Plus! Portable Audio Device Power Toy

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/plus/dme/portabledevices.asp#PTAudio">http://www.microsoft.com/windows/plus/dme/portabledevices.asp#PTAudio</a><br /><br />"Get the Plus! Portable Audio Devices Power Toy! This tool lets you instantly access and manage the content on a Windows Media Player 9 Series compatible portable audio device attached to your computer."<br /><br />It is about 2.7MB in size, requires Windows XP, Windows Media Player 9 and supports devices listed at and supports devices <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/plus/dme/ptsupport.asp">listed here</a>. Hrm... I don't see a single Pocket PC on that page. :?

[Fzara]

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/plus/dme/ptsupport.asp

I dont see why they wouldnt include the PPC. Perhaps they dont see the PPC as an audio device at all. :evil:

[bikeman]

Uh, are Pocket PCs Windows Media Player 9 compatible?

[Fzara]

Ahh, I dont know how I could have forgotten that little tid-bit.

Ugh-there it is, I'm running v8.5.

Thanks bike.

[obarnes]

Works ok for me using FS LOOX... I get a window listing the following when I launch the "Plus! Portable Audio Devices" app:

PPC
SD-MMCard
JAZZ (F)

You also get a "PPC" and "SD-MMCard" drive icon in your "My Computer" view under the heading "Audio Devices"... This seems to make it very slow to refresh the view though...

That's about all... it just appears to allow you to drag n drop files via this as opposed to the old right click on AS | explore option...

There may of course be more features if you have a 'compatible' device?

- Oliver.

[Paragon]

Hey no problem, I would love to use this application! Mind if I borrow your USA credit card Ed? I can't quite figure this one out. It's not like MS is a some corner store and can't get the details worked out. Perhaps it has to do with the content providers only supplying US material at this time so they thing no one else would be interested in it. With Avantgo, and Mazingo as well as one or two others offering international service I don't see why there should be any legal, or territorial issues.???

Dave

[Don Sorcinelli]

Hmmm... Using Windows Media Player 9, I can see my Pocket PC without the plugin. I just go to "Copy to CD or Device", then look at the dropdown list on the right (under "Items on Device"). I can see my Pocket PC and storage cards.

I think the Power Toy was designed to allow you to easily sync to non-Pocket PC audio devices. There have been similar drivers/plugins made available in the past.

DonS

[alandashby]

I tried it and it works for my iPAQ 1910 as well. It does not seem to do much, just adds in your My Computer a new section for audio devices. I have a Hp Media Center PC so I get icons for all my storage cards, I also get icons for my ipaq and its storage card. I simply allows you to drag and drop content onto the cards. I will play with it a little to see if it does anything useful.

[gorkon280]

Ahh....so that's why there was a driver update! ;) I am still waiting for a firmware update.....little bug with my Zen....once it's charged all the way up with the USB port, it will not turn on until you reset it. Other then that, my Zen ROCKS!

[jeffmd]

I'd be interested in this why? anyone who actually listens to music knows its tons faster to copy directly the memory card, in which case you dont need any of this mumbo jumbo wmp stuff.

[Cortex]

guys and gals...

its not for pocketpc because pocketpc does all this already:

"1. View and access your portable audio device directly from the My Computer window on your computer
2. Drag and drop or copy and paste song files directly from your hard drive right to your music device
3. Delete individual files from the device, or reformat the device to delete all existing content"

pocketpc 2002 runs MediaPlayer 8.5 but on the MediaPlayer 9 on the desktop (as pointed out above) has a nice interface for converting file to WMA and placing them on your pocket pc. Activesync provides access to the files directly and also allows the MyComputer icon to show your device....

we dont need this for pocketpc

[Felix Torres]

I'd be interested in this why? anyone who actually listens to music knows its tons faster to copy directly the memory card, in which case you dont need any of this mumbo jumbo wmp stuff.

That is *assuming* you have a card-based player.

But that does not apply to the various Jukeboxes or the non-expandable players, most of which are often only accessible via the bundled-in apps.

As the owner of a Rio Riot (20GB jukebox; 3"x5"x1.3", $169) I heartily welcome this applet because I no longer need to rely on the bundled-in apps (Rio Player--the most obnoxious nagware out there--or Moodlogic, good for downloading but nowhere near as useful as WMP9) and can either use WMP9 or the applet, which is nice and simple and lets me use Windows XP's Explorer--with all its tag-based sorting capabilities--to manage my portable collection.

Plus, when you consider that a lot of the more innovatively shaped portable players (the iRivers, the Nike's, etc) are non-expandable and/or rely on proprietary apps, this is a very useful addition to a lot of people.
Hopefully it'll be rolled into future versions of the OS.

Different strokes for different folks and all that.

[rave]

Uh, are Pocket PCs Windows Media Player 9 compatible?
Well, for audio, yes. V8 decoders (including PPC's) can play V9 encoded audio. They "locked" the decoding algorithm from V8, ensuring future compatibility. :)

As for video, they locked it at V9.

[jeffmd]

felix, thus you totaly missed the whole idea of this thread, which has nothing to do with non pocket pc platforms.

[Felix Torres]

felix, thus you totaly missed the whole idea of this thread, which has nothing to do with non pocket pc platforms.

Uh, miss what?
That the PlusPAD powertoy lets XP do with non-PocketPC media Players what Pocket PCs can do?
Other folks already pointed it out.

The poster pointed out the toy exists.
As an early adopter (I got my copy on saturday) I shared my experience.
If I was out of line, the moderators would've nuked my post.
Since it stays, I assume I'm within bounds.

I'm outta here!

[gorkon280]

I'd be interested in this why? anyone who actually listens to music knows its tons faster to copy directly the memory card, in which case you dont need any of this mumbo jumbo wmp stuff.

For devices like my Zen, all you had to manage music on your player was Creative's Playcenter. Only kind of nice thing you have in that is the ability to synchronize your PC's DB (in Playcenter) with your devices library. Now what I REALLY want is a DRIVE LETTER! Let me write to it with any app. You can store data on it, but you need to use creative's file manager or Notmad Explorer. What I want to know, but am unwilling to try at the moment is can you create folders on the device and have it mirror your filing system on the PC. I may try this this coming weekend. Now if the plugin will automatically recode wmp 9 stuff to something your device can handle or install a codec on your device to handle wmp9, thats another thing. Although I use MP3 (not WMA) mostly. It may be a bit bigger, but I can move it from one device to another without DRM or anything else getting in the road. If you just let me mount the thing like a hard disk I can manage things by hand if and when I want as well as write to it and play on the PC from it. Also include a tool to syncro foldeers that I select....ie, the My Music folder. After that, if there is any space left, let me use it in a normal way. Make my player like a true hard drive(with some unique abilities) and I will be a happy camper! Even happier if I can also plug it into my e740. USB rocks! :rock on dude!: