Video: Media Centre for Symbian^3 with Nokia Big Screen from Beta Labs! Totally Awesome!
Here’s an awesome app from BetaLabs – Nokia Big Screen! Basically, when you hook your N8 or other Smybian^3 device up to a TV via HDMI, the app automatically starts up to show a Media Centre like interface.
I loove these types of interfaces. Sure it’s great that Symbian replicates the whole phone screen, but this makes it much easier for the general public to make use of this picture as they can navigate the big screen better. No need to go press menu and navigate around shortcut buttons/apps. It’s all there in a very friendly Media Centre UI.
The screen becomes a navipad. Odd you might think that it doesn’t replicate what’s on the screen, but this is good since the big screen is so big, you wouldn’t want something squashed on your device screen. You can even hook up a BT remote, like a wiimote to control it.
I hope this gets more attention and development from Nokia. Perhaps for videos, pull IMDB titles for films? Perhaps give the option to similarly turn the phone into a big track pad? What about giving us a bluetooth remote accessory?
With Nokia Big Screen, you can:
- Show your photos and videos in high definition on your TV screen
- Listen to music from your phone on your home audio system
- View song lyrics in karaoke style and watch videos with subtitles
- Play music on the background while you browse your photos
- Enjoy a photo slideshow with music of your choice (change the direction with left/right arrow keys)
- Screen saver activates after a minute’s idle time to protect your TV
Note! This application is provided for personal use of legally obtained content only.
Once you’ve installed Nokia Big Screen on your phone, just connect the phone to your TV with an HDMI cable and the application opens automatically. Use the application from the phone touch display or by wirelessly connecting a Bluetooth keyboard or Wii Remote to your phone. (See More Info for how to do this.)
via @cambo78
Use your phone as an entertainment hub you can take everywhere with you
Category: Applications, Nokia, Nseries, Symbian, Video
About the Author (Author Profile)
Hey, thanks for reading my post. My name is Jay and I'm a medical student at the University of Manchester. When I can, I blog here at mynokiablog.com and tweet now and again @jaymontano. We also have a twitter and facebook accounts @mynokiablog and Facebook.com/mynokiablog. Check out the tips, guides and rules for commenting >>click<< Contact us at tips(@)mynokiablog.com or email me directly on jay[at]mynokiablog.comSubscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
A must have…. Video subtitle and posters support, this sounds amazing, doesn’t it? Also lyrics in musics.
When I get home, let’s test video playback with str files. One thing that was missing and show up =D
Subtitle support is definitely needed. You’d think a company whose product is so popular outside of the English speaking world would get the importance of that. I also wasn’t able to put a 4.4GB file on my phone in mass storage mode, despite people here saying that the file system on the N8 supports >4GB files, and that makes 720p playback rather useless without re-encoding or splitting the files. Unless you have to use Ovi Suite to load those files, which is worthless because I’m not a Windows user.
N8 uses FAT32 file system.
The maximum possible size for a file on a FAT32 volume is 4 GiB minus 1 byte (232−1=4,294,967,295 bytes).
So 4,4 GB file is too big for FAT32. You would need a different file system (NTFS or Ext 2/3/4) to get around that size limit.
Incorrect, Symbian supports much bigger file sizes than 4 GB. I think it requires apps to specifically support it tho.
Not sure what file system Symbian 3 has, but Symbian has traditionally used VFAT. File size limit is the same 4 GB as FAT32 has though.
Nice, this looks like a really good idea! Let’s hope they make a polished release version of it for Ovi Store.
!!!! Thanks for informing us!!! this is excellent!
That looks absolutely stunning. With the N8 connected up to an external drive, it could replace my netbook as a media center.
Installed it, just got to wait until I get home before I can try.
Nice, looks good in terms of UI and general performance.
When future devices get some more processing power your phone is a decent replacement for a media centre. Just take a HDMI cable with you and you have a portable Home Cinema set.
The N8 already handles 720p far better than the uber processor based HTC Desire HD, I’ll definitely hook it up tonight and give it a run through.
No, I don’t mean that the N8′s CPU is bad. It’s just that a Cortex A8 @ the same clock speed as the ARM11 would open up a little more possibilities and give a phone just a little more breathing space.
What does that mean? Fluid 720p and Dolby 5.1 surround without any glitches is a go on the N8. Its the GPU doing all the work anyway.
Indeed it is. My arguments are invalid.
I didn’t use my own processor in my thinking processor. With seeing all that CES stuff coming out the ARM11 seems so wonky.
But when I thought about it, phones woth the big proc’s all run Android. And it is a fact that Android lacks hardware acceleration, or at least in most parts of the OS, opposed to S3 that now features full HW acceleration.
What I am amazed about however is the UI of Big Screen. If that is any indicator for upcoming Symbian Ui than it is a bright future ahead.
I hope this isn’t one of the beta labs app that gets no attention and is yanked like in 3 months time would be a real shame this, is an Amazing app.
Nokia only now needs movies and TV shows on Ovi for sale or to stream to make this even better.
There have recently been a flurry of great apps on beta labs I so its nice to see Nokia doing some really neat apps that are ignored .
This is most probably likely to be a released product. If you haven’t noticed Beta Labs now put a tage of “Beta” or “Experimental” in all the applications. Remember there was a fiasco with Nokia Messaging? or something similar app for S60v5, after which they started putting these labels for every app, so that users know what are company’s intentions.
Looks like some people at Nokia are finally starting to deliver software that you would expect from a company of this size. Thumbs up.
Too bad though that I haven’t owned a TV in the past 10 years :p
I’ve tried it and indeed, it’s awesome. If only N8 would play x264 .MKV files, it would even be more awesome!
It doesn’t?
It does play x264 mkv files. At least my N8 plays them just fine.
i actually havent been able to get mkv’s to work although i only tried 2 (one was over the size limit the other i have no idea why it wont load)
subtitles? many of the subbed anime mkv i tried, didnt work
, only audio
Looks fantastic! Too bad the N9 is rumored not to have HDMI..
The N9 that you saw in pictures has been scrapped. The REAL N9 will be super awesome with 1080 HDMI.
Wow, are you absolutely sure? Or just guessing/hoping?
Just tested it in my TV, and worked GREAT.
Subtitles are working, all of it is very good. Only working the subtitles in my movies I’m satisfied.
I always thought the HDMI on N8 was a bit useless, because everyone who would use it probably already owns a media player and who would want to use the Symbian UI on a big TV, but this looks really nice and shows that much more can be achieved if the paradigm of just showing the phone UI on tv is abandoned.
I wished it worked with the RCA cables too…I don’t have HDMI access at work so I have to wait until I get home…
I will submit the idea to Nokia Beta labs. The RCA quality is near HD (as even reporting on this site with the C7 I believe) and is worthy of using this software as well. On my travels, not every tv has HDMI but I still use my N8 to access content via RCA.
AWESOME !
downloading
tried pairing with wii remote
, didnt work
server down
, can anyone upload it here 
?
how did you connect?
just push 1 & 2 at the time the app prompts you to do so
otherwise a reboote sometimmes helps
i was trying to pair the remote using the bluetooth menu
before i even downloaded the app
, after having installed the app, it connects to the remote and works perfect
GREAT app, only complain so far is, the photo gallery, picture switching is ultra fast, BUT, it takes 2-3 seconds till the picture is viewed at “Full” details…
Still a very great way to view pictures with friends/family…
again, great app, been a while since nokia coded an app that had many(and only) positive responses
Pairing with Wii remote works fine. Have you checked the batteries in your Wii remote are ok? I first had bad batteries and the remote wouldn’t work. Once I changed new ones in, everything worked like a charm.
ya, worked after the reboot here too
anyone try pairing it with a PS3 remote? hmm… i should probably go try lol
After just seeing the much hyped Android Honeycomb demo videos and comparing it to this, Nokia has NOTHING to worry about.
They just need to release and hype up their products more.
the new website interface is good
how about making a mynokiablog logo?
too much stuff at the header, maki it simpler
the information at the bottom of this site is not that useful, need to be removed
back to the topic
awesome app from betalabs
my ranking for betalabs apps
1.ovi maps
2.nokia internet radio
3.sport tracker
4.big screen
5.soundtrckr
6.ovi emulator(if any)
the new website interface is good
how about making a mynokiablog logo?
—- Cool thanks. It’s on the to do list. One to work out how to do this on wordpress.org and two) to actually get a designed logo. The one used before was a 30 second ms paint job :p
too much stuff at the header, maki it simpler
the information at the bottom of this site is not that useful, need to be removed
—- sorry where by is that? Do you mean the navigation links? We’ll also be doing something to the bottom bit. Cheers.
I installed this one on my N8 awhile ago and after i finished using my N8 and slide the slider to turn the backlight off, it wouldnt turn off, the scree can still be seen and the small icon on the top screen shows that it is indeed lock, i waited for a minutes for the backlight to turn off, but to my dismay, it was still on, so i check the settings if my screen saver was on, but it was check to “none”. Since it was only Nokia Big Screen that I installed, i decided to uninstall it. After uninstalling it and turned off the device and re-started it, still the problem persisted so, i quickly googled similar problems regarding about backlighting problems in N8, found other users who installed this the same software and experience the same problems. Luckily one user found the solution by just pressing the power button for 8 secs. and left it off for 5 minutes then re-start,then everything went back to normal! whew! i must admit i panicked back there!
just tested the app, its great id like it if it was “jazzed” up a bit but its great
couldnt get my ps3 remote to work, i didnt think it would, the remote just kept turning on and connecting with my ps3
i kinda liked the older version more. It was much more easy to view pages on phone because it had mobile version. Cant you enable mobile version for this new version of mynokiablog? Would be nice
Hey Adnan,
Apologies for this, it’s due to supercache loading up a cached full version.
I’ve just installed wptouch and I hope wp supercache has been modified to reject certain browsers and display the mobile version.
What mobile browser are you using?
I’m not sure how to get it working, it still just displays the full version on both opera and N8 main browser.
Full version on Safari.
i love having full versions load mobile versions are lacking
well, i downloaded the app, went to my friends house, hooked up the n8 to a 50″ LCD, watched a movie in hd, two of my friends went on ebay, and booth ordered n8′s .
See nokia? Thats how u get ur reputation back!
Adding a nice UI makes all the difference (and an awesome HW like the n8 has)
Just tried this… It works brilliant.
Music, Videos, Pictures, Music while playing pictures. HD videos play, pause, stop, fast forward, and fast rewind.
On the other hand if you close the app manualy by hand… you can control most of the phone too. I managed to make a call via contacts, change between the 3 homescreens, edit the widgets using (-) scroll through many menus, use the multi-tasking.
If only the axis worked for Angry Birds … :-p
In essence it’s an implementation similar to the Motorola Webtop app.
Hoping to see more rapid iteration on this front now that other companies have done so.
CooooooooL !!!