How-To: YouTubing on the N95 with Nokia Video Center

Watching YouTube videos on the N95 is a snap with the Nokia Video Center application. Inside: a quick 6-step tutorial and introduction to getting video services set up on your phone.

he Nokia Video Center is the relatively little-known application in the Applications folder that makes all this video madness possible. To be honest, the program is really nothing more than a gloried RSS feed reader.

You aren't limited to just YouTube videos - Nokia's newly-updated list of video content partners now includes CNN, Reuters, Jamba, Sony, IBN, RooftopComedy, ROK, and Versaly Entertainment. Note that N95s from different regions may have different accessible videos. For example, CNN and IBN are only available on APAC-region N95 devices.

Please note that the Nokia Video Center is ONLY compatible with the Nokia N95.

Adding a Video Service to the Nokia Video Center in 6 Easy Steps

(1) The first thing you'll need to open up the Nokia Video Center application. By default, it's located in the Menu -> Applications folder.

(2) Upon loading, the Video Center will bring you to a menu with four options: Internet Videos, Add New Services, Nokia Nseries, and My Videos. A brief rundown on each:

• Internet Videos lets you import an RSS feed to your Video Center.
• Add New Services is the bread and butter of the application - this option will bring you to the Video Service Catalog and let you add specific content such as YouTube and Reuters.
• Nokia Nseries lets you watch Nseries-themed clips and advertisements, mostly as a demonstration feature.
• My Videos is the place where you'll find your downloaded clips.

Here we're interested in the Add New Services option. You'll need to add a separate service for each video content provider, but this only needs to be done once.

(3) The Video Service Catalog. Install new video services, or just learn more about them with the Info link. Right now, we're going to add the YouTube mobile video service to our main menu, so click the Install button. (4) You'll be greeted with a prompt asking you to confirm - hit the Ok button.

(5) Installation is fairly quick and painless, and should only take a couple of seconds at most. After it's done, hit the Close option (right softkey) to return to the main menu. You should see a new option now - YouTube Mobile Videos. That's the one we want, so hit the middle softkey to connect to YouTube's RSS feed.

(6) Finally! A list of current videos from YouTube with tiny thumbnails. Unfortunately, you can't control what shows up here, other than refreshing the list every couple of seconds. Select one of the videos and hit the Ok softkey, then Play at the next dialog box that pops up to watch your video.

The quality isn't the greatest, but the application and content are still works-in-progress.

Troubleshooting

Due to some kind of limitation with the software, you can't use WLAN to watch (most) videos. Particularly the YouTube and FreeBe TV ones, and probably most of the other ones too. Reuters does work, however. I don't know why it does this, but if you keep getting "File Not Found" errors when trying to play a video, this is probably the reason. For now, stick to EDGE/HSDPA. (and if you know how to fix this, I'd appreciate an email too - thanks)