The BlackBerry Storm is a wonderful piece of technology. Being a new BlackBerry Storm 9530 owner one of the things I wanted was the ability to watch tv shows and movies. The Babylon A.D. trailer that comes with the Storm just whets your appetite for more of what the brilliant 65,000 color 3.25-inch screen can offer. Packed with an 8gb card it begs to be filled with video of all sorts.

I started loading my phone with movie trailers to get a feel for the video. Progressing to YouTube video’s, I soon wanted more such as TV show’s and movies. This guide will help you through the steps needed to convert movies/shows/trailers to play on the Storm’s media player. First the technical details of the media player on the BlackBerry Storm.

BlackBerry Storm Media Player
Video format support: MPEG4 H.263, MPEG4 Part 2 Simple Profile, H.264, WMV
Audio format support: MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, WMA ProPlus

So now all you have to do is convert your .avi, .flv, .mov etc. etc. to MPEG4′s. This is easy enough with the right tools. While there are many tools available this article focuses on two freeware items I use, HandBrake & Super©.

Handbrake 0.9.3

You can read more info & download HandBrake here
Easy Instructions: When converting a video on HandBrake just use the iPhone preset and you should be fine.

Super©

You can read more info & download Super© here, I warn you the website is cluttered.
If you wish you can just get the direct download from erightsoft here.

For the technical elite here is the data for you. For the technically challenged step by step instructions for Super© are provided further down.

SUPER© Step By Step Instructions:

Once you have installed SUPER© use the settings as shown in the pictures below. Feel free to play around with various settings but the settings shown will get you started on conversions for your Storm.

If your source file is 16:9 (Widescreen)

If your source file is 4:3 (Square video)

Note: Before you convert a file press Ctrl+T and select a new location for the converted files. In case you forget the default location is [C:\Program Files\eRightSoft\SUPER\OutPut].

• Press Ctrl+A and select the file(s) you want to convert.
• Make sure the boxes beside the files you want to process are checked.
• Next click “Encode (Active Files)” The encoding may take a while.
• Copy the new mp4 video file(s) to your Storm’s Micro SD card.
• Put them in the \BlackBerry\videos directory of your Micro SD card.
• You are now done, you may want to do a QuickPull before viewing.

Once you have the .flv file that you wanted use any converter to turn it into an avi, mp3 or most any other format. All this can be done free by you in moments.

I use Techcrunch to grab the files for download. It has no popup’s nor a complicated process, just the way I like it!

For file conversion to MP3 I use Freez Flv to Mp3 Converter, which again is a simple clean program with no frills.

There are a variety of other converters for various formats out there you need only look. Enjoy your free music & videos, I am going to listen to some Tatu & Enya now.