Your BlackBerry possesses great multimedia capabilities, but where can you get the media to play on it? With music it’s easy enough. Just load up your favorite .mp3 or .aac files and, as long as they’re not DRM-protected, you’ll have instant playback. But what about video? Sure, you can just convert normal video files for BlackBerry compatibility, but some people understandably don’t want to go through that process. Isn’t there some place you can go to find ready-made videos for your BlackBerry? We’ve gotten this question frequently, and I recently scoured the web to find a few quality sites. If you have any better ones, please, add them in the comments. It seems that the available sites are few and far between.
User-created content
Chances are, if you’re looking for BlackBerry-ready videos, you want the real thing. That means popular TV shows and movies. Unfortunately, sites that contain these files aren’t so common, and the ones that are come with certain caveats. Even so, there are user-created video sites which you might find just as amusing. None have quite the library depth of YouTube, but they’re BlackBerry-ready nonetheless.
Qik
I wrote about Qik back in the day, but that was well over a year ago. The service has since improved, and we’re seeing more and more videos added every day. Every minute, even. Many of them — most of them, really — won’t be of interest to you, but if you’re looking to pass the time you can do a lot worse.
To watch all sorts of user-generated content, head to Qik.com and sign up. From there you can search out what you’re looking for. And, if you’re so inclined, add your own brand of content.
Vuclip
I found Vuclip early in my searches, but further along it seemed that many other sites simply redirect to this one. I guess that’s with good reason. They search popular video sites like YouTube and Break.com for videos related to your search. Then it can play back that video in proper BlackBerry format.
I had trouble playing the videos in the BlackBerry web browser. When I a dialog box appeared telling me that I needed to enable JavaScript for this to work, I did. Still nothing. The only way I got the videos to work was to use the send to phone feature, which sits right under where the video is supposed to play. You can also use the send to phone feature from the standard website, vuclip.com.
Free, but with many limitations
You can find some more mainstream content on the web for free as well. Unfortunately, the best outlet for this type of content, Videos4BlackBerry, shut down a while ago. It’s not quite dead, but I wouldn’t expect to see it coming back any time soon.
Seabyrd
We discussed Seabyrd in our video conversions post, as they created the BlackBerry video converter. They’ve taken it a step further, too, offering a number of pre-converted videos for download. These are all licensed through Creative Commons, so you can expect a lot of public domain stuff and not much more. Still, it has the timelessly classic Reefer Madness, the terrifying Nosferatu, and some films from uber-American John Wayne. Add that to some Popeye and some Superman, and it’s a lineup that you might not love, but which will keep you entertained.
Check out their selection at http://www.seabyrdtech.com/bbsamples.
eVeek forums
Every one in a while, you’ll see a TV episode or even movie posted in the eVeek video forums. It’s not dedicated to BlackBerry video files, but rather a discussion of BlackBerry videos that happens to include some files. Two years ago eVeek announced a streaming video service, but that appears no longer operational. But check out the forums. Maybe you’ll find something worth watching there.
Premium videos
Oi. Yes, the best way to get real videos on your BlackBerry is to ante up some cash. Here are a couple of options.
PrimeTime2Go
This service, released last year, only runs on AT&T and T-Mobile, and from there further restricts device usage. As it says on the requirements page, you need a Bold 9700 on T-Mobile, or a Bold 9000 or a Curve 8900 on AT&T. It doesn’t say anything about AT&T Bold 9700 customers nor T-Mobile 8900 users. I’d probably contact them to see if it’s possible. You’ll also need a Wi-Fi connection, as these shows download to your BlackBerry and not the desktop.
Once you’re set up and paying $9.99 per month for service, ti seems wonderful. They have a good selection of shows which you can download and then watch any time. The price might seem steep, but it’s far less than a cable bill, so this might work well for those who eschew at-home TV.
T-Mobile and AT&T subscribers can subscribe here. I’d definitely shoot them a line to make sure you can run the application.
PDAFlix
I debated whether to include this, because I couldn’t find much information on it. I even searched for PDAFlix scam, and nothing really came up other than one endorsement. That could be from anyone, however, so I suggest you proceed with caution if you want to try this service. In fact, the main reason I put it up here was to see if any of you have used or heard of anyone using the service. If legitimate, I’d expand on this.
You can check it out for yourself at http://pdaflix.com/. It runs the same cost, $9.99 per month, as PrimeTime2Go.
This post originated at BBGeeks.com – home to all things Blackberry! Also a great source of info about AT&T BlackBerry.
Finding videos to play on your BlackBerry
This post originated at BBGeeks.com – home to all things Blackberry! Also a great source of info about AT&T BlackBerry.
Finding videos to play on your BlackBerry