----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Lutz" 
Sent:  November, 2002
Subject: (using nx70v video files on PCs)

Hello,
 
I'm not a Sony technician, but here is what 
I have found out on my own. 

The NX70V always records movies taken on the
device in MPEG-4 format.  The ".mqv" files that
show up on the memory stick (in /MQ_ROOT/100MQV01)
are in MPEG-4 format already.  The Sony documents
confusingly refer to the "mqv" files as "Movie 
Player Format", but it's really MPEG-4.  There 
is no way to record video on this PDA in any other 
format than MPEG-4, that I know of.  Still photos
are recorded in JPEG format (and show up on the 
memory stick in /DCIM/101MSDCF) instead.  

MPEG-4 is a relatively new video format, that
is supported by many companies, and is based
upon Apple's QuickTime file format.  MPEG-4
is designed to be scalable in terms of hardware
requirements, which is why it is being adopted in
small devices like the Sony PDA.  Unfortunately, 
its newness means that most standard video players
for PCs can't yet play MPEG-4 today (I imagine that
most probably will soon).  For example, my version
of Windows Media Player doesn't handle these files.

One exception: QuickTime player version 6 does
play the "mqv" files on PCs today, direct from the 
memory stick, or copied from stick to hard drive.
I had to download this to verify (and just found 
out about this last week myself), but it does work
fine for playing the videos on standard PCs.  For 
quick opening on PCs, just register ".mqv" files 
to open with QuickTime6, and click.  There is no 
need to rename the "mqv" files on PCs.

To read about MPEG-4, see this web page:

http://www.apple.com/mpeg4/

To download the free QuickTime6 player, see this:

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/products/qt/

I haven't tested this, but QuickTime 5.x can apparently
play movies recorded on a Clie too, as long as you rename
the ".mqv" files to have a ".mov" extension on the PC. 
QT 5.x was shipped on the Clie CD; QT 6 is a download.

There may be other solutions as well (I saw a note
about a program "tmpgenc" that may be able to convert
the MPEG-4 files to MPEG-1 with an appropriate plug-in),
but I have no details about alternatives other than the 
QuickTime6 player.  Update: there is apparently a plugin
for viewing MPEG4 files within Windows MediaPlayer (not 
tested); try www.envivio.com.

Other discoveries: 

- The ".mai" files stored elsewhere on memory stick 
are just thumbnails (not the video).

- You can play Clie videos on a PC as described, but 
can also play videos from external sources on a Clie.
If you have a camera or camdcorder that records MPEG 
movies onto a memory stick, those movies will probably
work on the CLIE without doing anything special--just 
insert the memory stick, and open the movie player app.
If you download an MPEG movie, place it on a memory stick
as described in the next note.

- To play existing files with the supplied software, 
they just need to be dropped in (copied to) the right 
memory stick directories, or be put there by the supplied
Image Converter tool.  JPEG photos can be simply dropped
in /DCIM/101MSDCF; MPEG video files can be dropped in 
/DCIM/101MSDCF too, as long as they are given filenames 
of the form "MOVnnnnn.MPG", where "nnnnn" is a unique 
string of digits (as if generated by a camcorder).
Be sure to first create this directory on the memory 
stick if it is not already there.

- The supplied Image Converter tool stores videos 
under /MQ_ROOT, as ".mqv" (MPEG-4) files.  You may need
to use it to convert non-MPEG video files (e.g., avi),
unless you use a third-party viewer that supports them
directly.  As far as I know, the software supplied with 
the CLIE supports MPEG-1 movies without conversion (and 
MPEG-4, of course, because that's what its camera records).  

Cheers,
--Mark Lutz  (http://www.rmi.net/~lutz)

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