Video on the Pearl

As I mentioned earlier in this chapter, the Pearl's built-in camera doesn't record video, but that doesn't mean that it can't play video. Indeed, the Pearl is a highly capable video player, the only wrinkle being that it cannot play either audio or video that's streamed from the Internet; the files must be on the Pearl and in its memory to be played. This doesn't mean that you can't download the files from the Internet; it just means that you can't stream them from the Interneta minor difference, perhaps, but a significant one.

To play a video on the Pearl, select Video in the Media screen (Figure 8.6); then select the movie from the media folder on the Pearl and play it in Media Player (Figure 8.7).

Figure 8.6. Select Video in the Media screen

Figure 8.7. Choose the file you want from the Pearl's memory; then view it in the Media Player window

Any media file that you find on the Internetvideo or audiocan be added to the Pearl via email (depending on size) or via the Media Manager application in BlackBerry Desktop Manager.

Media Player Compatibilities

Media Player is one of the Pearl's shining achievements, because it can play so many formats competently. It's good to know what formats Media Player can manage so that if you're making movies to run on the Pearl, you can create them in a format that will take full advantage of the Pearl's capabilities.

The compatible audio formats for Media Player are:

• AAC

• eAAC+

• AAC+

• MIDI

• AMR-NB

• MP3

The compatible video formats for Media Player are:

• AVI

• H.263

• MPEG-4

Watching Movies

If you want to watch movies on your Pearl, you certainly can. What you need to do is use software that turns your movie into an MPEG-4 file that's small enough to fit in the Pearl's memory (see the next section, "Converting video"). Movies that have been reduced in size to fit on a Pearl's screen often are only about 300 MB, so if you have a 2 GB microSD card in the Pearl, you could have up to six movies on the Pearl at any time.

That said, I recommend that you do not use copyrighted material when you put movies on the Pearl. Use podcasts, home videos, and other legal content to fill the device.

Converting Video

If you want to convert some video to an MPEG-4 file for use on your Pearl (including changing the size of the file so you can fit it on the Pearl), I suggest using any of the standard software packages, such as Adobe Premiere or Nero. Nero is often bundled with software on your computer. In fact, the bundled Windows application MovieMaker can do some of the same things.

When it comes to free software, a couple of the best alternatives are Video Conversion Expert 4 (Moomin Software) and Winxmedia AVI/WMV MP4 Converter 2.1 (Winxmedia Software).

You can probably find a hundred kinds of freeware for converting video (and audio), but these suggestions give you a good place to start. Ultimately, though, I suggest that you look on your computer first, because it may have come with this type of software preinstalled.