Ripping movies to watch on Milestone

Here are the instructions to watch movies by converting them from DVD to a format so that they are optimized for Motorola Milestone. These would also work well for a Droid phone.

• Install Handbrake Software, make sure to install the CLI
• Install VLC software, Handbrake will not be able to decrypt DVDs without this software and will give error.
• I use both of these on a Linux machine but both these software are also available for windows and one can easily figure out how to work these from respective websites. 
  

Once this setup is done, just insert the DVD and run following command line.

HandBrakeCLI -e x264  -q 20.0 -a 1 -E faac -B 128 -6 dpl2 -R 48 -D 0.0 -f mp4 -X 854 -Y 480 -m -x cabac=0:ref=2:me=umh:bframes=0:subme=6:8x8dct=0:trellis=0 -i -o MovieName.m4v --longest

If the DVD has multiple titles then above command will pull out the longest title. Otherwise one can use --title option for getting specific title. This command scales the movie to correct format for Milestone/Droid.

Motorola Milestone, Review #1

Here are my initial thoughts on Motorola Milestone.

• I think it is a pretty good phone, I had been using ADP1 form last one and half year and the mechanical quality of the phone is pretty evident as soon as you touch it.
• The slider is pretty crisp
• GMail application now supports multiple GMail account which is a great feature addition to the phone since I (and many others whom I know) have a .gmail.com account and another account for their hosted domain. Earlier I had to access one of these accounts via IMAP which definitely is not as efficient as GMail since many of the gmail features like Label and Archiving are not available from IMAP.
• The new maps is also pretty good, addition of layers and landmarks is better over the earlier version. The one thing is missing is voice navigation which supposedly is available on US droid but it missing in this one.
• Keyboard take little time to getting used to but one gets used to it. The only problem is that for entering numbers one has to press Alt.
• Soft keyboard is much better, for me the success rate is much higher compared to ADP1.
• Browser has pinch and zoom but the maps does not. I am hoping that a future release of maps through the market may carry pinch and zoom.
• There are many posts on internet that this phone does not allow protected applications download but I could download Calorie Counter from fatsecret.com which I know for sure is a protected application because I could never download it on my ADP1.
• One of the downside of getting it shipped from UK was that the phone was missing the microSD card which should have been inside the phone and it did not have it. I am trying to follow up with vendor but I have very little hope that I will get it. Anyway I can pick one up here.
• Gallery is much improved, pinch and zoom works on photos, even the gallery display is much improved with a good way to browse photos.
• Facebook for Android application is still not available for Android 2.0, one can download Bloo which works ok and the web based facebook is also decent.
• Twidroid and Seesmic clients work great for twitter.
• Camera is not great but does decent job.
  

Overall a great device. Solved many of my problems, Facebook, Twitter, GMail and all other google services.

How to get Motorola Milestone in India

So, I waited and waited and waited some more and could not find anyway on how to get Motorola Milestone in India. There was no news from company so I decided to take matter in my own hands.

It was available on UK online retailer eXpansys on 10^th of December 2009, so I decided to order directly from them. In the end, it seems to have worked out very well. I ordered and my order reached in time before they ran out of stock.

Since they were shipping outside EU territory, I did not have to pay VAT which was 15%. That saved me £59.56. I had to pay £22.95 as shipping (in place of £5.95) so I ended up paying £17.00 extra.

The shipping was through DHL international and they cleared customs and charged me Rs. 2002/- as custom charges. In the end I got the phone for a price way less than what I would have paid if I got it shipped to somebody in UK and asked him to bring back.

Total cost to me for the phone was around Rs. 33,500/-. The only downside is that in place of $ symbol on keyboard, it has £ symbo.l. I think I can live with that.