My name is Karol Krizka, and I am a undergraduate student at SFU where I study physics and computer science. In my free time, I write simple applications and play with my PSP.
Greetings from SwitzerlandCustom Ringtones on the Samsung “UpStage” m620 (Telus Edition)
Karol Krizka @ December 21, 2007
Cellphones
As I mentioned in one of the earlier posts, I got a brand-spanking-new cellphone, the Samsun “UpStage” m620 with a new contract from Telus. However to my disappointment, Telus decided to remove the MP3 ringtone functionality and so I was stuck with their default simple ringtones. But after a bit of Googling around, I found out that Telus missed something; the possibility of setting a video ringtone. So you can create a custom ringtone, convert it to a video file and upload it to the memory card.
Sounds easy? It is not, especially if you do not use Windows, like me. The video format supported by the cellphone is some weird mobile codec called 3GPP2 and converters for which can be hard to find. I found several guides about how to convert MP3 files to 3GPP2 files on Linux with ffmpeg, but the results were dismal. The sound quality was very low. I am sure if I played around with the settings I could have gotten a better quality, but I did not want to bother. Luckily I stumbled across an online conversion tool that did the job for me perfectly and works from any operating system!
The whole process took me a long time, so I decided to write the following guide to help others. You do not need to download any programs for the conversion nor do you need to know anything about “bitrates” and formats. However you do need to cut out the required part of the MP3 file yourself. You can use the free open source program called Audacity for it. It is cross-platorm, so you can use it from Windows, Mac or Linux. I might blog about it a bit later.
The next step is to convert the file into the 3GPP2 format, which can be simply done by using the Media Converter website. The site is great, because it supports a wide variety
of formats and you can upload from your disk, a website or directly from YouTube. After you select your file, click next. On the next page, set the filetype to 3g2. The click the next button twice in a row, there is no need to change any of the bitrate or quality settings. Finally after a few minutes, you file will be converted and a download link will be available for you.
Now you need to place the converted file that you downloaded onto the memory stick of your phone. Make sure to place it into an already existing folder in the DCIM/ folder (ei: I placed mine in DCIM/110ssm), along with all the other pictures, because otherwise it will not be found. After you have saved it, on your phone open the ringer settings located under Settings->Sounds->Ringers->Voice Calls and select who you want to change the ringtone to. A choice of selections will be displayed, and you should pick “My Videos” and then “Memory Card”. Finally find the video file, and select it. If you converted an MP3 file, there will be a red X in the image because it has no video component. However the audio will work perfectly.
That is it, now you have your own custom ringtone! What is yours? I am using Asturias by Isaac Albeniz.
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Thanks so much! I’ve been trying to figure that one out for a while. It works great!
This also works for the bell version of the phone, I just tried it. Thanks a million.
Great to hear that! This workaround should work for any provider that disabled MP3 ringtones but left video ringtone functionality.
This works great, but I have some situations that about it:
After saving the ringer in my microSD and selected from “My Video” I can assign it as a ringer for any call. I can do this using the MP3 side of the phone. I can even listen to the ringer, but this does not happen when using the “phone” side of the cell. When I select a contact and edit his information to assign an specific ringer from “My Mideos” it shows a white square with an “x” on it, and actually I can choose it and assign it, but there is no name neither I can’t hear the ringer. It is like there is no ringer assigned to that contact. Why there is no name for the new ringers? How do I assign a name to the ringer that can be recognize by the phone? It appears that the ringer is working because just I assigned the new ringer to only my wife but the name did not appeared, but when she call me, the ringer started playing. Do you have any idea of this?
Have a great day.
Doblaman
Help! I’ve tried this and still can’t get to it in my phone. I dragged and dropped the 3g2 file into the DCIM 110ssm folder of my phone. I then go through the next steps and I get a “No Media Files” message. I know it’s in the right folder because I connect my phone to the pc again and look in the phones folders and I can see the file in the folder I put it in. Please, what am I doing wrong?! I’d be embarrassed to say how long I’ve been tinkering with this trying to get it to work!
Tina
DUDE THNKS U FCKIN ROCK!!!!!!!
IT WORKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m having the same problem as Tina. I put the file with the correct folder and i can play it if i go to Tools-Mass Storage-File Management. However when i try to choose one of those files for a ringer it tells me “no media found”.
hi i got everything to work except when i get to ASSIGN it says “media file saving failed” should i save the file with a straight name rather than with spaces?
ie. file bob marley - possitive vibration.3g2 to bob1.3g2? i dont know how else to make it work… i got that far, at least it appears on the phone i guess (oh, and i can play it if i hit preview or something, so that woks to, i just cant assign it.)
helps required, thanks!
NEVERMIND…
FOR THOSE WHO HAVE THAT SAME PROBLEM, all you have to do is name the file alltogether and short, no spaces… just something simple like.
song1.3g2 then it should work.
Thanks for sharing your solution.
I am having the same problem as Maria,
when i get to the “assign” step, it says
“media file saving failed”
but then i tried to make the name of the file short and simple, same thing!
please help!
I JUST FIXED THE PROBLEM!
my solution
after you have transfered your file onto your phone:
Menu–> pictures–>My Albums–>Memory Card (unless you have put the file on the phone, in which case, pic k”in phone”)–> highlight the file you want, hit the right soft key ” Options”–> Assign–>voice calls–>(with or ) without Caller ID –> it should say something along the lines of assigned to voice calls!
have fun , cheers!
kk
i got the song on my phone. converted and everything and as a video ringer but when i phone my cell it doesnt ring! It just comes up with a white screen!
help me in going nuts!
Thanks for the help getting the ringtones, but when I’m looking at the ringtones on my phone, I can’t see the names for them. They all work fine, though. I currently have four tones on my phone, but in order to see which one is which, I have to listen to each one. Is there any way to show the name of the file right from the phone?
I got the ringtones to all work now…Thanks!
Hi! This really helped me a lot!!!!! Saved me tons of time dude, thanks!!! Is it normal to see a little pic of an x? I’m guessing yeah since it’s a video ringer but there’s no actual footage of a vid?? Thank u!
thanks!
I folowed the instructions and it works fine, but when I made the second ringtone following the same instructions the error appears “No media files”. I rename then to short name file (less than 8, pictures has
and I’m seeing the same error.
I even deleted the second file letting only the one I already made and the error is still there.
What could it be?
Dude you’re amazing. Thanks so much for the tip(s)!!!