.KEYWORD tealmovie
.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE Watch Star Wars fan films and other fun shorts with TealMovie
.FEATURE
.SUMMARY To see Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, you’ve got to go to your local theater. To see some amusing trailers for fan films inspired by the franchise, all you need is a Palm OS device. Jen Edwards reviews TealMovie, a cool piece of software that lets you view all kinds of short video subjects.
.AUTHOR Jen Edwards
Movies are definitely one of my favorite sources of entertainment. If it’s a big one, I’ll go and see it the day it comes out, and if I really like it, I’ll buy the DVD when that hits the streets. Up until now, my only use of a Palm OS device in relation to the movies was to categorize my personal collection of tapes and DVDs, and to use Showtimes to download theater schedules and plot summaries. But now there’s TealMovie (at http://www.tealpoint.com/softmovi.htm).
TealMovie is a Palm OS application that actually lets you watch movie clips on your handheld, with sound, as shown in Figure A.
.FIG A TealMovie lets you play short movies on your Palm handheld.
While you certainly couldn’t watch anything full-length on a Palm handheld, it does provide an extra diversion and extends the digital photo album concept even further. After all, quite a few people keep pictures of their husbands, kids, pets, etc. on their handhelds, so why not convert a few of your own movie clips if you have a digital camcorder and the right software on your computer?
As you can see, the possibilities are really limitless, since TealMovie also comes with a conversion program that allows you to create your own movies. But if you aren’t quite that adventurous, you can still start out with an excellent selection on the TealPoint Software Web site. Simply download the TealMovie application, along with the movie clips that you’d like to put on your device.
TealMovie installs like most other Palm OS applications; simply use the Palm Install Tool to install TealMovie.prc to your device, along with whatever movie files you desire. My personal favorite and highest recommendation is Stick, a laugh-out-loud parody of the whole martial arts movie genre, complete with sound effects.
TealMovies are available in a wide range of genres, including drama, education/children, home movies, humor, science fiction, science and technology, sports and entertainment, and travel. Under science fiction, there are three Star Wars fan film trailers you can download: Running Rebel, a trailer for a Star Wars fan movie made in Germany, Run N Hide, about a man running and hiding because an imperial soldier (in full Speederbike uniform) is looking for him, and JediFight, a silly piece in which two Jedi meet in a suburban shopping mall.
If you happen to have one of the latest Palm OS devices with an expansion slot, you’ll be glad to know that TealMovie is VFS compatible. That means that you can load up a big Memory Stick or SD (Secure Digital) card will all sorts of large movie files. And as you can see from Figure B, you can play, beam, delete, rename, or get detailed information on each file from the main screen of the TealMovie application.
.FIG B Play, beam, delete, rename, or get detailed information on each movie file.
For example, Stick is 1286K in size and runs for one minute and fifteen seconds. If you’ve used some other TealPoint applications, this main screen will look very familiar. The buttons and icons are very intuitive, and there’s no need at all to read the manual–something I always appreciate.
TealMovie doesn’t get five stars (or an Oscar) for technical excellence, but it definitely earns my highest rating for showing that the Palm OS platform can do some pretty amazing things. I never dreamed that I would ever be watching movie clips on a Palm OS device, and the ability to create my own from compatible video files is a huge plus. And once the new devices come out with OS 5 and speedy ARM processors, TealMovie will become a must-have application for anyone who wants to get the most out of his or her device.
Just as SplashPhoto (at http://www.splashdata.com/splashphoto/) and other picture viewing applications are becoming increasingly popular, so will TealMovie when the hardware catches up to the software. For now, TealMovie is a grand experiment that succeeds amazingly well, not to mention that it’s a lot of fun.
A trial version is available, and the full license costs $19.95.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on TealMovie, visit http://www.tealpoint.com/softmovi.htm.
For more information on SplashPhoto, visit http://www.splashdata.com/splashphoto/.
For more information on Palm handhelds, visit http://www.palm.com.
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.BIO
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