.

Now select the Video Codec...

My investigations indicate that MPEG-4 will work with the W960i but MPEG-4 AVC will not.

PSP Video 9 provides extensive settings which you can experiment with. In particular you can select the MPEG-4 AVC Video Codec. According to Sony Ericsson the W960i should support the AVC variant but I could not get any video files converted using the MPEG-4 AVC Video Codec to play on the W960i.

It is possible that other converter application that support AVC will work with the W960i so it is very much a case of matching your video file to your converter program to your device and also take into account the video software installed on your W960i phone.

Results

Source Format	Source File Size	Converted Format	Converted File Size	Comments
.wmv	28.6 Mb	.mp4	29.5 Mb	Converted to a slightly larger file but at least it played on the W960i
.wmv	302 Mb	.mp4	158 Mb	Reduced file size on conversion
.mov	111 Mb	.mp4	26 Mb	Massively reduced
.avi	1,484 Mb	.mp4	733 Mb	Massive file which W960i took in its stride

Every video file I tried was converted by PSP Video 9 and played without problem son my W960i.

Beware The File Name...

Another issue that I noticed was that the video player provided with the W960i can be very particular about the video file name. One video would not play until all the spaces were removed from the file name while another video file with a longer name and also containing spaces would play without problems.