Step-by-Step PCS Uploading Help
This help section is very much a work in progress.So you want to upload a ringtone or a picture of some pornstar to your phone. Well, you're here, so that's a good start. Let's walk through this, step by step.
1.) What can I upload?
Most people upload two basic types of files to their phones: ringtones and pictures. Let's start with ringtones.
Ringtones
Ringtones are themselves basically split into two categories: midi ringtones and digital ringtones. Midi ringtones are by far the most common, although that's starting to change as phones are produced with more memory and better sound quality. Yet again, midi ringtones are split into two categories: monophonic and polyphonic. I shanghai'd a simple explanation of these two types from lockergnome.com:
Monophonic RingtonesIn other words, listen to a midi file you want to upload, and if you hear two notes played at the same time, it's probably considered a polyphonic ringtone. Almost all of the midi files I have available here are polyphonic. A search on Google or a glance in your owner's manual will probably tell you whether your phone will support these.
Monophonic tones are simple tunes, most commonly compatible with today's cell phones. The majority of cell phones can only make a single tone at a time. The monophonic ringtone tune is comprised of a series of sequential tones at different frequencies.
Polyphonic Ringtones
Polyphonic tones are played on cellular phones that have the capability of playing up to 16 separate tones at once. The combination of tones creates a harmonic melody. Polyphonic ringtones are more musical than a monophonic ringtone. Newer phones support polyphonic ringtones.
As mentioned, more and more phones are supporting digital audio. Some of them are integrating limited MP3 players directly into the phone. Most phones that will play this sort of ringtone support QCP ringtones. I'm not going to go into great detail on how to make QCP ringtones, but this appears to be a pretty good guide. Basically, from what I know, a QCP ringtone is more or less a low-quality MP3. I don't use them myself, as they take a great deal more of the phone's internal memory than midi ringtones, and most phones' speakers aren't really up to the task of playing digital music.
Images
I'm not sure whether phones will accept anything besides JPEG images. They'll probably take GIFs, but I've never tried. With images, at least with my phone, the phone will squish and stretch images a little to accomodate the size of its screen, but will have trouble reading an image which is way too big for the phone's screen.
This is a list of screen sizes I found on sprintusers.com. I make no claims as to its accuracy, assuming your phone is listed.
If your phone's not in there, Google or your manual is once again your best bet.
That's really about all there is to know about images. If you're graphics-savvy, I'll point out that there's not much point in uploading an extremely high quality version of an image, as the phone's LCD screen is not exactly a 30" plasma screen, so I'd save JPEGs at a quality in the neighborhood of 6 to 8.
2.) How do I find content to upload?
I'm not going to go into a lot of detail here either. If you don't know how to find images on the internet, you probably shouldn't be trying this either. Google Image Search is your best bet, I guess. As far as ringtones, the internet is full of midi files, especially now that they've made a resurgence due to their popularity as ringtones. If you're looking for midi songs by a particular artist, I suggest Googling the artist's name, plus "midi". There's no guarantee that you'll find anything - I never have been able to find "Here Comes Your Man" by the Pixies - but most vaguely popular songs will be represented. You should probably listen to the midi before you decide to upload it (Internet Explorer or Windows Media Player should be able to handle this, although there are lots of free programs which can play midi files...I think Winamp will, too). A lot of midi files are total crap, further proof that access to paint does not make someone an artist, a saying I have just this moment invented.
At last count, being ten seconds before I wrote this, I have 15516 midi files, some of which I use, most of which are crap, and all of which are unsorted. I will likely someday sort through a number of the more useful-looking ones and upload them for people to take freely, but not until I'm more certain of the legalities involved.
3.) Okay, I found something to upload. Now what?
Good job, the hard part's out of the way. First, you'll need to know where on your computer the file is located. Probably easiest to make a folder for it all in My Documents (or whatever your operating system has). Next, you'll want to proceed to the upload page, where you will see a control like this:
You can give your file whatever description you want, although I find it helpful to name them something vaguely relevant. When you have your phone number and a description for the file, click the Browse button, to open a file selector:
Find and select your file, then click Open, and the path to the file should appear in the box, as such:
You should be good to go. Click "Upload File", and a text message will be sent to your phone containing the encoded URL for the file, which is stored on my webserver, and automatically deleted after a while. More after I've had some sleep.
