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Cellular Video on WM5

Cellular Video on WM5
How to get Cingular Video on the Treo 750 on WM5

These instructions are only for use on Windows Mobile 5.
The User Agent files will not work on Windows Mobile 6 because they've moved to a different location in the regsistry.
The WM6 for the AT&T Treo 750 includes Real Video for use with AT&T Cellular video.
See the WM6 User Agents page for WM6 user agent files.

3/8/07 Update:
Cingular changed something and the former method from this page no longer worked.  Instead you would get a message that "Only supported 3G devices" were allowed.  Step 3 has been update with new .cab and .reg files that fixes the problem.  The new method changes the User Agent identity to appear as a Blackjack (a supported 3G WM device.)  Use these new files in Step 3 and you'll get access to Cingular Video again.

Cingular Video is a feature included on many Cingular mobile phone.  It is a collection of short (usually under 3 min each) videos and it's a free feature with Cingular data plans.  All you need is a phone that is Cingular Video compatible.

The Treo 750, as well as most other PDAs and smartphones do not include a Cingular Video player by default.   These easy instructions will show you  how to get Cingular Video on your Treo 750.

These instructions are specific to the Treo 750, but they should work for any Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC phone using the alternate instructions.

Cingular Video clips are in the Real Video .ram format (the format of Real Player)

Step 1, Install Real Video
Download Real Player "RealPlayer for Pocket PC 1.1 Preview Release"
However, Real Player is a windows installer (.exe) that installs the .CAB file on your WM5 Treo.  The installer will refuse to install on your device because it is not recognized.  Therefore the .CAB file must be extracted from the installer by running the installer and extracting the .CAB file out of the temp install directory.
I have extracted the .CAB file and you can download it directly here:

Download: realplayer.cab

Step 2, Enable the Media Net proxy

For Treo 750:
Simply do nothing.
The Media Net proxy is enabled by default.  If you can access the Cingular Media Net web site at http://device.home/ or http://home/ then you already have the Media Net proxy enabled.  It is a setting in the Windows Mobile registry unless you disabled it.  If you used my registry hack to disable it, use the "EnableCingularProxy.cab" to restore the default setting.  Visit this page for those .CAB files.

For other WM5 PDAs (or Treo 750 with proxy disabled in IE):
Go to Start > Settings > Connctions > Connections > Advanced > Select Networks
Change the "My ISP" network setting to "MEdia Net"
Now all of your internet traffic will go through the cingular proxy: wireless.cingular.com
Test it by opening http://device.home/ in Pocket Internet Explorer

Step 3, Modify the Pocket Internet Explorer description in the registry:

Chnage the Internet Explorer User Agent description from Treo 750 to the Cingular (Samsung) Blackjack.  With this change IE will identify your handheld as a Blackjack and allow you access to the Cingular Video site

The registry setting:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent]
(Default) = "Palm750/v0000 Mozilla/4.0"
Change it to:
(Default) = "SAMSUNG-SGH-I607/I607FG1 Mozilla/4.0"

In order to edit the system registry, you must use a registry editor such as Resco Explorer with Editor or others.
Or the easier way is to install the following .CAB file.  The first (User Agent Blackjac) allows access to http://cingularvideo.cingular.com/.  The second (User Agent Treo750) restores IE's registry back to the default setting which will disable access to the Cingular Video web page.  Returning the User Agent back to the default (Treo 750) will allow your IE browser to identify your device as a Treo 750 again.
The .CAB files merely make the registry change.  They do not actually install anything.  You can just install the two .cab files back and forth to toggle the settings at will.

Download (to enable access to CV): UserAgent_BlackJack.cab
Download (to restore setting back to Treo750): UserAgent_Treo750.cab
Download (to restore a Cingular 8525):
UserAgent_Cingular8525.cab

If you have a registry editor and prefer to import a .reg file instead of using the .cab, you can use the following:
UserAgent_BlackJack.reg
UserAgent_Treo750.reg
UserAgent_Cingular8525.reg

Step 4, Change the network setting on RealOne Player

  1. Run RealOne Player

  2. Select Option

  3. Select "Network"

  4. Change the setting to the following:

  • Network = 802.11b

  • Bandwidth = 11Mbps (or 2Mbps)

Step 5, Watch Cingular Video:

  1. Run Pocket Internet Explorer

  2. Go to http://cingularvideo.cingular.com/

  3. Select a video to play

  4. Select "YES" to save video.ram and check "Open file after download:

  5. RealOne Player will launch and play the video.

Explination:

  1. Step 1: Installs the RealVideo player to play the videos

  2. Step 2: Sets up the proxy setting required to access Media Net and Cingular Video WAP sites.

  3. Step 3: Changes the reported browser version (to the web site) otherwise it tries to download a wap file instead of the HTML page.

  4. Step 4: Changes the network bandwidth setting on Real Video, otherwise Real Video will report that it can't play the video (because you don't have enough bandwidth.)

  5. Step 5: Is how you watch Cingular Video.

  6. When you select a video to play, it downloads a video.ram file, which contains nothing but a URL.  Real Video opens this video.ram file, reads the internet URL, and then plays the video from that URL.
    Note:  Each time you select a video from the web site, it'll download and overwrite the last video.ram file you downloaded/saved.