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Mobile Launches

The mobile version of Video Copilot is now online! It’s not going to change the world but it may give you something to do while you’re waiting around town.

One day I was sitting in my doctors office and realized the blog and forum were a bit slow to load over a phone network.  I talked to my developer Patrick and said “Let’s make a mobile version of the website!”, he promptly asked “What’s a website?” After sorting that out we moved forward.

The challenge was to make the blog and forum easy to read and load quickly from mobile devices. Our forum is currently set up with PHPbb and there isn’t a mobile template available so we had to “recreate” the layout and port the information. We brought over essential buttons and function but left out some of the clutter. Same goes for the blog.

The tutorials are really secondary because of the practicality of following along on such a small screen and load times are inevitably long.  I decided to select 10 of the shorter tutorials plus the entire Basic Training Series.  We may add additional tutorials in the future if things pan out.

Just type http://m.videocopilot.net from a mobile device and your in!

93 RESPONSES TO “Mobile Launches”

Looks great on my phone!

sweet

I am sooo cheking this site during lectures on my m8s iphone lol!

Viva la Copilot!

I’m guessing we need internet on our phone?

Hi Andrew,

looks great. My Nokia E71 won’t play the tutorials as you know. But the Blog and the Forum are great.

Awesome!

Bye from the Netherlands.

Sebastian

yep.

If you tried the tutorials on your mobile device, try again, I made the videos more widely available. If your device supports .h264 you should be able to view the tutorials.

Nice… I am about to purchase the new blackberry Curve 8900, I now have something great to look forward to…

Thx Patrick. I’ll try.
Btw: are you dutch?

Meetings, Sebastian

I’m 3/4 German, that is where my last name comes from. I was born and raised in America though.

Be sure to let us know if it works on your phone ;-)

That explains it. It sounds Dutch. It’s a common name here.

I of course meant Greetings but my Nokia wants to be smarter than me. Which by the way is probably true.

Greetings,

Sebastian

by Andrew Hawryluk

It doesn’t seem to work for me.
I go to m.videocopilot.net and it just loads the regular site (which still works, but I want to test out the mobile version)
Also tried it with www. at the start as well as http:// because I know sometimes those don’t work with mobile sites.

I’m using a BlackBerry Storm.

I tried. I’m receiving the message: PAGE IS TOO LARGE TO SEND BACK. I’ll try to sort it out. If I succeed I’ll let you know. Bye, Sebastian.

@Andrew Hawryluk

try it again and let me know if it works or not.

Hi,

Site works great! But tutorials only play with sound on my N95 :(

Everything, including the tutorials work properly on my iPhone 3G!

Great work VC team, as always :)

Good reason to go to bed and grab my iphone and check it out ;)

@Andrew Hawryluk

Maybe a blackberry uses a normal browser instead of a mobile browser. e.g. for the pc you have the Oprah browser, and the iphone uses Oprah mobile.

If that’s the case I don’t think you’ll be able to watch it as normal browsers (like the one on your pc) redirects to http://www.videocopilot.net instead of the mobile version.

You can try to search in the manual if you can change it to a mobile browser, or call a service point.

Ment safari and safari mobile at the browser part. Getting late so I don’t think clear anymore :#

Wow! This is the first time I visit your website from a mobile device. It’s looking great on my smartphone with Windows Mobile 6 Pro and the tutorials are playing without any problems.

PS: “What’s a website?” LOL You are funny.

The Storm uses a mobile browser. I’ve updated the user agent check script to allow for a wider range of mobile browsers so the Storm should work now.

Please let us know if your mobile browser doesn’t work and we’ll get you up and running quickly.

Thank you very very much Andrew and Patrick!

Keep up your excellent work for the world! The world loves it! (At least my part of the world…)

Well it was definatly based on iPhone use. Looks pr0 guys. Dan

Looks great! Now I can check your blog posts on the go.

by electrikFrenzy

Works great on the Google G1 phone with one exception that the Tutorials button at the top gets shifted under Blog and Forum.

hey, what kind of phone do u have andrew?

Looks amazing on my phone!

lol…
“what´s a website?”

@electrikFrenzy

Check to see if the button is carrying over now, it should at least not do that :-o

I have a Storm as well. It loads up the site just fine, but the message comes back about the videos not loading and my device may not be supported. Will there be anything that will change that, from your end or Verizon/Blackberry support? Should I contact them about future OS upgrades. Looks great otherwise. I can read the blog and forum.

I have a Ericsson T68i. So I wont even try this.

Looks great on the iPod Touch. Very nice job. Everything loads very quickly, and the videos start playing after just a few seconds. One thing I did with my website was automatically redirect the mobile browser to my mobile site, even thought it has a different web address. That way, people won’t have to remember a different address when they’re on the go.

Tanks Andrew!!!
Looks grate on my iPhone3G.

Looks good on my iPhone 3G as well, but um… if it looked good on dai’s and not on mine, I suppose the problem would’ve been on my end.

Nice stuff, guys!

@bm
I don’t think that’s a good idea for Videocopilot.
The regular page has additional features, so if I only want to check
the forum I can use the mobile version, but if I want to use a feature on the regular site I can still choose to use it with my iPhone.

YES! This makes having the iPhone so much more worth it! Thanks Andrew!

@bm we chose not to do that so people could still access the main site. You could always bookmark the mobile site on your device or in the case of the iPhone/iPod Touch you can hit the plus sign at the bottom of mobile safari and choose “Add To Home Screen” and it will put a fancy custom designed icon on your home screen

thanks man, this will definitely rock!

I am having a little trouble on my Treo700p. I have to load the page in ‘wide’ format because on ‘optimized’ format everything is crammed together and nothing makes sense. In optimized I typicaly have greater functionality with websites, and since I have to switch to wide format I lose a lot of how my phone navigates a website. Not a big thing, it’s just I can’t enjoy all your hard work easily. Thanks for all the hours and hard work you all put into your site. If only everyone could be as forward thinking as you all. Take care.

@speedbreaker & patrick otten. I will still check the regular site also on my iPod, but for smaller and simpler sites (like mine), the redirecting method is a nice feature. I bookmarked BOTH versions of the site.

Looks beautiful on my iphone. + the app symbol on the home screen looks awesome as well.

awesome! loads really really fast! this is posted from my htc apache pda :)

It’s a good way to make the branding of the Videocopilot,cheers!

@Patrick Otten in response to BM..

I think it would be better if the mobile site was set to default on any mobile device, but have a link to switch between a mobile version and the full blown version.

Google does this as does other well known sites.

Understandable that you would rather not..

And by the way, The mobile site looks amazing! Truely!

Thanks Andrew
I tryed on my Nokia N80, and it works perfectly.

Sam Loya to President!

Thanks guys!

Lovin’ it man…

everything except videos work on my dare

by Andrew Hawryluk

Sorry I didn’t test it out again earlier, Patrick.
Just saw your request to retry it, did it, and it works perfectly.

One design change I’d make is to make the Video Copilot logo at the top fit the entire screen. That’s just a nitpick though (and might only apply to my phone), everything else is great!
Good work and thanks for the awesome addition to the site.

The site loads fine on my Motorola Q, but nothing is clickable. I’m running IE in Windows Mobile 6.

I love it andrew. It looks great and loads fast on my 3G iPhone

congs :)

Wonderful Andrew
Good Job

Hey Andrew,

Isn’t it a good idea to create an “iPhone application” for the video tutorials? Would make life more easier :P

Although nice to know I can see all the tutorials where I want. Looking forward to your reply

Grtz

A great job done!..works wondeful on my iphone, so a big big thanks for the mp4 conversion. Speed is pretty good even on my slow edge connection i got.

Mannu

Sweeeeeeet bro. Thanks =)

Works great on my ipod touch 2nd gen. I saved the link to my screen, the link opened the site in about 2 seconds. The navigation was the same, and it took about 15 seconds to start one of the basic training tutorials then it started playing smoothly as it loaded quickly. Good job guys this is awesome.

looks nice, even on a non-iPhone!
(HTC Trinity)

hi andrew,
what a great idea !
working perfectly on my iphone, even at work !!!

Erm, “your in!” or “you’re in!”?
I wish my AE was as good as my English. Keep up the good work.

Your compression is very good…Is ti QT H264, can give a little more detail on this.

Thanks

Congratulation ^^

gr8 promotion for VCP…………superb

Hi! Love the mobile copilot! But, there is something wrong with the forum: I can’t view any of the posts. It might be my phone(iphone 3g) or is everybody else getting the error?

by electrikFrenzy

@Patrick Otten

It is still dropping down under Blog. It is also under “Fancy Ring Design” in Z-space (same as before). Perhaps shorten the length of the button?

try it again, I was doing some tests.

Format not support when I try to play the sample video for the ring blog post.

Should this play? its QT. I would think the iPhone would play it. Your Tuts play just fine.

@Dustin James & BM
We setup a simple redirect from just the home page of the main site and now there is a link at the bottom of the mobile site to goto the full site.

@visitor
We have redone all of the links on the mobile site, try and see if they work for you now and let us know.

@Marty Lavender
It doesn’t play correctly because the iPhone/iPod touch and other certain devices only support a specific type of video encoding and dimensions. This video wasn’t encoded with these specifications in mind.

Blog videos aren’t meant for mobile devices. Sorry.

Amazing job! I love it, and it looks perfect on my iPhone. The tutorials work great over 3G and Wi-Fi, and I hope that eventually all the tutorials come out on this format, especially new ones that come out in the future. It would make my long bus rides out to college much better ^_^

by electrikFrenzy

Perfect!

Amazing development…

I’ve been following VC for more than a year. Now I don’t have go on the computer. I can read the blog/forum and watch the tutorials on my G1.

Btw, tutorials work well on G1, but why we don’t see every single one of them.

Thanks Andrew and VC team…

well done guys :-)

a lifesaver :D

…and unfortunately, tutorials aren’t working on the psp. I tried downloading the spin orbs tutorial

by Eduardo Torres

pages loaded very fast but unfortunately my Blackberry Bold was not able to play videos. At least the forum and the blog will make my day. Thanks.

Eduardo

K i’m leaving this comment FROM my ipod touch just because i can lol.

I opened it on my psp, and it looks great, but the tutorial video when I tried to open it even load it, it wont work.

Does anyone know what i can do to have it play the video tutorials.

mind you I’m talking about the videos on basic training

that’s strange. psp should be able to take mpeg4 avc encoded video stuff…

Is there any one video that Definitely works that I can test on?

@BODYTEMPLE: yeah, psp not working for me either. it says “format not supported” or something along those lines.

could it be the audio, or the bitrate?

There has to be some way that it works on the psp, I’m on this site every single day reading the blogs and trying to study this art form, its damn there my sunday school, i’m going away soon with no laptop and i have a boost mobile phone so videocopilot wont work on my type of cell phone the only hope i have is my psp…

SOME ONE PLEASE HELP WITH THE PSP

The videos are formatted for iPods/iPhones, I’m not really sure of the PSP standard but trying to make them work on every device isn’t really practical. Besides, watching them from a computer is the way to go!

lol well since i heard it from you lol Andrew sir
i’ll stay in my place and wont question it.

lol thanks for making it mobile at least i can read the blogs

Looks amazing on the iPhone. Good work!! Thank you!

lol :)

Nice. I have finally found something useful to use my e71 on. Unfortunately I travel to and from work in my car. Are you considering “blind” versions of the tutorials? :) Then I would be able to drive AND listen …
On the other hand, I need to get out of my addiction to VCP, so I only check it a few times a day – on my PC instead.

Love it! Love it! Love it!. Been waiting for this ever since I got my iphone. Like many others i check 3 websites 1st thing in the morning right after i fix my coffee, and videocopilot.net is one of them. A big thanx to you for all you have done to grow this kick awsome community. Keep it up.

works great at my iphone, always nice to be up to date with video copilot!!

thanks guys!

Love the mobile site using it rite now will the header change when the main site does??

I remember a while ago having a few “ipod” videos that played on my psp fine, so there should be at least one method of getting it working. I’ll take a look at the specs.

Here were the specs:

Video
Codec:avcl
Resolution:320×240
Framerate:11.9

Audio
Codec:mp4a
Channels:2
Sample rate: 48000Hz
Bits per sample: 16
Bitrate: 1536 kb/s

So videos that run on both ipod and psp are at least possible.

And yeah, I do watch all your tutorials on the computer :P That way, you can see everything.

And I don’t know if you do it on purpose, but most of your videos are really easy to follow even if you’re not looking at the screen!

by paul from germany

looks and works great on my iPhone.
andrew, if you have 19 seconds check out my first title animation… took me like 10 hours (probably doesn’t look like it) to figure it out. I’m pretty happy with it.

http://www.youtube.com/lnrdshelby

keep up the awesome work.

OMG!

I love it. It is now one my Iphone home screen. Even the tutes work.. FANTASTIC MR K and Co.

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