LG VX8100 and BitPim

For this post, we're using BitPim. I use 7.32, however, other versions may work, be sure to go to View->Filesystem in order to get the filesystem tab. First we have to get your computer hooked up to your phone.

USB CABLE CONNECTION
With a cable, it's easy....
1. Install Drivers for cable
2. Plug in cable
3. Plug in phone
4. Done..


BLUETOOTH CONNECTION
With Bluetooth is a bit more complicated, but still not difficult.
1. Click Menu->Settings and Tools->9. PC Connection
2. Select 3. Bluetooth to use Bluetooth
3. If it asks you if you want to turn bluetooth on, select Yes.
4. Go to Menu -> Settings and Tools -> 0. Bluetooth
5. Select 3. My Visibility
6. Select "Show to All"
7. On your PC, go to "My Bluetooth Places" (you can type that in windows explorer and you will go there)
8. Click "View Devices in Range" in the left hand side
9. Double click on your phone
10. Double Click on "Bluetooth Serial Port".
11. It will tell you what Com Port it is assigning to the phone, this is important, remember it (it's Com8 on my computer)



BITPIM
Now, download BitPim. Install, then run.
1. Click Edit ->Settings
2. Change Phone Type to LG-VX8000
3. Type in the COM Port from before (for me it's COM8)
4. Click the FileSystem Tab (That's all that works for the 8100)
5. All of your files are displayed in their wonderful Glory!


GENERAL INFO
Here are the locations for important files:
\Brew\16452\ --- All uploads go somewhere in here.

mf --- My Flix

mp --- My Pix

ms --- My Sounds

lk\mr --- My Ringtones

\dload\ --- Information Files


PUTTING PICTURES ON YOUR PHONE
1. Take picture
2. Resize it to something reasonable (like 400x400ish)
3. Open BitPim
4. go to: \Brew\16452\mp\
5. right click on "mp", click "New File..." select your file.
6. go to: \dload\
7. right click "image.dat", select delete
8. right click "imagesize.dat", select delete
9. Reboot phone, images show up!


PUTTING RINGTONES ON YOUR PHONE

There is a 2mb limit for Ringtones (buy a memory card, they're cheap and easy to use, you can use that memory for whatever you like), you can see how much you have used on your phone by clicking Menu --> Get It Now --> Info (right soft key). It will tell you how much memory is being used up.

1. Because space is an issue, I would recommend a much higher compression rate for mp3s as ringtones. To make ringtones, I use Audacity to edit the music files down to a reasonable length, then export as mp3. In the File->Preferences section of the menu, you are able to set the mp3 quality. It's usually at 128k, which gives you approximately 1 minute / megabyte. I prefer 40k, which is still pretty high for ringtones, but you can fit much more into 2 megs. You can play around and see what sounds best for the song that you have.

Example:
12 second mp3 x 128k encoding == 186k
12 second mp3 x 40k encoding == 59k

2. right before you export as mp3, be sure to maximize the volume by selecting everything, Clicking Effect ->Amplify, then click OK. Amplify automatically selects the maximum you can amplify the sound without clipping the loud parts. This ensures your ringtone is as loud as it can be on your phone.

3. Find your file in windows explorer, rename the file to [filename].mid, because your phone ignores .mp3 files. It WILL know how to play them, though.

4. Open BitPim
5. go to: \Brew\16452\lk\mr\
6. right click on "mr", click "New File..." select your file.
7. go to \dload\
8. right click "my_ringtone.dat", select delete.
9. right click "my_ringtonesize.dat", select delete.
10. Reboot phone, ringtones show up!


PUTTING SOUNDS ON PHONE

Same as with Ringtones, but put the file in \Brew\16452\ms\, and delete the mysound.dat and mysoundsize.dat files.

PUTTING VIDEOS ON PHONE

To load a video onto your phone, it must be a .3gp file. To convert files to .3gp, I used Mpegable X4 Live. The company no longer supports the software, but there is shareware available here: Mpegable x4 Live v2.2
Converting is very straight forward, select input file, select output destination, select "Mobile Devices (3gpp compliant)", click the red circle... done.

1. Open BitPim
2. go to: \Brew\16452\mf\
3. right click on "mf", click "New File..." select your file.
4. go to \dload\
5. right click "video.dat", select delete.
6. right click "videosize.dat", select delete.
7. Reboot phone, videos show up!

MEMORY CARD

I highly recommend buying a mini-sd card. I picked up one today from Circuit City with a SD-Adapter. Plug the card into the phone, reboot the phone, and you will have three directories,... My Pix, My Flix, and My Sounds... put files in there, you won't have to mess with the filesystem ever again. Currently I have two episodes of Family guy converted over, and it's a blast being able to watch those on the phone. Each 22 minute episode is 15.5 Megs, so I can fit a whole season on the 256mb card I have.

MEDIA PLAYER

There's a "secret" media player on the 8100 that you can access by pressing "menu", then 0 seven times.
Go to "Get it Now Settings" near the bottom
Again, select "Get it Now" at the bottom of this screen too.
you will see a list of applications on the phone, select "Media Player"
You can play files in your mf directory, so if you put an mp3 in there, you can play it with the Media Player. This is the only way to be able to fast forward through mp3 files on the phone.
Unfortunately, we have not figured out how to be able to read mp3s off the memory card from the special Media Player.


That's about it, good luck, have fun...

good job.

mods, sticky?

Awesome. I second the sticky recommendation and that it will/should be updated whenever new solid information becomes available.

awesome. This should be the basis for the 8100 HOWTO.
can we sticky it?

Nice....I like the easy to follow lay out.

Thanks for this...

I don't know if its worth including or not, but you might want to mention the process of being able to have the my ringtones settings 'see' the data in the MiniSD card. It is a complex process though, and you need to use a hex editor to change the hardcoded path in the myringtone.dat file. All the information is in the following thread:

http://www.howardforums.com/showthr...415#post5532415
Might be more helpful when an easier way to do this is discovered?

nice write up also, btw.

awesome work my friend. why isnt this is a sticky yet?

sorry, just realized it was posted 40 mins ago ;/ sorry

sticky it!

Just wondering.... is there ANY way to loop the mp3 ringtones? Doubt it, but thought I'd ask anyways?

What do you find the best resolution settings and frame rate to be when converting mpeg to 3gp?

ok just in case anyone was wondering its qcif resolution and a 15 fps frame rate.

I use xilisoft to convert my videos

Quick shout to roc a fella (who I think first had the process down w/qpst).

Anyways, just got my 8100 and my bluetooth adaptor and everything worked like a dream. I noticed that I had to keep setting my phone's b/t visibility, otherwise I'd get an error w/Bitpim.

Again, awesome job by all for saving us some cash from the evil empire!!

when using x4 it automatically sets my video size too small. how do i change that and the frame rate?

i sent you a pm