How does Palm Media Studio 2.0 work? This software allows you to put home movies, DVD's, downloaded content and TV on your Palm in two clicks. You can watch them in fullscreen landscape mode. What you need is: - PC with Windows XP. For DVD support you'll also need a built-in DVD-player. - 4 Gigabyte of free space on a harddisk (for a 100 minute movie) to store temporary files - Compatible device with Palm operating system - Memorycard of at least 32 Mb (or 128 Mb for DVD support).

Installation

- Make sure your system has a software DVD player (such as PowerDVD or WinDVD), if you want to convert DVD content.

- Make sure you have a harddisk with at least 4 Gigabytes of free space. By default the software will look for the C:\ drive as the temporary drive. You can change this in DVD Settings Menu \ Temp Drive.

- Install the PC software by launching the red installer, it will auto-install the software and place shortcuts on the desktop and Windows Start Menu.

- Install the TCPMP-player on your Palm. Drag the three prc-files from the 'Install this on your Palm'-folder to your Palm Desktop Manager. Connect your device via USB. A Hotsync will be performed and the player will be installed on your device.

ATTENTION Sony Clié NX70 and TG50 users: for these models you also have to install the MCA2.prc file. Without it, you will have no sound ! After you installed it, goto Preferences in the main menu of your Clie. Then click in the upper-right corner of the screen and choose MCA2. Check the box 'Auto-install after Reset' and then 'Install and Exit'. Reset your device if necessary (push the reset hole on the back of your device)

Quick Guide (version 2.0 -Palm Edition)

[1] Source Drive . Click the drive you want to open. This can be a hard disk, CD-Rom, DVD-R(w), DVD-Video, removable drive, flash drive or anything else. Press Open to start. Choose DVD if you have an optical DVD disc, or if you have a disc backup on your harddrive. Choose Video Content if the content is a video file stored on the hard drive. This can be any file with the file extension: .avi;.mpg;.wmv;.3gp;.mp4;.mpeg;.flv;.asf;.dv;.vob;.dvr-ms or .mov. Warning: video files can contain different 'codecs' (compression types). Not all codecs are supported.

The content you picked will start playing in the Preview Window. You can right-click in the window for more preview options. Such as a fullscreen preview.

DVD's can contain multiple titles, such as (home) movies, trailers, etc. By default, the software will pick the largest title. Usually this is the main movie. You can change this in Advanced options.

[2] Action / Advanced You can start immediately by pressing the Action button. The file or dvd conversion will begin right away. If you need control over the picture quality, language settings etcetera, you click the Advanced button.

Click on Action and the PC will start converting. The preview video will stop playing to save processor cycles . Conversion takes one step with content coming from harddisk or CD. But coming from DVD, it takes two steps. DVD's are now captured using Cyberspeed technology. During Step1, the video and audio from the DVD will be saved to a temporary file, this may take between 10 minutes and 1 hour, depending on the speed of your PC and the speed of your DVD drive. If you have a relatively fast PC and DVD drive, you may see speeds of up to fifteen times realtime. In that case a 90 minute DVD will be captured in 6 minutes. After Step 1, Step 2 will start automatically. This step compresses the file further to the final Palm movie file. This will take approximately 2 times realtime on a 2Ghz PC. So 45 minutes for a 90 minute movie. On average, you may expect to transfer a DVD to your Palm in less then an hour.

[3] Source Size You need to tell the software what size the source content is, so that it can calculate the optimal playback size on your Palm.

Most DVD's have a 16:9 aspect ratio (widescreen) and most TV shows have a 4:3 dimension. For feature films shot in Academy Standard 16:9, the widescreen-setting is automatically chosen. In case your DVD was shot in Cinemascope , you need to pick the Cinemascope (2.35:1 aspect ratio) setting. This will correct the 'egghead' effect that you may see. When finished press Next.

[5] Zoom Level . Choose the zoom level. Then press Next.

If you prefer to see the whole movie in widescreen, choose 'Show All'. This will give you the whole picture, but it will show black bars on the Palm. The reason is that film sizes (so called aspect ratio's) and the size of your Palm screen are different. You will notice that the shots are missing abit from the left and right side. If you choose 'Zoom In', the software will chop the black bars off and blow-up the picture.

[6] Encoding Quality. Choose the encoding quality. Then press Next.

If you prefer a better video quality, choose 'Better Picture'. This will give improved video quality, but you will hear lower quality sound. This is recommended for most (home) movies. 'Better Sound' will result in more blockiness in the video. However, the sound will be FM-radio like. It's recommended for music video's and home movies.

[7] Episodes, Language and Subtitles.

Next, you will see the episodes and language settings, the Episode , Audio Dub and Subtitle options appear.

A) Episode Menu. If your source material is a DVD, you have the option to select an alternative title from the disc. For example a 'behind the scenes'-documentary, or another episode from a DVD containing several tv-shows. The longest video on the disc will be shown by default, usually that's the main movie.

B) Audio Dub Menu. This allows you to set a foreign audiotrack. For example if you want to watch a movie in Spanish, you would pick that language and override the default English setting.

C) Subtitles Menu. If you choose subtitles, you will see a droplist of possible languages on the disc.

[8] Action. You press Action and the PC will start converting. The preview video will stop playing to save processor cycles . Conversion takes one step with content coming from harddisk or CD. But coming from DVD, it takes two steps. DVD's are now captured using Cyberspeed technology. During Step1, the video and audio from the DVD will be saved to a temporary file, this may take between 10 minutes and 1 hour, depending on the speed of your PC and the speed of your DVD drive. If you have a relatively fast PC and DVD drive, you may see speeds of up to fifteen times realtime. In that case a 90 minute DVD will be captured in 6 minutes. After Step 1, Step 2 will start automatically. This step compresses the file further to the final Palm movie file. This will take approximately 3 times realtime on a 3Ghz PC. So 30 minutes for a 90 minute movie. On average, you may expect to transfer a DVD to your Palm in 45 minutes.

[9] Transfer

When conversion is finished, a 3GP video file will be on the desktop. There are 2 ways to transfer the video to your Palm

1) Memorycard Reader. This is the preferred method because it's fast and reliable. This allows you to move the video file directly to the card, so that you can move it to the Palm. You can put the video anywhere on the memorycard.

2) Use the PalmOne Quick Install Tool. Make sure you have the latest version of the palmOne Quick Install Tool.
Drag and drop the video file from your desktop onto the Expansion Card field. Then perform a Hotsync.

[10] Playback

On your Palm, press the Home Button and open the TCPMP player from the main menu. After the player has launched, click the upper left corner of the screen (where it says 'TCPMP'. The File Menu appears. Choose Open files and select your video from the file dialog. Press OK and then Play. Finally pres Full to display the video in fullscreen.

You can click on the screen to return to the user interface mode where you may choose to fast-forward or rewind the video. You can also click and drag the slider to quickly navigate to any point in the movie. You can adjust the sound volume by clicking on Pref, then Audio and then drag the upper slider.

Menu Options

[1] DVD Settings \Temp Drive You set the disk drive that you would like to store temporary files on. Choose the biggest available harddrive that you have. Temporary files may take up to 4 Gigabytes space that need to be stored on this drive. They will be cleaned up after conversion.

[2] DVD Settings\Memorycard Set it to the size of your Memorycard. It is used to calculate the video- and audiobitrate so that the video will fit on your Memorycard.

[3] Download\Video This menu item allows you to download free video content from Youtube and Altavista.

If you encounter problems with the software, please consult the Tech Database : http://www.makayama.com/palm200engfaq.html for common questions and solutions.

updated: 23-nov-2006