Hello, I recently got a Moto Droid with 2.1 already installed on it. I have installed many apps, and also paid for some apps from the Market. I am decently tech savvy and willing to risk bricking my phone attempting to downgrade, root, re-upgrade and use a ROM, but my main question is will all my apps stay on the phone during this process, or does this process just wipe the phone completely? If it wipes the phone is there a way to back up my Apps index or something so I don't have to buy the apps twice? I'm fairly new to this, so if anybody could provide an explanation, I'd really appreciate it.
For your help, and in an attempt to not get flamed or banned for posting in the wrong forum or not finding the answer via "search" before posting, I have a quick and dirty guide to streaming your downloaded movies to your phone...
I assume most people here will know that the Droid only plays MP4 files, but if we are going to stream movies, they need to not only be in MP4 format, but the quality needs to be cut decently in order to be able to stream the movie without pausing every few seconds while more downloads. Using whatever program you use to convert, set it to H.264 MP4 (obv), with dimensions of 427x240 (for 16:9), with a video bitrate of 256, and audio sample rate of 24kHz, and audio bitrate of 96.
That sounds like it should make it so crappy it's unwatchable, but I found it to be very decent. Now you need to use a program which does something to the MP4 file that makes it able to stream. (I'm not quite clear on the technical details--apparently the time index is at the end of most MP4 files and this program moves it to the front, which is required for streaming). I use something called MP4 FastStart (http://goo.gl/ru7m).
Now you need a place that will let you upload a file and have a direct link for it. I have free accounts with Dropbox and SugarSync, both of which give you 2gb free, and have Android Apps. These aren't necessary--if you know of another way to upload a file and get a direct link, use that, but these work well, and a full movie with the specs I gave is about 250mb, so you can fit about 16 movies with the free accounts. Now go into the Android apps for those sites and just click to open them in the browser (or open the browser and point it to the direct link of your player), and stream the files with the movie browser. It only takes 5-10 seconds usually for me using the 3G before it starts playing, and so far I haven't had one pause for need of loading more data. And the quality is just fine.
I hope some of you find this useful, and more importantly, I hope you can answer my questions about whether the rooting process will wipe my phone and get rid of my apps, and if so, anything I can do to get them back.... Thanks!
For your help, and in an attempt to not get flamed or banned for posting in the wrong forum or not finding the answer via "search" before posting, I have a quick and dirty guide to streaming your downloaded movies to your phone...
I assume most people here will know that the Droid only plays MP4 files, but if we are going to stream movies, they need to not only be in MP4 format, but the quality needs to be cut decently in order to be able to stream the movie without pausing every few seconds while more downloads. Using whatever program you use to convert, set it to H.264 MP4 (obv), with dimensions of 427x240 (for 16:9), with a video bitrate of 256, and audio sample rate of 24kHz, and audio bitrate of 96.
That sounds like it should make it so crappy it's unwatchable, but I found it to be very decent. Now you need to use a program which does something to the MP4 file that makes it able to stream. (I'm not quite clear on the technical details--apparently the time index is at the end of most MP4 files and this program moves it to the front, which is required for streaming). I use something called MP4 FastStart (http://goo.gl/ru7m).
Now you need a place that will let you upload a file and have a direct link for it. I have free accounts with Dropbox and SugarSync, both of which give you 2gb free, and have Android Apps. These aren't necessary--if you know of another way to upload a file and get a direct link, use that, but these work well, and a full movie with the specs I gave is about 250mb, so you can fit about 16 movies with the free accounts. Now go into the Android apps for those sites and just click to open them in the browser (or open the browser and point it to the direct link of your player), and stream the files with the movie browser. It only takes 5-10 seconds usually for me using the 3G before it starts playing, and so far I haven't had one pause for need of loading more data. And the quality is just fine.
I hope some of you find this useful, and more importantly, I hope you can answer my questions about whether the rooting process will wipe my phone and get rid of my apps, and if so, anything I can do to get them back.... Thanks!
