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Following an email request, I thought that I should answer the question of how to watch DVD movies on your Treo 600 in a definitive way.
While I was bracing myself for some pretty tough times ahead doing this (crossing my fingers that nothing 'terrible' would suddenly happen), in the end I found that converting my DVD movies to watch on my Treo 600 to be as easy as, well, counting 1, 2, 3...
What you'll need:
1. Pocket-DVD Studio (Free 30 Day Trial download with 5-10 minutes encoding limitation or $32 to buy)
2. MMPlayer (Free Trial download but limited by message overlay when viewing movies or $14.95 to buy)
3. A DVD like the Star Wars Trilogy (You must own the DVD that you're copying... see disclaimer in read more...)
Getting started:
1. Install Pocket-DVD Studio on your PC or laptop (Aprox. 10 minutes)
2. Install MMPlayer to your Treo 600 (Aprox. 10 minutes)
3. Insert DVD in your PC or laptop (Aprox. 10 seconds)
Encoding your DVD:
1. Launch Pocket-DVD application
2. Select 1) 'Open DVD' button; 2) Use the right-most 'Crop' selection; 3) 'Resolution' of 160 x (YYY) [Treo 600 has a screen resolution of 160x160 so there's not much point encoding at higher ones...]
3. You'll have to wait for about 1 hour for encoding of the entire DVD to complete (don't try to launch any other apps while doing this as Pocket-DVD will already be using 100% CPU...)
Encoding Results:
1. Picture Quality: Great considering that you'll be watching it on a minute screen
2. Sound Quality: Absolutely awesome! I was so surprised to find that the audio quality was superb particularly once you plug in your earphones
3. Compression Quality: Brilliant! A 4.7GB DVD will be reduced down to between 80MB and 120MB depending on the length of the movie and all in avi format
Viewing on MMPlayer:
1. Transfer your Pocket-DVD movie to your SD card
2. Launch MMPlayer fit the earphones
3. Select 'Playlist', find your movie, hit play and enjoy!
That's it... told you... couldn't be simpler than 1, 2, 3...!
