On my trip back home on the train [SEPTA to NJT], I passed some time watching some video on my Samsung A920 on Sprint's Power Vision network that I have free access to for the next few months. Accessing the video feeds is a several step process. You access the Media Player via the menu and then you have to wait for the phone to make a solid connection to the network which usually takes upwards of a minute and is very annoying. Then there are nine sections to choose from: Sprint TV, Radio, Music Video, Sports, Cartoons, News & Weather, Stylez, Movies & Shorts and Entertainment.
Once a section is picked, there are several available channels. You have to buy a monthly subscription to watch the videos, it is not a pay-per-view thing as far as I've seen so far, maybe there is such an option for certain channels. Once you pick a channel to subscribe to, you buy it and are promted that the fees will appear on subsequent bills. The prices range from $4.95 to $9.95 from the ones I've subscribed to so far. Then, instead of being taken directly to the shows within that channel, you're taken back to the main listing with all fo the sections. Stupid.
After getting back into the channel you just subscribed to and most likely wanted to watch immediately, you select a show. Within that show, there are usually a few episodes to choose from. Once selected, the video buffers for a few seconds and then starts to play. You cannot pause, rewind nor fast forward. You can only stop and play. Not too much of a hassle since most episodes are only one to two minutes, but I did watch one segment of The Colbert Report that was over four minutes.
The phone/battery does get quite hot while watching a few videos in a row. I think i watched about eight minutes of video while continuously connected to the Power Vision network and the battery was pretty hot to the touch. It takes awhile to cool down afterwards. It eats up batterylife as well. It went down one bar [to two bars] after playing the video. I had fully charged the battery overnight.
The video quality is decent. About as good as you're gonna get on a tiny screen. The sound is good. It would be cool if one could save the video to the phone/memory card and be able to pause and such after downloaded to the phone/memory card. I did lose the signal a couple times and the video stopped a couple times. One time it stopped and restarted at the same point. Another time, it stopped altogether and I had to fully reconnect to the network and go through the whole process again.
I've had the same annoyance with the selection processes, but I don't get any dramatic battery loss (that I've noticed) from watching for just ten minutes or so -- but then, that sounds like it would be a function of the phone itself. I just wish I could get some of this stuff for free -- the best I could get was a corporate discount of 25% off...
Posted by: howard | April 09, 2006 at 03:36 AM