Quickly Find Your Favorite Video Scene with Nokia Video Cuts

Nowadays, more and more users are employing their mobile devices to watch movies on the go. While the hardware embedded in today's smartphones is capable of playing the video fluently, one drawback is related to the software part. Unlike watching movies on DVD or Blu-ray players, current video galleries do not allow users to quickly jump to their favorite scene or resume play from where they left off. Instead, they have to play the video from the beginning and fast forward to that scene.

Nokia Video Cuts is an application created to address this particular issue. Developed by Nokia Research Center, Beijing, the program is intended to make the viewing experience on Symbian smartphones more convenient. By using frame extraction technology to divide the video into key scenes, Nokia Video Cuts puts navigating from scene to scene one click away.

The intuitive interface allows users to quickly scroll through the videos on the smartphone and preview the movie's key frames on a bar located at the bottom of the screen. Clicking on the thumbnail quickly takes the user to the desired scene. The software supports smooth kinetic scrolling and offers all the functionality expected from a video player, such as play/pause controls, volume adjustment and full screen viewing.

Nokia Video Cuts does not require any special setup after installation. Upon opening the application, it will automatically search the smartphone's storage for video files and index all new videos to the Nokia Video Cuts video gallery. At the first start, it may take a while if there are many videos present on the device.

It supports video files using the H.263 codec, such as 3gp, 3gpp and mp4. The application has been tested only on the Nokia N97 and Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, but should work on all the other touchscreen-enabled Symbian 5th edition gadgets such as the Nokia N97 mini, Nokia C6 and Nokia 5230.

This is an experimental research project, so sending feedback and bug reports to Nokia Beta Labs is highly encouraged. The application is available for download here.