[General Questions and Answers] ffman2152:
I just bought a new Samsung Captivate for Christmas, with AT&T, and unfortunately, it’s still a 2.1, and hoping for an update, really soon. There’s a lot to learn using the Captivate, and so far, I love the quality that is built into it. This is a problem, I don’t yet understand.

I read up on connecting the Captivate and my Windows XP laptop, and found a software that was supposed to loaded on my pc, the Samsung Kies. I downloaded it, but when I try to open it, it goes into an error message about a JIT debugger. Really? Is that a windows thing, or a Samsung thing? But, I left it alone, until last night, I called an AT&T Tech, and after awhile, he had me download another piece, a driver, to make it work. I did, and it now works…, sort of. It’s because of not knowing if it’s an Android ONLY problem, that keeps things from showing on my pc, or is it a compatibility issue, between Windows XP and Android. Let me explain it better.

When I now connect the USB cord between the two, I drop the screen down, and click on connected by USB cable. I then get asked if I want to MOUNT the phone. The Captivate then gives me three options: to either update Kies, Media mode, or Mass storage. Regardless of my choice, I’m not getting everything off my Captivate. If I click on media, my Real Player window opens, and it gives me the choice of music, or snapshots. I can’t understand though, how to choose VIDEO? I want to try and show the identical thing on my pc, that I am viewing on my Captivate. I was using Droid Streamer for the first time, and found Avatar, and when I clicked on it, it showed the movie broke into 5 episodes. I clicked on the first, and the movie started. A beautiful display, showing the movie, awed me. But I quickly thought, if I can see it on a 4” screen, can I see it on my pc monitor? And if I do, will it allow me to send it to my tv? My computer has a tv out, on it’s graphics card, and it allows me to transfer what I’m watching on my pc, to my LCD tv. But trying to get the Avatar movie, to show on my pc, while it’s showing on the Captivate, didn’t work. I simply can’t see video, by what I am trying. I understand, Captivate, is an Android system, while XP, is a Windows system. Is there a compatibilty issue there, that prevents what is showing on the Captivate, to also allow it to be shown on my XP laptop? Or is it an issue, of not knowing how to do it, instead of it can’t be done? If so, where can I find out, how to do it?

Something else I don’t understand, is that there are a lot more programs, on my Captivate, both that came with it, and that I have added, yet XP only shows a part of what’s on the Captivate. Is that normal? And if not, what’s wrong that I need to do differently?

I’m trying to do away with cable charges each month. I recently moved to a new location, and I haven’t turned on the cable. My next buy will probably be a Roku set top box, to stream everything from the web, and leave my pc from doing that. I think I read, that the Captivate I bought, allows signals directly to the tv, from it. But I haven’t tried anything, yet. If I’m right, and can by pass the laptop directly to the pc, I’d no doubt have to buy a special wire, to hook up the two. Am I accurate, that the Captivate can stream programming, like the Avatar movie, directly to the tv? Or am I confused on that? One concern I have that I hope to achieve, is to find free streaming from local network tv. Moving to a new home location, means unfortunately that my over the air HD antennae, doesn’t work very well any more, so I’m missing most of the local news, without a cable or dish contract. But it seems the lack of Android 2.2 for us, and it’s enabling FLASH finally, prevents some streaming services from being available.

Any help or ideas on this, will be appreciated. Thank’s in advance.

Ffman2152