Do you have a BlackBerry (BB) with a MicroSD memory card slot(Curve/8300/8320, 8800/8820/8830, or Pearl/8100)?

Do you wish you had time to watch all those great deaf-related videos online? Wish no more! The good news is that you will be able to convert Deaf-related videos into a format that you can watch on your BB with the built in BlackBerry Media Player!

You MUST have a good sized (512MB or larger) MicroSD memory card already installed in your BB, or you will not be able to watch anything on your BB. For easiest video installation on your BB, you will need to make sure you have the latest BlackBerry Desktop software (4.2 SP2) which comes with Roxio Media Manager.

Roxio Media Manager allows you to drag and drop video files to your BB, converting them automatically to the correct format needed to play it on the BB. You won’t have a problem with most MP4, WMV, and H.263 videos, per RIM’s note here. You will need to do a little more work if the video does not convert or play correctly, such as video from Google Video, YouTube, or iTunes, etc. Converting from one video format to another is called transcoding, and RIM has some information on transcoding for the BB Media Player.

Are some of the tools mentioned in the RIM transcoding article just not your thing to figure out? Do you have a DVD that you want to watch on your BB? Check this great BlackBerry Video Converter out! It’s free! However all the tools discussed here are for Windows. If you use Mac or Linux, you probably will have better luck using Handbrake with the settings mentioned in the RIM transcoding article, or using VMWare/Parallels to run Windows on your machine and use the tools mentioned here.

Of course, these tips can be used to convert any type of video, not necessarily deaf-related, for watching on your BB - but it’s gonna be neat to watch the latest deaf vlogs and videos on your BB, won’t it? Enjoy!!!

On a related note - making videos to watch using your BB - unfortunately, the BB’s can’t record video via their built in cameras yet. The Pearl 2 (8130) is supposed to support video recording to a media card, but it’s not available to the public yet.