The Nokia N8 has a HDMI output to put movies and pictures on the big screen in your living room. It’s the easiest way to show off your movies, whether shot yourself, copied from a PC or bought form the web, since it carries Full HD pictures, and even surround sound. Read on, and make the most of your Nokia N8’s HD abilities.
Pre-order the Nokia N8 at Vodafone
Successful hook-ups
The Nokia N8 has a mini HDMI socket on its top edge. Flip up the plastic flap and you’ll see it, just waiting to slap high definition pictures all over the nearest TV.
Look inside the Nokia N8 box and you’ll find an adapter cable to connect that mini HDMI socket to its full-size counterpart on your TV. If you have a surround sound set-up at home, try plugging the Nokia N8 into your surround sound receiver instead, since the Nokia N8 can output audio in Dolby Digital Plus surround sound.
All about the codecs
Video codecs are responsible for every aspect of a video file’s appearance, quality and ultimately dictate how well your Nokia N8 will perform when hooked up to a TV. For that reason, if you’re playing files from your PC or Mac you’ll need to make sure you encode them with the correct codec, so they display correctly.
The Nokia N8 supports playback of files encoded with the H.264 codec, which is best suited to high definition video. If you’re transferring a video from a computer to the N8, make sure it’s saved using this codec. Doing so is easy, thanks to free software such as Handbrake. Download it, open the file you want to transfer to the Nokia N8, and choose an MP4 file, with H.264 as the video codec.
The size (or resolution) of your clip can be anything you like, and will often depend on the source file, but generally speaking, the bigger the resolution the better it’ll look, and since the Nokia N8 will happily handle files up to Full HD, you needn’t worry about them not playing on the big screen. Likewise, you’ll want a minimum framerate of 24 fps to keep things looking smooth.
Treat your ears to surround sound
Load up the Nokia N8 with a video file packed with surround sound, and hook it up to a surround sound system at home, and your ears are in for an absolute treat. The Nokia N8 has Dolby Digital Plus surround sound technology inside, ready to funnel sound to five speakers, plus a subwoofer.
For files to get the surround sound treatment, they need to be encoded as MPEG4 Dolby Digital Plus Surround Sound files. They’re tricky to make at home, so you’ll most likely get them from video download stores, or as a file included on “Digital Copy” equipped DVDs or Blu-rays.
The first 10,000 Nokia N8 handsets sold will come with Terminator Salvation in HD on a USB stick, ready to be loaded onto the N8 and played back in top quality on your TV. There’s surround sound included too, and it’s the perfect demonstration that your new N8 is as much a media centre as a phone!
Shoot for HD, not for TV
If you’re creating your own movies with the N8, ready for playback on a HD TV there are a few things to bear in mind, above and beyond our shooting and editing tips. The first relates to clip quality.
If you’ve had a rummage through the N8 video recorder settings, you’ll see there’s the option to choose what quality it records in. Lower qualities will save a bit of storage space, but Nokia’s names for the different settings could be a little confusing.
Dive into the N8 camera, switch to video mode and tap “Options” in the lower left corner of the screen. Tap “Settings” and you’ll see all the aspects of the N8 video camera that can be tweaked. Top of the list is “Video Quality”.
Dive into it, and you’ll see there’s a vertical scroll bar to choose how high the N8 video quality for your own clips is. Nokia calls the middle-ground of this list “TV High Quality” but don’t be mislead, if you film at that quality and hook up to a HD TV, your footage won’t look its best.
Instead, make sure you choose High Definition, to make sure you’re recording in the very best quality for playback on a TV. When set to this mode, the Nokia N8 shoots video in 720p HD, which is slightly below the quality you’ll get from a Blu-ray, but still guaranteed to look eye-popping on the big screen.
Read more N8 HD Entertainment Guides
Nokia N8: Ultimate guide to hardcore mobile gaming
Nokia N8: Price your ears above all others with Dolby Digital Plus
