The major appeal of a Hewlett-Packard branded home servers is the plethora of features that they pile on top of the Microsoft-made software - not least of all the ability to truly integrate and make the most of mobile devices with the platform.

Smaller applications made by third parties move to bridge this gap on a regular basis, and this little number is no exception. Mov2Phn is an app that monitors a folder selected by the user, and converts any videos placed in that folder into a mobile friendly and economically sized format that is customizable for almost any mobile video device that connects to a computer.

The software is still in beta and so there are just 3 Nokia handset profiles set up (the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Nokia N95 and Nokia N97), but users can either wait for the first final release, or create and submit their own configuration settings.

The app's developer, Matthias Wennergren, explains on his blog that the existing configurations can be copied, renamed and customized. Take the N97 config for example;

[INFO]
Manufacturer=Nokia
Model=N97

[AUTHOR]
Name=Mathias Wennergren
Email=**********

[VIDEO]
Resolution=640x360
Aspect=16:9
FrameRate=25
Bitrate=1200
Quality=7 ;1=Best, 30=Worst

[AUDIO]
SamplingFreq=44100
Bitrate=96000 Channels=2

[OUTPUT]
Format=.mp4

For most phones you probably only need to play with the Resolution (width x height in pixels), the Aspect (16:9 or 4:3), and the Quality settings. 1 is the best quality and 30 is the worst quality. 7 as in the example gives excellent quality for the good screen that the Nokia N97 has (even so good so that it works fine on a 42 inch plasma). A quality value of 10 begins to get pixelated on the N97, but works well on smaller screens.

The application runs as a service on the server rather than a specific add-in the applications one true down-side at this point in time - but the software is certainly one of the more useful add-ins that is worth keeping an eye on if you are a Home Server user.