When I first bought my Windows Mobile
INTRODUCTION
phone, I hoped to stop using a dedicated media playback device and simply
use Windows Media Player (WMP) on my phone. However, anyone using WMP
will quickly discover its shortcomings (and it does have many shortcomings).
It’s obvious Conduits Technologies attempts to not only fill in the gaps,
but tries to far surpass WMP with Pocket Player.
But is Pocket Player good enough to make you consider leaving your dedicated media
player at home? Read on to see!
Pocket Player v2.72 was previously reviewed by Jeff Neithammer. Noticeable updates for users of earlier versions of
WHAT’S HOT
Pocket Player include:
Setup requires the straight-forward procedure
SETUP
you would follow for most other Windows Mobile software. Download the software and
launch the installer. Connect your mobile device and let Active Sync or Windows Mobile Device Center do the rest.
Pocket Player’s feature set can be divided into two main areas:
PRODUCT FEATURES
media management and media playback. First I will look at media management using Pocket Player’s
library features and then I will examine its playback functionality.
When you first start Pocket Player you will
see how quickly it is able to scan your device for media files and present
you with your first set of playlists. You’re completely ready to begin playing your media
within seconds. However, you will certainly want to customize your playlist by browsing the
media library. You can navigate the media library using your phone’s thumbpad for one-handed
operation or you can also use gestures to navigate media files. Anyone familiar with the
Apple iPhone interface will be familiar with gesture navigation. A vertical swipe
of the stylus or your finger provides an effective means of quickly running up or down
a playlist. Swiping left to right will navigate up the library’s hierarchy. Tapping an item will
either drill down into the library or begin playback. As you might expect,
you can browse the Pocket Player media library by song title, artist, album, genre,
release date, or contributing artists.
Two very interesting sections of the media library are Podcasts and Web Guide. Podcasts will
group media files identified as podcasts during file scanning, but it will also allow you to
enter URLs for your favorite podcast feeds so you can stream them directly
from the web to Pocket Player. By default, local files are classified as podcasts if any of the information
describing the file contains the word “podcast”, but you can configure the Podcast Handler to match
other keywords as well.
The Web Guide allows you to browse other online media sources and stream them directly to your mobile phone.
You can search or browse SHOUTcast Radio feeds as well as other popular podcast directories and MP3 blogs.
The Playlists section of the library provides access to user-defined and automatic playlists.
As you navigate the library, if you tap-and-hold an item, it will be added to the current playlist.
You can save your playlists for later use and access them in the Playlist area of the library.
However, Pocket Player also provides a set of automatic playlists that can be generated from your
personal ratings and playback frequencies, or you can generate random playlists. If you’re headed to
gym for an hour-long workout, just select the “One hour of music” playlist and Pocket Player will
give you an hour’s worth of random tracks in your playlist.
Pocket Player’s Network category allows you to connect to UPnP media servers on your local network,
such as Windows Media Player 11 and Orb. Once you’re connected, you can stream any compatible media from the network
media server to your phone.
Once you’ve selected your media, it’s time to begin playback. Pocket Player supports a wide variety of
media formats, including MP3, WMA, WMV, OGG Vorbis, FLAC and WAV. Protected WMA support is also provided.
Playback is straight-forward, using typical play/pause, forward and reverse controls. A 10-band equalizer allows you to adjust
the sound for different listening devices and environments. As with navigation of the media library, the
thumbpad can be used to facilitate one-handed operation.
One of my major complaints about Windows Media Player is its inability to remember where you last stopped
playback. This is especially a problem when Windows Mobile decides to shutdown WMP because it needs more
memory for foreground applications. I’m pleased to say that Pocket Player does an excellent job of
remembering playback positions. I would have expected it to remember the playback position of the last
track I was playing, but it actually remembers the playback position for every item in the media library.
Suppose you’re in the middle of a track that’s streaming over your home network but you need to leave home. When you
get in the car, you can continue listening to a podcast you may have started playing that morning. When you arrive
back home, Pocket Player can resume your network stream right where it left off.
Another nice advantage of Pocket Player over Windows Media Player is its ability to
conveniently skip around within a track. If you listen to audiobooks or podcasts you may find your mind
wandering from time to time. When you suddenly realize you’ve missed the last 3 minutes of your audio,
Pocket Player provides a convenient skip menu to jump around within the track. Accessing the
menu takes a few taps since it’s buried a few levels down in the menu structure, but once you perform
your first skip the menu will keep reappearing on screen until you dismiss it. So if you jump back one minute,
listen a few seconds, and realize you didn’t jump back far enough, the skip menu is still on-screen.
You can continue to zero in on your desired location, jumping forward or backward until you’ve found it.
Very nice! With WMP you need to estimate your desired
location on the playback slider which is very difficult if your track is more than a few minutes long.
Because Pocket Player utilizes a plug-in design, it’s possible to extend its
basic functionality using the
plug-ins
offered on the Conduits website. One of my favorite plug-ins is DSP Stretch.
For those of us who always have more activities than we do time, DSP Stretch
can help us add a little more time to our day. (Well, sort of.) If you have a 20
minute commute to work and you can’t quite listen to the full 25 minutes
of that ESPN PTI podcast, install and enable DSP Stretch and speed up the tempo by 20%.
Viola! You’re listening to a 25 minute track in just 20 minutes and the
audio is adjusted to prevent people from sounding like chipmunks.
If you enjoy having the ability to change the appearance of your media player,
you can download any of several skins
from the Pocket Player website. For both plug-ins and skins, Conduits offers a free
software development kit allowing users to extend Pocket Player to suit their exact needs or tastes.
Finally, two features worth noting are Pocket Players integration with the Today screen
and its ability to smoothly transition between portrait and landscape layouts. I’m always
curious to discover how an application will respond when I slide out the keypad on my
T-Mobile Wing and the device switches to landscape mode. Pocket Player adapts very nicely
and all its functionality is still accessible. With the
option of installing a Today screen item, you can control Pocket Player directly from the
Today screen and leave the player in the background. You can also install a notification
icon on the top of the screen to provide immediate access to Pocket Player no matter what
other application you may be using.
Most of my media is strictly audio, but Pocket Player does support video playback as well.
It can support whatever video formats your phone already supports through Windows Media Player
and it handled whatever video tracks I threw at it very well even when playing full screen.
As you can see, Pocket Player takes you far beyond anything Windows Media Player may offer.
It’s a very powerful addition to the mobile media player market, but there are always a few
things that can improve any product. Take a look at page 2 to see how Conduits could make
its product even better.
At the time of writing, documentation is not
HELP SUPPORT
available for Pocket Player, but according to Conduits’ website, it “should
be available shortly.” Once ready, it will be accessible from the
web.
In the interim, all of the questions I directed to Conduits Technologies were quickly
answered via e-mail. There is also a community forum on the Conduits web site where
questions can be posted.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
with Windows Mobile 5.0/6 Standard and Pro, Windows Mobile 2003, Smartphone 2003/2002, Pocket PC 2002
and Pocket PC 2000 (ARM only). I found the recommended requirements of 4MB Program
RAM and 1 MB Storage RAM to be very accurate.
Pocket Player performed very well during testing. Although I did
BUGS AND WISHES
have one instance when audio seemed to “skip” during playback, I was unable to reproduce the
problem even when trying to stress the OS. Overall, I was very
pleased with playback and navigation performance. I was especially
impressed with the library’s initial scan and update speeds.
I have used a few media applications that
eventually cause my phone to crash or slowly eat up memory, but
this wasn’t a problem with Pocket Player. It seems to be very stable and manages memory very well.
I only experienced
one crash while browsing a networked media server using the UPnP features,
but the phone was also trying to establish a GPRS connection from my basement
where there is no cellular signal. It’s difficult to know whether Pocket Player or
Windows Mobile was the cause of that problem.
I ran into a couple of apparent bugs in the media
library that are scheduled to be fixed in a 3.52 update. The “Podcasts” section
of the library incorrectly displays a “Shuffle All” item which causes item selection
to be off by one. So selecting “Shuffle All” at the top of the list is really selecting
the second item in the list, “Add Podcast Feed”.
UPnP capabilities allowed me to browse an Orb server on my home network,
but I had a lot of clicks and pops during playback of a video source and I never saw any
video. Because Pocket Player depends on the underlying video playback components of Windows
Media Player, there’s not much Conduits can do to resolve these problems apart from implementing
their own video playback engine in a future release. Playback of audio sources over my network
worked very well.
There are a few things I’d like to see in future releases.
Pocket Player always connects to the live podcast feed
so it will show whatever podcasts are in the feed without filtering out podcasts
you’ve already heard. Feeds are also streamed rather than being downloaded and played
from local storage. I’d like to see Pocket Player give me the option of downloading and
caching a fixed amount of podcast data so I don’t need an active broadband connection
during playback. Ideally, I’d be able to indicate which feeds I want to download and
prioritize them for playback. I’d also like Pocket Player to keep track of which feed items I
haven’t heard and only add those items to a podcast playlist.
Even though I’m extremely pleased with Pocket Player’s resume capabilities, it doesn’t
remember which track of an album you might have been playing. If you navigate to the track, it
will remember where you left off within the track and continue playback, but I’d like to see it automatically
restore the last active playlist and track.
You won’t be able to play M4V or 3GP video formats unless your
phone already supports them through Windows Media Player. I’d like to see more
video formats supported in a future release since many vodcasts I see online make
use of these formats.
Also, I’d like to see support for playing back audiobooks
from Audible.com. Currently, you’ll need to stick with the Audible player.
PURCHASING
Windows Mobile Pocket PC and Smartphone can be purchased for $19.95 from the pocketnow.com store. A fully-functional 30 day trial is also
available from that link. Standard/Smartphone users – check out this link.
For registered users of Pocket Player 2.X and 3.X for Windows Mobile Pocket
PC and Smartphone from September 2005 to present, the upgrade is free.
Upgrades for customers who purchased Pocket Player 1.X and 2.X before September
1st 2005, are priced at $9.95 from Conduits Direct.
More information, including a complete list of skins and features, can also be found at the Conduits
website.
PROS
Support for a broad range of media types
Tracks last playback position of every media item
Plug-in filters, such as “DSP Stretch”, for greater playback control
Streaming of podcasts and other media from the Internet and UPnP devices
10-band equalizer with presets
CONS
A few bugs in the Podcast section of the media library
Doesn’t support Audible.com content
Lacks M4V/3GP video support (unless your phone already supports it)
| Value |  |
| Ease of Use |
 |
| Features | |
Overall |
|
I wasn’t really expecting Pocket Player
OVERALL IMPRESSION
to impress me much beyond Windows Media Player. I hoped it would be able
to resume content where I left off and provide a way to skip around within
a track. I didn’t think there was much more it could offer. However, I
will be making regular use of Pocket Player because of its podcast support
and DSP Stretch plug-in and I definitely don’t see the need to carry a dedicated
media player any more. With a free 30-day trial, it’s definitely worth
checking out.
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