I’ve been traveling a lot recently on both long and short haul trips. To entertain myself during some of the waiting times at the airport and during the numerous delays I have encountered, I have turned to my media monster Nokia phone to provide me with some entertainment, most notably, video entertainment.

At Roxio, we have wonderful products that will allow you to move and convert video for viewing on your cell phone. I’ve been a big user of this technology but even I have to admit that there are some limitations from a use standpoint.

The reality is that the technology is definitely here. My media centric Nokia has a glorious 2.5” QVGA screen that boasts 320x240 pixel resolution with millions of colors. It has a stereo output jack and automatically plays movies or video clips in the right portrait orientation. However, as I started to watch all the content that I had loaded onto the high capacity memory card I had on the phone, I noticed very quickly that size really does matter when it comes to watching videos. A small clip, a short video podcast were great but as the shows crept past the 30 length, I began to really suffer from some eye strain. 1 hr recorded prime time shows were really a struggle for me to get through and I discovered I had to take them in 20 min durations.

The longer 90 mins to 2hr recorded movies were completely unwatchable for me in one pass, both from an eye strain perspective and also I discovered, from a battery consumption perspective. The other nasty secret I had quickly discovered very quickly was that watching videos really eats up battery power. Stuck on the plane in Chicago on a delay, my laptop was in the overhead compartment smooched behind a large duffle bag and someone’s jacket so it was not easily accessible. So I pulled out my pocket sized media wonder and proceed to try and watch a 2 hr show. My battery was about ¾ full and about 30 mins though the show, when I took a brief break from the screen, the battery gauge was now at ¼. There was no way I was going to be able to finish the movie without finding a power jack.

So now while I still continue to use my phone to enjoy smaller recorded programming at home or to show my friends the latest video clips of my dog engaging in really silly activities, I have learned to balance video viewing with battery consumption and length of content I view.

I would be interested in hearing what your direct experiences with video content on cellphones are like. Do you stream, watch pre-loaded content, watch movies?