How to Move Cell Phone Recorded Images and Video to a Computer

In brief, to be able to use or edit a cell phone's image or video clip on your computer, send the image or videoclip from the cell phone to an email address. Next, download the attachment from the email to a folder on a computer. Examples of images and a 15 second videoclip from the cell phone camera are below.

Some phone services provide an online space where you can store, edit and send your images to others but check on charges for the use of such space. For specific questions, phone services provide a free Help call number, ususally *611 then follow the options. If that number does not work check with your phone provider as to the correct number.

Sometimes the needed key presses to accomplish that are not clear from the cell phone's buttons. Each cell phone is different and many users can no longer find their manual. If not, it is generally possible to search online by manufacturer and model name for the manual. For example, searching for "Motorola Razr V3 manual" enabled the downloading of that cell phone's manual as a PDF file. It is also possible to figure out the operational basics by exploring the different screens. Look for an Options choice when looking at the list of images or video clips on the cell phone.

Still Images

My cell phone is able to take pictures at three levels of image quality (fine, normal and economy) and four resolutions: 1280x1024 pixels; 640x480; 320x240; 160x120. The examples below show both fine quality image setting and economy image quality setting. The thumbnail images shown here are 25% of their original size; clicking them will display the original size from the phone camera.

Click the picture below to see the actual pixel size at fine quality.
1280x1024, 111 KB	640x480, 46 KB	320x240, 9KB	160x120, 4 KB
Click the picture below to see the actual pixel size at economy quality.
1280x1024, 207 KB	640x480, 86 KB	320x240, 22 KB	160x120, 8 KB

I see little difference between the highest and lowest quality image settings for this cell phone camera. I find it odd that the files sizes are larger for the lower quality images; it is as if the settings on my camera were backward.

The phone also has a self timer with settings of 5 and 10 seconds. It can do four color settings from normal color to black and white, negative and sepia tones. It has an option for multi-shot that will take pictures as fast as it can, around 1 a second, until Stop is pressed or memory is full. After any photo is taken, text can be overlayed on the image and an audio narration and/or text comment can be added. A video clip can only have a text comment added.

Video clip with Audio

My Motorola Razr model phone is capable of capturing 15 seconds of video. The pixel resolution dimensions of the videoclips on my Razr are 176x144, very small; it captures 15 frames per second of video. Playing such videoclips from the Razr model requires the Quicktime Player. Currently my total storage space on my SIM card is approximately 41 megabytes. It is important to know these technical details for your own phone so do some exploring to find out. There should be an Info command under Options when looking at videos.

The examples below are the same 15 audio-video clips. The audio is highly compressed also which changes voice tones a bit. If both clips don't show on your browser page, try a different browser. The cell phone movie file used in both the examples below was downloaded via email from the phone as a Quicktime 3g2 formatted file (192 KB). This was converted to standard .mov format by Quicktime Player Pro.

Additional Editing

To add a photo to an image editor or videoclip to a video editor for further work, use the editor's Import command to import the file from where ever it was stored. File formats coming from the phone camera may not always match up with the editor so test with some practice files before planning a big project. It may be necessary to find a file format converter before being able to proceed.

parent page | Page author: Houghton