Follow this guide to learn how to put movies on your NOOKcolor quick and easy.
Most of this information can be found in our basic Android guide,
located here: http://www.tools4movies.com/basicguide.pdf
but this will cover the NOOKcolor specifically, rather than “generic” Android devices. Most of it is pretty much the same.
This guide might appear long and a lot of work, but the process is actually quite simple. Because every step in this guide is explained with screenshots, it just looks like a lot of work.
Before you can get started, there are a few things you need:
1. Your NOOKcolor.
2. A computer running Microsoft Windows. The DVD Catalyst software in this guide works with Windows 2000, Windows XP,
Windows Vista and Windows 7. There is no Apple MAC version available (yet)
3. A Movie or a TV Show DVD. The software works with video files as well, but if you are reading
this guide, it is unlikely you already have movie files on your computer.
4. Our DVD Catalyst software, which can be found on this very website.
5. The charger cable that came with your NOOKcolor when you purchased it.
Step 1: Obtaining DVD Catalyst software and installing it on your computer.
You can click on the following link to download the DVD Catalyst 4 Trial Version (link). The trial version is fully functional, but only converts a portion (25%) of each movie.
If you would like to purchase DVD Catalyst 4 for the limited time $9.95 special offer, you can use the following link. (link).
Ordering with us is safe, secure and simple. Your payment will be processed by the Internet’s biggest payment provider, Paypal – using their secure card payment terminal. So, you can enjoy total peace of mind when you place your order. Upon completion of your order, you will receive the download link by email for your purchased software within a manner of minutes. (if you do not receive your order confirmation within an hour after purchase, please check your email spam. If you used PayPal’s eCheck payment method, it can take up to 5 days before your order has been processed)
Now that you have downloaded either the DVD Catalyst 4 Trial version, or downloaded the retail version by using the link in your order confirmation, locate the file you downloaded on your computer so you can install it. In most cases, it is stored in your Downloads folder or in your Documents folder. Some people store their downloaded files on their desktop.
Right-click on the downloaded file:
and then left-click on “Extract All” and follow the steps by clicking through them.
after you have completed the steps, you should be able to see the actual program installer with our green icon image. (Depending on the current version of DVD Catalyst 4, the name can be a little different.)
Double (left-) click on the installer, and follow the instructions.
If you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7, you might receive a warning message similar to this:
Just click Yes (because you do want to install the program)
At the last step of the installation, remove the 2 checkmarks displayed, because there are a few other things we need to check first.
Step 2: Connecting the NOOkcolor to your computer.
With the DVD Catalyst 4 software instal;led on your computer, the next step is to make sure your NOOKcolor can actually connect to your computer. This is pretty easy.
Connect the cable that came with your NOOKcolor to its connection at the bottom of the Nook.
* Be careful with the connection, because it needs to be at the correct angle. I see this as the weakest point of the NOOKcolor. I use a different cable myself. Thankfully my Droid X uses a similar connector on its cable, but the connection itself is a lot safer due to a shorter plug. If you use your Nook a lot, I would recommend looking for a different cable to make sure it doesn’t break. The plug on the Droid X USB cable looks slightly different, but works great for connecting the NOOKcolor to your computer. Unfortunately it does not charge the Nook.
* The Droid X connector is slightly shorter, but it works fine with the NOOKcolor. plugging it in feels a lot safer.
Anyway, when you connect your NOOKcolor to your computer, your NOOK should display a big message on-screen regarding USB Mode. If your Nook was in standby when you connected, slide your finger across the screen to unlock it after you connected it. After a while, it will turn off its screen, but as long as you did see the USB Mode message, things should be good.
Not put the nook aside (leave it connected) and open “My Computer” using the shorcut on your desktop,
or by clicking on it in your Windows Start Menu,
and you should see something similar to this:
In my case, my Nook is connected as drive G: (MyNookColor), and the micro SD memorycard I put in it as extra storage is connected as drive H:
If you see something similar (if you dont have an extra memorycard, it will not show) you are good to go.
Unlike other Android devices, the NOOKcolor doesn’t have storage mode options, so there is nothing that would prevent it from not displaying this correctly. If you connected your Nook, and it does not show up in my computer, either try shutting off the Nook completely by holding down the power button on the left until an option to turn it off comes up, or restart your computer. If that still does not help, please contact the Nook support department.
Step 3: Now that the DVD Catalyst 4 software is installed on your computer, and the connection between the Nook and your computer is working, its time to put some videos on the Nook.
Before you start converting your movies, the quickest way to see some results is to download one (or all) of the following trailers, and copy/play those on your Nook.
Profiles:
DVD Catalyst 4 has 3 different profiles for the Nook, each with its advantages and disadvantages. I converted a movie trailer (Despicable Me) using the 3 different profiles to make it easier for you to select the one that best fits your needs.
Android > NookColor.
This is the recommended profile to use with the NookColor. It produces a good quality video file at a reasonable filesize. For every hour of video, it will take about 400MB in size, so an average 2 hour movie takes up about 800MB. If you use your Nook only for movies, you can fit 6 full movies on it’s internal memory, and if you use a 32GB memorycard with it, you can have a total of 46 movies or almost 100 hours of video on it.
Android > Nook (fast)
While DVD Catalyst 4 is one of the fastest DVD conversion tools on the market, the standard NookColor profile can be a little slow on older computers. The (NookColor (fast) profile trades off quality for speed. It produces the same size of video files as the standard profile, but unless you use a fancy dual/quadcore computer, it converts a lot faster.
Android > NookColor HQ
Better quality video (similar quality as a DVD movie) but a larger filesize. Using this profile, an hour of video takes up about 700MB, so you can only fit 3-4 full movies on the Nook itself, or if you use a 32GB memorycard with it, you can fit about 25 full-length movies.
To see what works best for you, you can download the samples here:
Fast: www.tools4movies.com/nook/nookcolor_fast.zip
Fast (streaming): www.tools4movies.com/nook/nookcolor_fast.mp4 (visit this website on your nook, and then tap on the link to have it play directly)
Standard: www.tools4movies.com/nook/nookcolor_standard.zip
Standard (streaming): www.tools4movies.com/nook/nookcolor_standard.mp4
HQ: www.tools4movies.com/nook/nookcolor_hq.zip
HQ (streaming): www.tools4movies.com/nook/nookcolor_hq.mp4
(These sample files have been tested and confirmed working on a NOOKcolor (update 1.0.1) . if these files do not play, try downloading them again, or try turning your Nook completely off and back on)
Conversion:
Start DVD Catalyst 4 by clicking on its shortcut on your desktop. While it doesn’t matter for DVD Catalyst, its easier to start without a DVD in your drive at this point.
After DVD Catalyst 4 is fully loaded, select your desired Nook profile on the left side.
With that selected, insert your DVD.
DVD Catalyst 4 will find the DVD, and will start scanning it for video tracks, things like movies, TV episodes and special features. Aftyer the scanning is complete, it will display to you what it has found.
In our example (Zombieland), DVD Catalyst 4 displays 3 tracks. This doesn’t mean that the movie is split into 3 portions. It displays the full movie as the first track (longest play length) and the other 2 are special features that are available on the movie as well. You can disable them by selecting them one at a time, and then remove the checkmark for “enable for conversion” but this is explained in more detail in the included User Guide of DVD Catalyst 4.
If DVD Catalyst displays something else, such as a 99track warning with a bunch of complicated stuff, it means that the DVD can cause some complications. While in most cases this doesn’t affect the conversion, I suggest to close DVD Catalyst at this point, pick a different DVD, and start DVD Catalyst again. Once you have a few successful conversions done, go back to the other DVD, and it should be a lot easier to understand what is going on. Again, the User Guide as well as the website has a lot of information on this and other questions you might run into.
Now just click “Go” to start the conversion. Depending on the profile you have selected, this can take a while. Many people don’t realize what is actually being done at this point.
First, DVD Catalyst 4 performs a 5-step scan to detect and remove black border portions from the video. After that, the video from your DVD (or video file, such as ISO/AVI/MKV/MPG etc) is being converted to a different video format while maintaining as much of its original quality as possible. The same is done for the audio (as well as modification to its volume). This process is quite demanding on your computer, and is greatly affected by the age and speed of your computers parts. DVD Catalyst 4 is multi-core enabled, meaning that if you have a quad-core processor, conversions will go considerably faster. The reason for the conversion is because the NOOKcolor can only play specifically optimized video files, which are in a different format than what original movie content such as DVDs use. In most cases, the conversion should take about half as long as what it would take to actually play the movie (an hour for a 2hour movie) but if you are using an older computer, or something like a Netbook that has limited processor capabilities, it can go up to about 2x the playtime of the movie. If the conversion takes longer than that, usually something is wrong.
Transfer the video files to the NOOKcolor:
After the conversion is complete, DVD Catalyst will offer to transfer the file for you, or you can do it yourself.
Personally, I prefer to do it by hand. Not only do you have more control over the process, it also works for adding other content on your Nook, such as PDF documents or music files.
Open the folder where your video file is located. By default, DVD Catalyst stores the video files in the Videos folder on your computer (My Videos in My Documents on Windows 2000 and Windows XP).
Now open a new “My Computer” and go to the “MyNookColor” drive:
Organize both windows by dragging them around a bit so that you can see part of both.
Now left-click and hold the mouse on your movie file, and drag it to the NookColor
and then let go of the mouse button to have it copy the file over to the Nook:
Once done,to be safe, wait half a minute or so, then right click on the “MyNookColor” drive, and select “eject”
Now you can disconnect your Nook from your computer.
Video on the NOOKcolor:
There are 2 ways of accessing the video files on your Nook.
There is “Gallery” in Extras
but that only likes video files located in the Videos folder in “My Files”, and because of the limitations of the Gallery app, its a bit hard to tell which video you are actually selecting, because it creates thumbnails rather than displaying the filename. If you copy the files to a different location (like we did in this guide) Gallery will list the video, but will refuse to play it.
Rather than using Gallery, it is easier to access your video files through your Library.
Just go to the My Files tab in library, and your video file(s) will be right there. If you copied them to your memorycard, switch to your memorycard of course
Now just tap on the video you want to play, and enjoy.
Summary:
This “little” guide turned out a bit longer than I thought, however, it’s not as much work as it seems though.
In short, what we did was the following:
1. Download and install DVD Catalyst to your computer
2. Check and make sure the NOOKcolor could connect properly to myour computer
3. Downloaded a sample file and converted a DVD
4. Copied the created/downloaded video file to the NOOKcolor
5. Started playing the file.
But, with screenshots detailing just about every step needed to take, this guide turned out a bit long.
Troubleshooting:
If your video’s do not play on your Nook, there are 2 things to check. First, remember that Gallery by itself doesn’t play the video files unless they are located in the Videos folder in “My Files”
If you use the “Library” to play your video files from the “My Files” tab, it should play the file, where ever it is located.
If the file doesn’t play, even if you try it through “Library”, try playing the file on your computer. While many programs are capable of playing these video files, such as Windows Media Player (Windows 7 only) and VLC, I recommend playing the file in Quicktime instead. Quicktime is a lot more picky in what it plays, and will complain if something is wrong with the file. If the file plays in Quicktime on your computer, try downloading one of the sample videos from this guide and copy those over to your Nook and see if they play. The sample files should work for sure, so if you run into playback issues with those, you probably have to turn the Nook completely off and back on.
Conversion issues: If you run into complications with converting DVDs or video files, have a look here for more information:
http://www.tools4movies.com/2010/06/troubleshooting-conversion-issues/
For all other Nook-related questions, tips and tricks, please visit ClubNook: http://www.clubnook.com
