Media Studio for TomTom® 2.5 - Manual
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This software allows you to put videos, home movies, DVDs,
media content and recorded TV on your TomTom® in two clicks.
What you need is:
- PC with Windows XP. For DVD support you'll also need a built-in DVD-player.
- One of the TomTom® models: GO, GO 300, GO 500, GO 510, GO 700, GO 710, GO 910 (other models such as One and Rider are not supported)
- We recommend using a seperate, empty SD-memorycard for the video files. Our media player will also be copied onto the card. For small video files, you may use the TomTom GO memorycard (the one that also stores maps). If you have a Go 700 or GO 910, the video and player will be copied to the internal harddisk.
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, if you want to convert DVD content. 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.
Quick Guide
[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 for any content that comes from a optical DVD disc, or when it was already stored on the harddrive. Choose Video Content if the content is a video file stored on the hard drive. Choose Other if your content is a Video-CD, S-VCD or DVD recordable/rewritable that can not be converted as a regular DVD.
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.
DVD Copy Protection
If you have trouble converting a DVD directly with Media Studio, we advice you to use DVD Decrypter to make a local hard drive copy first. |
[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 TomTom® 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 TomTom® in less then an hour. Video files will be converted at two times realtime.
[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 TomTom®.
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 TomTom®. The reason is that film sizes (so called aspect ratio's) and the size of your TomTom® 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 TomTom 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 TomTom in 45 minutes.
[9] Transfer
Attention: When you transfer a video for the first time, or when you use a new, empty memorycard, this software also needs to install the Makayama Media Player for the TomTom. Always use the cable connection (method 1) in those cases. |
You will see the screen below. It has two playlists, one for converted video content on your PC and one for content on your phone. You can move content back and forth between your PC and phone.
There are two ways to transfer the video to your TomTom.
1) Directly to the device via USB cable
a) Put a seperate, empty
SD-card in your TomTom (you may also use the default card, but it won't have
much space)
b) Connect the TomTom Go with the provide USB-cable, turn power on
c) Wait untill the TomTom appears in My Computer as a new drive (for example
E:\)
d) Set this letter in the Media Studio software, by clicking on the Drive Icon beneath the picture of the TomTom (in the example,
set it to E:\)
e) Press the Move to TomTom button in the PC software, the video will be transferred
2) Putting it manually on the memorycard or harddrive
a) Press the Save & Return button and the video will be saved to the desktop
b) Enter you memorycard in the cardreader of your PC
c) Copy the video from the desktop to the 'media' folder on the
memorycard
You can manage your files by transferring them back and forth between TomTom and PC.
[10] Firmware Issues How to avoid them.
The software may (in some cases) inform you that the firmware of your TomTom is wrong and that it needs to adjust this. This can only happen when you copy the video and mediaplayer to a TomTom GO memorycard or harddrive that already has a newer firmware on it. If you copy to an empty memorycard, you will never have a firmware issue. That's why we advice you to use a seperate SD-card for your video files. Please note:
[11] Playback Play the video with the Makayama Video Player that has been installed on your TomTom
1) If you copied the video to a TomTom GO Memorycard (that also includes maps and the navigation software), you will find the player in Page 4 of the Main Menu on the TomTom. You get there by tapping the screen once (to activate the Main menu) and then three more times on the triangle button (in the lower right corner of the screen). On page 4, you will see the video player icon. Tap it and the mediaplayer will start, showing a playlist.
2) If you copied the video to a seperate (or empty) memorycard, the TomTom will instantly boot in the media player.
After the media player has launched, you will see a playlist that contains all playable videofiles on the memorycard. You tap the video you would like to see, it turns red and then press Play to start playback.
If you have more than 9 video files, you may tap the down-arrow to scroll to the next page of the playlist.
When you click on the screen during playback, you will see the playback controls: Volume, Play, Exit end Seek
Safety Feature When you press Options, you will see a safety option that is checked by default. The software automatically detects when the vehicle is driving, using the GPS data, and will pause playback of video untill the speed is zero again. Optionally this safety feature may be turned off, for example when parents would like to let their children view video content in the back of the car. |
Menu Options
[1] DVD \ 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 \ Fit-to-Card 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 Leave this option ON by default. If you turn this OFF, your DVD conversions may take 5 times longer. Only if you experience problems opening or converting DVD's, you can try turning this option off.
[4] TomTom \ Is Drive This menu item allows you to download free video content from Youtube and Altavista
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Troubleshooting
[1] Resetting the TomTom If you encounter problems with the video playback, for example stuttering or even a complete lock-up of the device, you may first try to remove the memorycard. Usually this will lead to a soft reset of the TomTom. If that doesn't solve the issue, please try a hard reset of the device. This will not affect your maps, navigation software or video files. Press the Reset hole on the bottom of the TomTom, using a paperclip or pin.
[2] FAQ
If you encounter problems with the PC encoding software, please consult the Frequently Asked Questions: http://www.makayama.com/tomtom250engfaq.html for common issues and solutions. The 25 most commonly encountered issues are described with a solution.
updated: 28-nov-2006
If you have used (free) third-party tools to decrypt the DVD, such as 'DVD Shrink' or 
To watch content from Youtube on your TomTom: choose the menu Download \ Video \ from Youtube. You will be connected to a third-party download service (such as Videoronk). Here you can search for your favourite Youtube content and download it. The downloaded video will be in the FLV (Flash) format. The video may then be converted using Media Studio.