Adding to our series of mobile development tutorials are the two new "Formatting audio for local playback" and "Formatting video for local playback" tutorials, both authored by Ian Simpson, a magazine journalist and freelance technology writer based in the UK.

Both tutorials introduce the broader concepts of digital audio and video, outline how this applies to Sony Ericsson mobile phones with recommended parameters and then guides developers through a formatting example. Here's an overview of both tutorials:

Formatting audio for local playback tutorial

Download audio tutorial here>> Digital audio is audio information stored in digital format and the tutorial begins by outlining digital audio resolution, compression and bit rates.

Making things more relevant to Sony Ericsson mobile phones, the next section presents specific details and recommendations for creating audio content that can be played and stored on Sony Ericsson mobile phones. The list of phones supported include Java Platform 5 (JP-5) phones such as the K750 and W800, JP-6 phones including the W550 and W810 and the K800, W850, K610 and Z610 JP-7 phones. Here Ian Simpson outlines the detailed specifications of the supported audio codecs, recommends bitrates and parameters and reminds you of other considerations such as amplification power and the inclusion of text metadata.

Next is an example of formatting an uncompressed WAV audio file using the audio files included in the downloadable tutorial zip-file. You are guided through which software is required and then how to:

• Normalize audio volume
• Encode for MP3
• Encode for LC-AAC/HE-AAC/HE-AACv2 and speech audio

Formatting video for local playback tutorial

Download video tutorial here>>

As with digital audio, digital video refers to video stored in a digital format with examples including DVD movies and desktop computer formats such as WMV, AVI, MP4, MOV and MPG. This tutorial also includes a useful glossary of terminology and abbreviation definitions. Digital multimedia video generally consists of two major elements: a video track with accompanying audio track. In addition to explaining this, the tutorial also presents information on resolution, compression and containers.

Following the same pattern as the audio tutorial, the next section of the tutorial outlines specific details of formatting video files for Sony Ericsson mobile phones. Including supporting JP-5, JP-6 and JP-7 phones, here you'll find information on the containers, audio codecs and video codecs supported by Sony Ericsson phones and the recommended codecs and bitrate parameters for streaming video for local playback. Then Ian Simpson guides you through the four stages for formatting existing multimedia video files as well as sharing some useful tips to achieve better results.

To put all this into practice, the tutorial zip-file includes an example to try: how to format a multimedia video to the optimal quality for mobile phones supporting the QCIF (176x144) visual resolution. You are guided through which software is required, and once you have everything installed, the tutorial then explains how to:

• Create a video project
• Import source video and format track properties
• Export formatted video project
• Transcode streams to MPEG-4/AAC within an MP4 file

Other tutorials currently available include:

• Getting Started with Web Services, JSR 172>>
• Getting Started with Macromedia Flash Lite 1.1 for mobile applications in Sony Ericsson phones>>

If you have a suggestion for another tutorial subject area, please login and add your idea to the "Add comment" option at the end of this article.

More information:

• Download formatting audio for local playback tutorial>>
• Download formatting video for local playback tutorial>>
• Mobile music application development resources>>