Mobile video streaming

i think most of our phones currently do not support popular video sites such as Youtube that is flash-based. Except the newer Nokia N series, most of e in built browsers do not have e capability to play flash on sites.

I turned to www.mywaves.com for ocassional video watching. I downloaded their mobile app as well. The application actually utilizes e internal browser to go to their website, which probably wastes ur memory space installing it with no obvious benefits. As e E61i comes with a Realplayer, playing most clips over the 3G network was fine (in both streaming and download&watch mode). Each clip is ranges in size from 300kb to 1300kb depending mainly if its animation or real life clips. The connection speed i got was about a decent 40+kb/s and thus able to download most clips under a minute. streaming is fine (not great) due to e ocassional video frame jerks.

You can also join e network and subscribe to various channels, features u will find on most video sites. Overall e experience was satisfying if u dun mind e quality of flash videos. I watched a few clips on American Dad, Simpsons and A Simple Life, great way to kill time and get a few laughs. I did not see e prolifiration of self uploaded videos, instead most are vids clips from TV shows. Point your browser to their website to try it out.

Note: Opera mobile has some issues on their websites, i couldnt click on either the download or streaming links.

[Update] : 25/05/08: I would be doing a series of posts on various websites that provide streaming videos to mobile devices. They would range from entertainment, general news & information.

Cinema websites on Opera mobile – Cathay

Cathay

From above, u will make ur selection for e cinema, film and the timings step by step. After which e page will load e seat selection page.

Unfortunately, this is where everything will stop. E page will never load due to lack of browser support. This is true for both Opera and Nokia browser. However, I am pretty sure that e IE on windows mobile will work. If u have tried it, please let me know if i am correct.

As a Nokia fan, I prefer e simplicity of Symbian OS compared to e Windows mobile. However, it seems to me that e browsers lack much support for mainstream websites.

Cinema websites on Opera mobile – Golden Village

Golden village on Opera

Buying Tickets (update: able to buy tickets via E61i on Opera)

E front page of Golden Village’s website looks and performs fine on Opera’s browser. You can select your movie/cinema from the drop downs.

U do hav to go through one step at a time to make the drop downs work.

1. Click on e first drop-down list (‘Select Cinema’) and make ur selection.
2. Next select e second drop-down for e film that r currently showing in tat cinema
3. Heres e part tat most ppl will be frustrated by. After doing 1. And 2., u hav to wait about 1 sec b4 u can actually select e ‘Choose a day’ drop down. U can actually see e selection box shift like 1 pixel to e right after its activated (probably manually aligned?). It will be e same thing for e last drop-down ‘Choose a time’.

After these selections, you will be brought to the seats selection page.

As you can see, due to the way Opera Mobile works, the seats are all arranged vertically instead of the normal horizontal rows. (for your info, Row A is closest to the Screen). [If you are using a different phone and could not get this to work on your phone, please drop me an email so I can update this post]

Also, if you do not use the drop down list @ the homepage to book the tickets, instead clicking on the “Buy Tickets” buttons, you will see that the timings will be all “cut” and arranged vertically. (see picture) Still works, just troublesome to find the required timings.

I really hope Golden Village is paying attention here and provide Opera mobile users an alternative way to select the seats.

Alternative Method

Use the default Nokia browser. It works, just that the amount of data downloaded from the website goes up. Meaning if u r not on a unlimited data plan, ur cost of visiting the website goes up as well. And u have to do plenty of side scrolling to get to some buttons compared to Opera mobile’s vertical scrolling.

Verdict: No Opera Mobile for GV.