Conduits Releases Pocket Player

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.handango.com/brainstore/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&productId=79548' target='_blank'>http://www.handango.com/brainstore/...productId=79548</a><br /><br /></div><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/pp-default.gif" /><br /><br />"Pocket Player is a rockin' way to enjoy music on your Pocket PC. Through multiple media and playlist formats, and an intuitive interface, Pocket Player means less taps, more music! What Makes Pocket Player different?:<br /><br />• Full MP3, Ogg Vorbis, WMA, WAV support <br />• Skinnable (Pocket Player skins, WSZ skins) <br />• Skin hue adjustment: change skin colors <br />• Visualization and plugin support <br />• Pocket PC Notification Icon <br />• HTTP, Windows Network, Shoutcast, Icecast streaming <br />• ID3 v1/v1.1/v2 reading; scans playlist in background <br />• Gapless, crossfading, and Microdrive support <br />• 10-band Equalizer and Preamp, with presets <br />• "Local Content" playlist auto-detects all tracks on device <br />• Playlist manager keeps track of all playlists on device <br />• User-managed Bookmarks support; jump to a file and time <br />• For Audio books, "Seek to last position" <br />• Pocket PC 2000 (ARM only), Pocket PC 2002, and Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC support <br />• Hardware button mapping <br />• Automatic screen shutoff"<br /><br />You can download a fully-functional <a href="http://download.handango.com/shareware/31405/pocketplayer.exe">30 day trial version</a>. Conduits is offering a 25% off sale price of $14.95 until the end of July, after which it will cost $19.95. The full features can be <a href="http://www.conduits.com/products/player/">found on the Conduits site.</a><br /><br />I've played around with Pocket Player a little, and it's excellent - light years ahead of WMP when it comes to audio. And unlike a few of the other audio players on the market, this EQ actually works properly! :mrgreen: Way to go Conduits! [Affiliate]

[Snobosh]

Is it true the equalizer only works with mp3 and ogg -- not with wma?

[JeffreyCentex]

This doesn't seem to work on my Ipaq 2215 (10 soft resets later)...

I tried playing straight MP3 and some WMP 8 encoded files with no luck..

[Tamungage]

Working on my Ipaq 2215, well most of it. I can't seem to get the spectrum analyzer to work. No big deal.

[Stake]

Tried it out but I had issues with the quality of the playback. It sounds like it's rapidy studdering/echo when I play music with heavy beats. It's kinda hard to describe. The player also just stops randomly after a few seconds of play on some songs. I'm running it on a Toshiba Genio e550G with a 1GB MicroDrive. My main mp3 player, WithMP3, has no problems playing either.

The song I tried it on that was clearly noticable was "Maxwell - Ascension (Don't Ever Wonder)"

I also tried it on Diana Krall song and it's not as noticable though you will notice it in a few instances.

Hope this is fixable. Maybe I'm the only one with the problem.

[sjmcloughlin]

Please may I ask a stupid question, does this indeed play live internet streaming radio such as WOR710.com (New York Classical Radio Station) which asks to be played in Windows Media Player? Thank you.

[heov]

how does this compare to Pocket Music?

Pocket Music seems to have everything this does.

I'm assuming if the EQ doesn't work w/ WMA, they probably "cheat" (for lack of a better word) by just making a HTML file w/ the song encoded in it using the WMP IE Control...

[Raphael Salgado]

According to the text on the website, it says that the visualization only works for MP3 and OGG. I wonder why no one can seem to do WMAs. My friend has PocketMusic and he says the WinAMP-like spectrum analyzer doesn't do anything useful for WMA either.

[Jason Patterson]

Thank you to everyone for the great comments and feedback so far! To answer some questions:

snobosh: you are correct, the equalizer works with MP3 and Ogg only at this time. We could not achieve a high-enough quality WMA equalizer in time for 2.0, so it's back on the drawing board for 2.1/etc.

JeffreyCentex: what exactly happened on your 2215 device? All Pocket PC 2003 systems here worked fine -- just run it, and it should come up with all your local content; tapping play starts it up, etc. What happens when you play your MP3/WMA files?

Tamungage: as with the equalizer, the spectrum analyzer is only for MP3/Ogg. Were you wanting it with WMA? It should work on all other file types -- just tap the small visualization area - it toggles between oscilloscope, spectrum, and 'off'.

Stake: have you tried increasing your audio output buffer? On the microdrive, you defininely need a 2+ second buffer, as the seek times can disrupt playback. Or, is it not a "real" stuttering, and basically the audio breaking down on heavy bass beats? Are you using an eq at the time? Maybe turn down the preamp? Try using the built-in large oscilloscope visualizations -- is it clipping a lot?

sjmcloughlin: Pocket Player supports any internet streaming radio streams in MP3 and Ogg formats -- essentially any Shoutcast or Icecast streams. It looks like WOR710.com uses RealPlayer to stream their content, so that wouldn't be supported. But, if it is MP3, you can certainly stream that. Pocket Player also supports Shoutcast metadata -- in other words, updating the song title during the stream playback.

[pepemosca]

I have a iPAQ h5450, and the button mapping works terrible.. it kills my iTask even after i EXIT the player. I have to do a Soft Reset to have my iTask working again.

Is like the button mapping still ON after the player is OFF.

Also, the Screen Toggle doesn't work when the player is Minimized. And the screen turns on even by pressing the "Volume Button" (the side buttons)

I like the thing that the screens turns off automatically after an amount of time... but it turns on by pressing every key. I like the feature of Pocket Music that "Locks" every button excepts the Volume buttons (side buttons), Power Button and Screen Toggle button.

[abl00m]

Stake, I have the same problem with random stopping that you have described... Jason - any idea what is causing this? I wanted so bad for this to work... :cry: The random stopping does appear to get worse the longer it is used. This is a killer if not fixed!

In addition, I echo pepemosca's concerns about the screen toggle. I prefer WMP's screen toggle where the screen is off but all of the mapped buttons still function without turning the screen back on (unless of course the screen toggle button is pressed).

I'm running on an HP5450 w/512Mb SD card playing a mixture of MP3, WMA, and a few OGG files.

Jason, let me know if I can help with feedback/testing - I really think there is potential here...

[Stake]

Hi Jason,

I did have the buffer to 5000ms and 4096MB of RAM cache on the first run but the "studdering" still occurs. The EQ is off, visualizations are off and I've also tried copying the mp3 over to my SD card and it still occurs. Since it's hard to describe, I've provided a short sample of what it sounds like on the Toshiba.

Sample: Toshiba PPlayer Sample (http://www.swingoutsister.com/toshiba_pplayer_output.mp3)

If you listen to this sample, you'll hear "echos" from the beat in the track. It seems like it's a decoding issue but I'm no software developer.

If you have questions or solutions, I'm happy to help.

[Jason Dunn]

Sample: Toshiba PPlayer Sample (http://www.swingoutsister.com/toshiba_pplayer_output.mp3)

Could you upload a clip of what it's supposed to sound like? Because, to me, it sounds like a normal electronica song. ;-)

[xymantix]

I'm experiencing the random stops too, unfortunately. I've got an iPAQ 1910 and have tried installing it both normally and on the storage card without any success. It starts playing a .mp3 file (VBR) just fine for about 20-30 seconds, then just stops. The song title continues to scroll in the top window, and the program is still responsive, but it just won't play more than a few seconds of audio. For what it's worth, it seems to be exacerbated by adjusting the volume...

I really hope this will be addressed soon, as this looks like a fantastic app - good sound, nicely skinnable, nice playlist features, etc.

[sjr]

everything works really well here, best music player there is.
a few things would improve it though, at the moment its scanning the whole deveice for playlists, adobe reader uses the same extension for its font lists or something like that so, im getting 'AdobeFnt' playlists. maby a solution would to just be to scan My Documents.
Another minor thing that would just be nice to have for the amount of code required would be a id3/ogg header editor.
another feature, not sure how feasible this would be, open spec input plugins, for example mp3 plugin would play mp3 files, so someone could write a plugin to support other formats, this would truely make pocketplayer the only option for pda's.

Cheers

[TopDog]

I'm using PocketMusic and it works excelent for me, with so many people having trouble, I think I'll hang on to it a while longer...

Love the looks of the player though...

[juni]

I'd like for Pocket Music to have its own skin format too like this one, perhaps even better skins could be made... ;)

[sjr]

or maby everything isnt working fine for me, i just got a random stop that other people are talking about.

[jwf]

or maby everything isnt working fine for me, i just got a random stop that other people are talking about.

I'm getting the random stops playing MP3 from a 128Mb CF card on a Jornada 568. Shame - it's a nice player, the cross-fade stops the Jornada speaker-click between tracks, but I can't use it in 'anger' with the random stops :-(

JF

[Stake]

Here's the mp3 comparison:

Pocket Player playback:
Sample 1 (http://www.swingoutsister.com/toshiba_pplayer_output.mp3)
What it should sound like:
Sample 2 (http://www.swingoutsister.com/original_playback.mp3)

You should clearly be able to distinguish the two samples. You might want to use headphones. :wink:

[slothdog]

I can't get it to play mp3 streams from www.Live365.com and the "open file" dialog doesn't go down more than one directory. My music is in "\SD Card\Music\album name\*.ogg" and I can't get it to do anything other than show mp3's that are on my device. Oggs don't show up, although it loads them with the "Local Content" filter. A dialog like PocketMusic that lets you choose an entire directory (and all subdirectories) would be ideal. Also it seems to take a really long time to start compared to other players.

Other than that, I'd seriously consider buying this. Good stuff.

[JeffreyCentex]

what exactly happened on your 2215 device? All Pocket PC 2003 systems here worked fine -- just run it, and it should come up with all your local content; tapping play starts it up, etc. What happens when you play your MP3/WMA files?


Well, I finally got Pocket Player to work (somewhat) by re-installing it.. It now will play my MP3's and WMA files (and Shoutcast for that matter)..

However, it has caused a few problems, some of which have already been discussed:

1. It will lock the machine when you try to exit from the program. Recovery is to turn it off and then do a soft reset (doing a soft reset alone while it is locked does nothing). This must be done everytime I use it..
2. When operating under battery power, the media player will stop working after about 2 minutes of inactivity (with the screen toggled off). It seems that the player isn't telling the PPC OS to stay on, even though the "Disable device idle sleep" option is selected...
3. Stream and MP3 will just stop playing (see other comments).

Hope this helps for diagnosis... :)

[pepemosca]

Here's the mp3 comparison:

Pocket Player playback:
Sample 1 (http://www.swingoutsister.com/toshiba_pplayer_output.mp3)
What it should sound like:
Sample 2 (http://www.swingoutsister.com/original_playback.mp3)

You should clearly be able to distinguish the two samples. You might want to use headphones. :wink:

I distinguish the problem... are you sure is not an AMP problem? Have you tried playing this file at the same volume level with another Player Software?

[Jason Patterson]

Once again, we'd like to thank you all for the great support!

To answer more questions (remember, we offer full support of the trial version via [email protected] too!):

pepemosca: do you mean that after quitting out of Pocket Player, you can't bring up iTask via its button? We've gotten several requests for "don't turn on the screen when a button is pressed" -- expect that in the next release.


abl00m: this random stopping problem is quite interesting -- in the course of development, we tested Pocket Player with thousands of test MP3's and Ogg files, high and low bitrates, ones with CRC errors, for hours and hours, streaming, etc, and never had this problem. Is it a specific file that is stopping it every time? Or, when it stops, can you press play and get through the whole track?

Stake: how did you create that sample? Did you run the audio output of your Toshiba up to your desktop, capture and create an MP3 from it? We can certainly hear the bass echo thumping in the background there, but only in the Toshiba-MP3 file you posted, and not the original. That's quite strange -- we can't replicate this on any device here. Are you using Gapless or Crossfading? Not that that should have an impact, but try disabling it? We're just not sure what that might be.

xymantix: are you consistently getting a 'stop' on a particular track? Could you possibly email that track to us ([email protected]) so that we might fix the issue?

Juni: full documentation, including skin creation, is at http://www.conduits.com/products/player/documentation.asp

slothdog: Live365 streams are a bit strange -- they tie their streams to ad placement, so that you have to have their browser window always open and seeing ads while it's streaming. The standard "Open File" dialog, like all other applications, only supports files in the My Documents folder -- but of course Pocket Player has a workaround for it -- simply tap the Playlist button, and then tap Select > Add Folder, and you should be able to navigate to your SD Card's Ogg storage. Just like PocketMusic, it can recurse folders. We basically included that Open File button for legacy reasons -- it's useful to quickly open a playlist or single file.

JeffreyCentex: glad you are having more success. Perhaps, did you have another audio player running in the background? It shouldn't be locking the device when you try to exit, even if you're playing a file. Can you just start it up, and then exit successfully? Does playing a track introduce the lockup? We're looking into the device sleep problem, though we haven't replicated it yet. The problem might be tied to your device locking problem. Could you contact us at [email protected]?

Thanks again! :)

[Stake]

I did a .wav capture directly from the Toshbia's headphone out and mp3ed the file. You can hear from the sample that there's something wrong with the output from PPlayer.

There isn't anything turned on in regards to crossfading or gapless playback. I don't know if you guys have any Toshiba e550Gs for testing, but I'd be interested in seeing if anyone else who has a e550G try PPlayer to see if they could replicate the issue.

Has anyone else try this program on other Toshiba branded PDAs?

[Evee Ev]

so far this is the best pocket player i've used. nice job conduits!

[pepemosca]

Jason: The problem about iTask, ocurrs like this:

*I turn off the option "Un-map buttons during background play."
*I exit the PocketPlayer
*I try to use the iTask... and works like is pressed two-times. I mean, works like "ALT+TAB". Also happends with the Calendar, Contacts

UPDATE: I'm testing the problem right now, and doesn't happen any more.. is like self-fixed :? I'll keep you informed.

I have notice another problem, that is the Screen Toggle (I mean, pressing the mapped button) doesn't work on background playback.

About you sayed "don't turn on the screen when a button is pressed": Is great.

But I think that will be great also, to have a funtion that says "lock unmapped buttons when the screen is off"

[abl00m]

Is it a specific file that is stopping it every time?

No, it doesn't seem to matter - the stopping seems to be more related to time than anything. As I mentioned before it "seems" to happen more frequently the longer the app is used. After a soft reset it works for approx. 3 minutes (coincidentally - this is the time limit of my automatic shutdown).

Or, when it stops, can you press play and get through the whole track?

When it stops I can push play and sometimes it will finish the whole track - if I've been using PPlayer for a while it will stop again before the end of the track. After repeated use I get random stops every 10-20 seconds or so. I'm going to turn off my auto sleep function of the OS and see if that helps, even though I have the "Disable device idle sleep" selected.

5 minutes later - still going...

10 minutes later - still going...

I'll let you know if I see a random stop - however, it appears that the random stops can be attributed to the "Disable device idle sleep" not working properly. Why the stops become more frequent through usage is a mystery to me...

15 minutes still going - I used a hardware button to skip a song (auto screen toggle after 6 seconds)

Ahhh :? - Random stop at 17 minutes...

Random stop again at 19 minutes...

Random stop 20 seconds later... Skip song

Random stop 10 seconds later...

Not fun at this point :(

Anyway - hope this helps,

Aaron

[slothdog]

slothdog: Live365 streams are a bit strange -- they tie their streams to ad placement, so that you have to have their browser window always open and seeing ads while it's streaming.

Thanks for the response, Jason. I've been able to open Live365 streams in one other PocketPC audio player (GSPlayer), so I know it's possible, if a bit convoluted. The process goes like this:

- Set your Live365 preferred player to "mp3 player"
- Launch the stream from a PC (this should start playing the stream in Winamp or another mp3 player)
- Save the playlist and copy it to the PPC
- Open the playlist from GSPlayer

There's probably not a huge user-base that would use this feature, but I run a Live365 broadcast, so I feel obligated to mention that there's at least one person trying to get it to work. :)

The standard "Open File" dialog, like all other applications, only supports files in the My Documents folder

Workaround noted. :) I still think it's strange that the default Open Files dialog shows all the mp3 files on my device, regardless of what directory they're in, but doesn't show any of the ogg files.

[hjalmer]

or maby everything isnt working fine for me, i just got a random stop that other people are talking about.

I'm getting the random stops playing MP3 from a 128Mb CF card on a Jornada 568. Shame - it's a nice player, the cross-fade stops the Jornada speaker-click between tracks, but I can't use it in 'anger' with the random stops :-(

JF

I have a Jornada 568, and I'm playing MP3s and WMA files from a 256 meg CF card.

Any track I play stops at around the 45 second mark. The track index goes back to the beginning. Pressing play again starts the track at the beginning. Any bit-rate. Both formats.

I have attempted to change the priority of the decoder and the sizes of the file cache from 0 to max, but I observe no change in performance.

I have no other applications loaded in memory. I have 13 megs of program memory available and 8 megs of storage in RAM.

But also--I'm using the unregistered version.

If you can prove to me this will go away in the full version, I'll ante up in a second.

Meanwhile, I'm going to try reinstalling because audio quality is excellent! I fear my Jornada is underpowered to do all of the things the player is capable of--simultaneously.

Also, I love the EQ. I can't believe WMP doesn't have one. And I can't believe HP didn't include at least bass & treble in hardware.

And control using the directional pad is genius! Finally! Finally!

[abl00m]

Just realized that PPlayer no longer recognizes nor will it play my wma files... ??? mp3 is just fine - but wma is not recognized in the playlist editor and in my existing playlists when trying to play the wma it just sits there doing nothing...

Re-installed to try and see if that cleared anything up, but same problems...

I too would ante up in a second if I weren't having so many problems...

Aaron

[sjr]

ive also noticed a bug where if you press the next track button when the last track in the play list is playing, what happens is the song continues to play but, the gui doesnt continue the play, the cong timer and the visulisation stop, pressing previous track has no effect.

[Jason Patterson]

Good news everyone - we've made progress in tracking down a few of these major issues.

Stake: please email us at [email protected] so we can debug this problem further. We haven't heard reports from others with this issue, but we would like to debug it as best as we can.

pepemosca: we'll integrate the fix of that issue into the 2.01 release. Thank you for the report.

abl00m/hjalmer: thank you for this diagnosis! We have nailed down what is causing the random stop bug: a feature we implemented between the beta, and the final release was a function to detect if the device was turned off. The reason behind this feature was the issue of the device turning on by itself (through a reminder, or at midnight, etc), and if the device was playing, it would have the potential to drain the battery by not turning the device off. Upon detection of a power shutoff, on wakeup Pocket Player stops the track. It looks like there was a bug in that routine, that is erroneously detecting a power shutdown. Can you (or anyone else experiencing the problem) email us at [email protected] so we can get you a beta of 2.01?

slothdog: interesting. Do they not enforce the ad viewing then? They used to require that the browser would pull down an ad perioodically -- if it didn't detect that, it would start looping some message about not closing your browser window. Can you email us a playlist to [email protected]? We'd certainly like to support it.

abl00m: regarding your WMA troubles, check the Options > File Associates screen, and make sure WMA is checked.

sjr: thanks! Fixed for 2.01.

Again, thank you everyone!

[garrans]

Does this software have the ability to skip forward a certain number of seconds in fast forward ?

[Jason Patterson]

garrans: certainly. There is a "hidden button" to the right of the seek tracker on the bottom, which, when tapped, will pop up a seek menu to go back or forward 10 seconds, 1 or 5 minutes.

[xymantix]

xymantix: are you consistently getting a 'stop' on a particular track? Could you possibly email that track to us ([email protected]) so that we might fix the issue?

Jason, I sent a sample file and tons of information to your support address. Just after sending the mail, I read the post about the discovery of the random stop bug - that's fantastic news! Any chance of the new build being available today?

[trachy]

Kudos to Conduits. I see others are encoutering glitches, but I'm experiencing no problems on my 3835. I love the gapless play and the default button settings, but the GUI is what takes my breath away. This is like WinamPAQ - but done by professionals! Finally someone has figured out how to create an interface that isn't cluttered, and yet has everything one needs. I'll pony up $14.95 for this long before the trial ends.

[GadgetMan]

It seems to be a nice product (definitively excellent GUI), but I have a problem:

I installed PocketPlayer to SD card in my iPaq 3950.

Music playback (MP3 from Secure Digital card) seems fine, but playback of Audio Bible (MP3 version - 96 kbps, 44 kHz, stereo - of NIV Bible from Listener's Bible Company), also stored on SD card, is of very poor quality. The spoken sound gets noticeably distorted.

For this very reason the current version of PocketPlayer is unfortunately unusable to me.

BTW, this is a HUGE program - something like 3 MB in total! Can anyone explain to me what WMA support for Pocket IE is exactly needed for? That thing alone takes 1.6 MB!

Cheers,

[abl00m]

I checked the WMA association, but that didn't do anything to remedy the ability for PPlayer to play wma files...

Anything else I should check?

Edit: Okay - think I figured it out - I'd uninstalled the WMA support for Pocket IE program that was 1.6 Mb... Re-installed that - reset - and it works again...

Aaron

[Stake]

Pepemosca, my normal player is withMP3 and works great on the same PPC and in Windows MP. It's only when I play it through PPlayer that this occurs. It looks like I'm the only one with the issue so far so it could something I've installed previously.

Thanks for the input though.

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

First of all... great player... it's also the most ambitious music player I've ever seen. I love the system icon showing you what song is playing and the GUI has the feel of something designed for a PPC. I couldn't believe cross-fading was supported. I really like PocketMusic as well, but in comparison, the buttons are very very small due to it's Winamp-styling.

I, too, see a number of bugs, which is fully expected with such an ambitious player. Hopefully, like any new product, these will get ironed out.

Here's what I'm seeing (on my HP2215):

1) When playing songs off the CF card, the program and system freezes after the 2nd song. This is a constant occurence that doesn't happen when running songs off my SD card. In my case, I was playing OGGs and hadn't touched the system after I started the playback, so the screen had blanked itself out.

2) When working with the playlist and trying to add a folder, the program exits itself if I hit cancel (as opposed to just returning to the playlist screen). In many cases, I'm not even able to load a folder even if I continue.

3) Anytime I attempt a "Remove All" from the playlist screen, the program and system locks up (need a soft reset).

I hope these get resolved soon. I love the intro price of $14.95 and once I can get everything running stable, I'll register.

[JeffreyCentex]

2) When working with the playlist and trying to add a folder, the program exits itself if I hit cancel (as opposed to just returning to the playlist screen). In many cases, I'm not even able to load a folder even if I continue.

3) Anytime I attempt a "Remove All" from the playlist screen, the program and system locks up (need a soft reset).


I also have seen these problems, but they were lower on my priority list...

Email sent to [email protected] with repro steps on my bugs...

[Jason Dunn]

Here's the mp3 comparison...

Ah, ok, I can hear it just fine with my desktop speakers. I thought that "wakka-wakka-wakka" was some guitar wah-wah, which is why I asked for the original sample. Yup, that's very odd.

[jasoncli]

Simply an amazing player. I have been using 40th floor player Iplay for a few years now, and love that program, however it isn't very "sexy". This program has sex appeal and is very functional. Very rare.

One feature that I really really really need is for a playlist to be set to simply scan the directory each time it is invoked. I frequenly go jogging and thow on a few songs. I hate having to create a playlist or having to load them up each time. Is there anyway that I can just load a playlist and have it scan a directory and play all the songs in that direcory? Then I can rereally impress all those folks at the gym, hehe.

Thanks
Jason

[l0o5er]

Great player. Just bought it. Trademark Conduits beautiful UI & well thought out functionality.

But just ripped some CD's to WMA CBR 128kbs (using WMP9 & also tried another ripper) & copied onto Ipaq 5450 & they're not visible to Pocket Player (MP3's in the same folder are). Yes I have associated WMA's with PP.

Also, if I look at local content it's listing WAV files (in settings PP is not associated with WAV's). How do I get rid of these automtaically from local content list?

[Jason Patterson]

Greetings all,

We have made significant progress in each and every one of these issues, and will be posting a beta of version 2.01 to this thread shortly. To address questions individually:

ekkie: all these issues have been resolved for 2.01. Seems the 2215 has some device-specific issues not reproducable on any other device.

jasoncli: this is easily accomplished by way of the Add Folder command. Perhaps we can make this easier to do, but you essentially need to tap the Playlist button, then tap Playlists > New Playlist, and it will pop up an Add Folder screen automatically.

l0o5er: did you install the Windows Media Control for Pocket IE, which automatically installs after Pocket Player? If you do so, it should list and play WMA files. If it's not installed it won't even list WMA files.

Stake: we still can't get this thumping echo to occur on any other devices here. We don't have an e550G to test on, but have an e740, etc. No other device distorts that MP3 here.
--

Thanks again everyone! 2.01 (beta) is coming in the next hour! We'll post it here (and to those that have emailed), and once we confirm it fixes all issues, we will post 2.01 publically on our website and notify all customers.

[sooby77]

Hello,

I've got to say that this is an awesome player and great support too! After much experimentation, I finally figured out how to add internet address manually for online streaming. I am trying to stream an ogg stream and found that there is a character number limit on the entry box in "Add File to Playlist". The address I'm trying to enter is "http://audio.ibiblio.org:8010/wcpe.ogg". I got stuck at "http://audio.ibiblio.org:8010/wcpe" I'm relatively new to ogg streaming, and did not see anyway of streaming ogg other than typing in direct address (unlike MP3, where you can just put the address in the .m3u file). The character limit issue is probably a simple fix. Thanks and keep up the good work! :D

[peppzilla]

Argh! I can't wait! This is a great player, but I can't use it until I get 2.01. I want it for the ride home tonight. :D

[Jason Patterson]

Greetings everyone,

We've put up an early release of version 2.01, as a zipped device executable, to our website:

http://www.conduits.com/products/player/pocketplayer201a.zip

Unzip the EXE and copy it to your device's \Program Files\Conduits\Pocket Player.

This fixes about every bug mentioned in this thread (except for Stake's audio distortion problems). Bugs fixed:

- option (on by default) to not adjust system volume on ppc03 devices
- notification bubble play/pause not working
- stops playing sporadically
- 'prevent device sleep' not working 100%
- internation characters in filenames corrupt UI
- 1-item playlist doesn't work properly
- end-of-playlist doesn't behave properly
- crashes on IPAQ2215 after anything in Playlist View (Add Folder, Remove All, etc) and in other places (all fixed)
- Add File doesn't allow for long URLs
- can't play live365 stream playlists
- streaming is jumpy on some streams
- option to remove WAV files from Local Content
- option (on by default) to NOT turn on screen on button press (only works when there is a button mapped to Toggle Screen)
- some Winamp skins crashing player
- sometimes files are not added to Local Content properly (SD/CF)
- other small items fixed

In summary -- all critical bugs are fixed, including the random stop bugs, and the device sleeping bugs, and all crashing issues on the IPAQ 2215.

Thank you, again, for the great feedback -- it certainly helps improve the product!

[peppzilla]

It works! No more random stops! :clap: It's going to be a fun commute tonight! :sunny:

[markan]

I have to say it is the interface that makes this player seem to good to me. I am currently using Pocket Music and the one thing I think that PM still has to it's advantage is the playlist creation.

The main point for me is that Pocket Player does not seem to have any way to sort a playlist based on track numbers. I have the number in the name and the tag, but once the editor loads it starts with the file name displayed and then replaces it with the Artist and Title.

Other than that though it seems a very serious contender.

[sjr]

yup its all working nice now. though ive noticed its still picking up 'AdobeFnt' playlists.

[One-eYe]

I just have to say this is the best player yet IMHO. It's the only player besides GSPlayer that's been able to play Shoutcast stations. It will also accept Winamp skins if that is to be desired.

Great Product! 0X

[jeffmd]

Well with such a long list of support features, including things like streaming, wsz, graphic visualizer, mp3/ogg eq, I figured I had to try it.

My main player atm is Winampaq, gives real good sound, has some eq issues but I don't need to use the eq anyways (a pair of Grado 60's means not having to compensate for sucky headphones ;) ), and I have a good looking winamp2 skin on it. The thing is, it was designed to work like winamp, which means most of the buttons, and especially all the play list functions work like winamp, and the playlist functions rock. adding single songs or entire directories to it is just plain easy, and uses an explorer like interface in doing so.

So now heres pocketplayer. I install it normally, synch, and done. Painless it was, but then the first problem made itself apparent.

There was no icon to actually launch the application. Neither in the start menu, or programs list was the pocket player. What is even weirder, after running the program via using explorer (I use resco's file explorer), pocketplayer STILL wont show up in the recently run programs bar. A bit of a minor bug, but it shouldn't happen. If i was an avg user, I might not know where to look to find it. Btw I installed it to an SD card, maybe that might have tripped it up.

So the program is running and the first thing I do is copy and load up my fav winamp skin, holding my breath. You see, winamps full 3 windows are a little bit bigger then the full ppc display, and while winampaq is definitely passable and even enjoyable, it is obviously squished some, and becomes very apparent in text, and lining up of some of the sliders. Pocketplayer doesn't disappoint, but is also not perfect. Especially in full screen mode (nice touch) you see most of the skin un-scrunched. How ever there is problems with the seek bar and sometimes the volume bar being rendered totally wrong. Either way, PocketPlayer has a far easier job in fixing those then winampaq does in scaling down the skin and making everything line up, so I hope to see this fixed soon.

I had no problem getting mp3's to play, and they sounded just as good as winampaq. I do have a bit of a beef with the method used to load songs however. I am far used to an explorer style interface, and this is what both PMVP and winampaq use. I absolutely HATE the "pocket" open dialog that pocketplayer and other programs use. This is the open window that at first opens and list every single file of a specified filetype on your ppc. In the case of music, this list is often %100 useless being in no order what so ever and simply an unorganized mess. You then need to scroll through the (for me) long list of every single directory (why not just list directories that have music files?) on your ppc and find the one with the mp3's you want in it. Also I was unable to find a single directory open option, it was either all, or one, or add to the playlist by one.

This was further complicated by a non functional winamp skin button support. None of the playlist window buttons worked. Please, in the short future, support ALL button on the winamp skin (and I don't mean with your own menues, id like to see full winamp functionality).

Another problem I ran into, not sure if it's a bug or an accidental prevention feature, but if I press up or down on the thumbwheel to change volume, I cannot repeat the same direction. ie, if I press up, release, then up again, it won't move up anymore. I need to press down and then up.

Well while this version wont be staying on my ppc, I have hope for pocketplayer, and will await future versions.

PPC used was Dell axim 400mhz. Player version tested was 2.0 and 2.01a.

[sooby77]

Another problem I ran into, not sure if it's a bug or an accidental prevention feature, but if I press up or down on the thumbwheel to change volume, I cannot repeat the same direction. ie, if I press up, release, then up again, it won't move up anymore. I need to press down and then up.

This is the exact same problem I have. Other than that, I'm extremely happy with the program! Basically it seems that the volume mapped to the thumbwheel seems to get "stuck" after a while and the only way to get it to move again is to switch direction and then back. For example, I'm pushing the thumbwheel up for +volume, but it is stuck. In order to fix that, I have to push thumbwheel down and then up again to get it to go up. Quite annoying when I'm on the bike. But hey, at least it is not TOTALLY stuck! :)

One more thing... I know that this is an advanced program and has a cool interface. It probably uses quite a bit of CPU power. I have the E740 and always underclock my CPU to 236Mhz whenever I play MP3s or Ogg. Is there a way to get the mapped button to be more responsive when the CPU is underclocked? It seems to take a second before it can got to the next track when I push the button. I have disabled the "Fill buffers" option, but that doesn't seem to make a difference.

Thanks for all the support. If only all PPC software maker are as good as you guys, we'll all be in heaven! FYI, I'm planning on purchasing this program as soon as most of the bugs are ironed out. Awesome job!

[pepemosca]

Great!
The "Turn on screen after any button press" works very good! Thanks for considering my suggestion! 8)

Great program, Jason! :D

Still, I have found a little bug:
If i have a button that is not mapped (i.e: Calendar), and the screen is Off, and I press the Calendar button, the screen turns on (which is ok) but i get the screen where i write a new Appointment (i like the Calendar Button is pressed two times).

[sooby77]

One more thing... I know that this is an advanced program and has a cool interface. It probably uses quite a bit of CPU power. I have the E740 and always underclock my CPU to 236Mhz whenever I play MP3s or Ogg. Is there a way to get the mapped button to be more responsive when the CPU is underclocked? It seems to take a second before it can got to the next track when I push the button. I have disabled the "Fill buffers" option, but that doesn't seem to make a difference.

I have figure out how to make it more responsive. All I had to do was to disable "Gapless" playing setting and it works fine. However, that sort of defeats the purpose of eliminating pops between tracks. But I'll be satisfied for now until you guys can figure out how to speed track change with "Gapless" enabled. The button delay issue is still there with version 2.01, but everything else seems to be fixed.

One more thing, the spectrum meter seems to disappear after a while if you play around with skin color settings a bit. The spectrum meter also will not work after dynamic skin change unless you completely stop the player by hitting the stop button and then restarting playback.[/quote]

[pepemosca]

One more thing, the spectrum meter seems to disappear after a while if you play around with skin color settings a bit. The spectrum meter also will not work after dynamic skin change unless you completely stop the player by hitting the stop button and then restarting playback.

You are right, that bug also happends to me.

[l0o5er]

Does anyone have this installed to \ipaqfilestore on a 5450 (perhaps even with the latest ROM upgrade) & if so can you play wma's? I've had a bi$$$ of a time eventually having to do a hard reset & restore off a week old backup. Feeling very gun-shy about trying again so would like reassurance that someone has got it working on a similar config.

[Jason Patterson]

Greetings everyone,

Thanks again go to everyone for all the great feedback on Pocket Player 2.01a! We're just about done wrapping it up for good (and have implemented another killer feature or two -- so the final release will most likely be "2.1"). Again, to address questions:

markan: you said that your track numbers are "in the name" -- did you mean the filename? If so, you can simply sort by File Name (vs. Full Path, Song Title, etc) and Pocket Player will most likely get things in order for you. Open up the playlist view, and use the pop up in the upper-right.

sjr: fixed for the next release.

jeffmd: thank you for the great feedback here. We haven't heard of any other reports of shortcuts not being created -- there should be a shortcut on the Programs screen. Where did you install Pocket Player. Regarding WSZ: clearly our Winamp support isn't in there 100%. We'd certainly like to know what skins we draw totally wrong. We hope to get those playlist buttons and menus into a future release, but it's not going to happen for 2.01/2.1. All the Winamp playlist commands are available in our main Playlist View screen. Try tapping the standard "PL" button on your Winamp skin and you'll be presented with an interface to do many of the things you described that couldn't be done -- such as Adding a single folder, etc. We've fixed the thumbwheel problem for the final release. We hope you'll try it out again once we release it.

pepemosca: are you sure the Calendar button wasn't depressed for a long time? Calendar will pop that up if the button is held down.

sooby77: unfortunately the gap transitions take a lot of CPU power. It has to do three things at once: play the end of the last track, load and buffer and play the next track, and then perform a crossfade. We hope to optimize this for a future release. We'll also look at not crossfading tracks when you just want to jump to the next track.

l0o5er: we've been in touch over email, and I hope we can get these problems sorted. We still think it has something to do with the WMA components being installed into FlashROM.

Thanks again everyone! We should be getting out the final (2.1) release by mid-week. No hints on what the new features are, except to say they've been mentioned in this thread as a current shortcoming of 2.0. :)

[pepemosca]

pepemosca: are you sure the Calendar button wasn't depressed for a long time? Calendar will pop that up if the button is held down.

I'm sure that the Calendar (or any other button) in not pressed for a long time.

Does anyone have this problem? Or, I'm the only one?

[sjr]

im going for the id3/ogg header editor :wink: as the new feature or one of... as for the other, not really sure, maybe the wma equaliser

[ctmagnus]

320 kbps support :way to go:

But how does it fair with stuff that's been encoded at 48kHz?

[Jason Patterson]

ctmagnus: 320kbps support should already be working. Is it not on your device (what are you using?) Regarding 48KHz, we support that with Ogg (downsampled to 44.1KHz), and MP3 support for that will be in 2.1 (not the new feature I referred to earlier).

pepemosca: we've replicated the Calendar button issue -- will fix for final release.

[markan]

Jason

Thanks for the tip, but it appears that the playlist doesn't always display the actual file names (which do have the track number in), but creates a title of [Artist] - [TrackName] and displays that as the track name; I assume that it is getting these from the tags. This then means that I can't even see the the file names to do the ordering manually.

It also seems hard to generate a new playlist from the local content. If I create a new playlist then it has all of the local content in and it would be a help if I had multiselect to be able to remove the tracks that I don't want.

There's also a small interface issue when creating a new playlist. When you are in the Add Playlist screen the SIP covers the Save button and pressing OK does not save it.

Don't get me wrong though I am very impressed. I'm just never satisfied :wink:

[Jason Patterson]

markan: all the things you are mentioning are currently supported.

1. To only view the file name, turn off Song Titles under General Options.
2. To generate a new playlist from Local Content, select the tracks you want, and then tap-and-hold the select and pick "Crop files" (just like in image editing programs, cropping restricts the data field to just what you have selected)
3. To select multiple items in the playlist, either open up Playlist View and uncheck Select > Drag Items, or tap-and-hold in the playlist and uncheck the same option.

We'll definitely fix that SIP issue for the final release. Thanks again!

[parallax]

Stake: we still can't get this thumping echo to occur on any other devices here. We don't have an e550G to test on, but have an e740, etc. No other device distorts that MP3 here.
--

Thanks again everyone! 2.01 (beta) is coming in the next hour! We'll post it here (and to those that have emailed), and once we confirm it fixes all issues, we will post 2.01 publically on our website and notify all customers.

I have the same problem on a iPAQ 3870. I have tried every mp3 player I know of for iPAQ and the thumping echo on the bass beats only occurs with Pocket Player. It's a pity because I prefer it to all the others by far and I would like to buy it once this playback quality issue is fixed. It also occurs with playback at low volumes so I'm quite sure it's not clipping. I have listened to it with Grado SR80s, Koss KSC-35 and plugged into an amp line in and they all sound similar, with the same echo. One track where it's evident is Linkin Park's Don't Stay from the 2003 Meteora album, the bass gets quite wobbly on this one. Hope you'll able to fix this, I use my iPAQ daily for mp3 playback and I really to use want Pocket Player for its awesome interface.

[Chairman Clench]

I just wanted to mention that I think Jason's (from Conduits) support has been exceptional. Especially considering that PPCT isn't even an offical support forum!

I am confident that all the bugs will be quickly resolved and this will be a AAA product.

I will definately be purchasing this program when all the bugs are resolved. 2.01 is working pretty well for me already, though.

One question... how do you get the visualization to work? I see the option for Full Screen Visualization, but it never starts. I'm probably dense and missing something. :oops:

Thanks again, Jason, for your support and response!

[corrosive]

Hmm... it does look like a really good player, unfortunately I'm having nothing but problems (all of a sudden - was okay initially) on my 3630 upgraded to 2002. I installed it to CF (well, it's a 3630 - a bit limited on RAM :) ), and had problems, so I uninstalled it and reinstalled to main RAM, now it won't come back out of a shutdown (it'll play fine - it's after I stop playing). On soft reset the error message is "Notification Error : Cannot execute \Storage Card\Conduits Pocket Player\pocketplayer.exe". I would have thought the uninstall should have removed any links to the old version, however I've tried searching the registry and not found anything :(
Right now the 3630 is not happy - this happens even if I haven't started PocketPlayer that session...

[pepemosca]

One question... how do you get the visualization to work? I see the option for Full Screen Visualization, but it never starts. I'm probably dense and missing something. :oops:

I start the "Visualizations" by doble-taping on the Oscilloscope/Spectrum area.

Hope this helps. :D

[markan]

1. To only view the file name, turn off Song Titles under General Options.

2. To generate a new playlist from Local Content, select the tracks you want, and then tap-and-hold the select and pick "Crop files" (just like in image editing programs, cropping restricts the data field to just what you have selected)

3. To select multiple items in the playlist, either open up Playlist View and uncheck Select > Drag Items, or tap-and-hold in the playlist and uncheck the same option.


1. Ahh - It would be nice to have the track number tag as a sort option though. Maybe 2.2 :wink:

2. This was mostly a problem because I couldn't figure out how to multi-select before the crop (oops).

3. Excellent. It seems a bit sensitive though. I was trying to drag the selection out on the right and it seems to need me to be on the left.

Can I also add my voice to Chairman Clench's in thanking Jason for the excellent support. Conduits commitment is very encouraging. :werenotworthy:

[Chairman Clench]

One question... how do you get the visualization to work? I see the option for Full Screen Visualization, but it never starts. I'm probably dense and missing something. :oops:

I start the "Visualizations" by doble-taping on the Oscilloscope/Spectrum area.

Hope this helps. :D

Thanks! :lol:

[Jason Patterson]

Thanks everyone for the kind words and support!

Re: corrosive, and anyone else that is having pesky notification popups appear when you turn on your device: download this file:

http://www.conduits.com/products/player/HandleNotifications.zip

The EXE in that ZIP (copy directly to the device, and run it) clears out the notification database and will stabilize your system. 2.01a didn't do this properly so you sometimes get some dangling references in the database of files to run at device-on.

2.1 should be launching soon now!

[jasoncli]

you are going to kill me.... feature request...

I listen to my audio books while traveling, on battery power (in an airplane) Is there anyway that you can have a timer feature?

For example...

Exit application & turn off after 30 min, or something, it can be buried somewhere in the options, doesnt need to be too accessable, but just there somewhere. If I could really press my luck have it remember where I was before it shut off :-)

Wanted to get that in just in case this is the last and final build, I am so impressed with this player, it will actually make me convert from Iplay to this one, and that is a tough sell.

[Raphael Salgado]

One of the things that I really liked about PocketMusic was that not only was it able to blank the screen like Pocket Player, but it was also able to minimize and restore the application with the push of a hardware button. That feature is definitely missed in Pocket Player.

Also, is there a way to remove or toggle the taskbar icon on the Today screen, like there's a way the Notification icon can be added/removed at will?

I would personally like to have voice notifications, almost like a digital DJ, either saying the name of the song (that's too much to ask), the length of the track (feasible), or just simply saying "Playing" and "Stopped." I like to use my PocketPC as a music player without even looking at it, but sometimes, you just don't know what the heck it's doing that you'd have to see if you pressed the wrong button or if something went wrong. Having a audible notification, not necessarily voice, would be key.

Great job, Conduits!

[Jason Patterson]

This isn't formally launching until tomorrow, but here you all go:

http://www.conduits.com/products/player/PocketPlayer21.exe

That's a desktop installer for Pocket Player 2.1. It fixes all known issues in this thread including the notification bugs that were present in 2.01, "WMA's not playing" bugs, and the sound distortion / thumping bugs that several users reported! It also has several new features:

- WMA Equalizer support
- WMA Visualization support
- Sleep Timer
- "Hide/Show Pocket Player" button mapping
- Open Folder instead of Open File option (for the skin's Open button)
- Several other smaller options, see Options > Advanced

To install, run the 2.1 installer on your desktop machine -- you can install it ontop of a 2.0 installation, or a 2.01a installation.

Enjoy everyone! There shouldn't be any strange issues with this release. It's a release candidate. Every bug mentioned here was verified and fixed -- thank you for helping it make a better product!

[sooby77]

Enjoy everyone! There shouldn't be any strange issues with this release. It's a release candidate. Every bug mentioned here was verified and fixed -- thank you for helping it make a better product!

NO! Thank you!

We as a PPC community could not ask for a better support for an awesome piece of software. IMHO, it is worth every penny spent! Keep up the good work!

[l0o5er]

after 3 or 4 hours is still working stably & reliably on my 5450 - both Pocket Player & WMC4IE installed to \ipaqfilestore.

Great.

Only problem I'm experiencing is that it jitters & pops a bit when turning on the equaliser whilst playing WMAs.

Also WMA visualisations work but don't seem to keep up with the music.



New features I'd like to see in a future release;

* ability to edit the "columns" in the play list (My files are saved with the artist & album first so I can't see the song title in the list)

* tool tips on butttons

* I store all my music in a single folder & sub folders thereof. Jason can you make it so that if I add a new mp3/wma or 2 & remove another, the "playlist" (based on files in this folder) is automatically updated

* a Pocket Player skinning competition


cheers

Mitch

[jasoncli]

I store all my music in a single folder & sub folders thereof. Jason can you make it so that if I add a new mp3/wma or 2 & remove another, the "playlist" (based on files in this folder) is automatically updated

Ditto, but I think he explained in an earlier post saying this could already be done with the add folder, it was just not easy or obvious. I had brought this up earlier.

[l0o5er]

I think I found another bug in 2.1.

Double-clicking the small visualisation window (on my 5450 playing WMAs) doesn't toggle the "playlist" window into visualisation mode.

[sooby77]

I don't know if this is a bug, but I have the E740, with the latest Battery Pack 2003, and the latest PocketPlayer (ver. 2.1 just posted on this forum yesterday) installed. I have gotten into habits that I regularly use "Power Clean" which is a feature of Battery Pack 2003 to clear my temp files etc. It seems that if I have PocketPlayer running in the background, after I clear my temp files, if I shut my ppc off and then turn it on again, I get a Notification Error of "Cannot execute \Temp\pocketplayerwakeup.exe"

It seems that PocketPlayer generates or put this "pocketplayerwakeup.exe" file in the Temp folder whenever PocketPlayer is started. So, if you have PocketPlayer running in the background and you decides to clear your temp files, and then turn off your ppc and then turn it on, you'll get that error. But if you restart PocketPlayer, it fixes it as it places new copy of "pocketplayerwakeup.exe" file in the Temp folder. Could this file be move to somewhere else where users cannot inadvertently remove it whenever they clear their temp files? Thanks for all the support again!

[Jason Patterson]

l0o5er: we'll be putting in some last-minute optimizations into the equalizer so that it'll reduce the kitters. The visualizations are certainly a bit off-sync from the music as well - we'll try to fix that for the final release too. Regarding the double-tap bug: after installing 2.1, you'll need to reset your current plugin in Options > Vis -- that should then bring up the plugin again on a double-tap.

sooby77: We'll try to fix this for the final 2.1 release. Perhaps we can put a 'hold' on the file so that Battery Pack doesn't remove it when we're running. We do have a ton of failsafes in there that patch things up so if you ever get that notification error, just run Pocket Player one more time and it'll patch everything up completely.

[GadgetMan]

Jason,

Could you please look into increasing maximum volume level? Right now, on my iPaq 3950, PocketPlayer's maximu available volume level (with system volume at MAX and PocketPlayer's volume to MAX) is still less than what one would expect from maximum volume setting. As a result, it will be hard to hear the music through headphones when in noisy environment (like busy downtown street or on a bus).

Otherwise a fantastic piece of software!

Cheers,

[GadgetMan]

Jason,

Please disregard my previous comment. It turned out that I just was using a bad set of headphones. When I switched to another set, the sound level was more than enough at MAX setting.

Cheers,

[Raphael Salgado]

After a hard reset, I tried out the 2.01a and it seemed to play my WMA files consistently. The 2.0 version had the known problem of stopping in the middle of songs. It looks like it cropped back up on the release candidate of 2.1.

Doing some beta testing of my own, it seems that the times that it stops intermittently is when I begin playing, then perform a minimize or do something else like go into the options section and get back out. But, if the last instruction that I tell Pocket Player is to play and not touch it afterwards, then it will play consistently, shutting off the screen as normal, etc. Something seems to be interfering with the possible "prevent device sleep," because that's what my device seems to do. I turn it back on, and it plays a quarter-of-a-second of the song it was playing before it went to sleep, then stops completely, waiting for a command.

[GadgetMan]

Jason,

I just sent e-mail to Conduits tech support with the following problem:

I installed PocketPlayer 2.1 (incl. WMA support) on Secure Digital card (SanDisk 256 MB) inserted in my Compaq iPaq 3950.

I then copied soundtrack from the Lord of the Rings in WMA format (64 kbps, 44 kHz, Stereo, Windows Media Audio V8 codec) to 256 MB Kingston compact flash card inserted in Compact Flash Expansion Pack Plus on my iPaq.

When I play this soundtrack in Windows Media Player, the sound is perfect – smooth and continuous.

When I play this soundtrack in PocketPlayer 2.1, the playback is very bad – lots of stops, as if it was stuttering. I played with File Caching, Audio Buffer and Fill buffers settings in PocketPlayer that they had no effect on the playback quality. I do not experience this problem when playing local MP3 files or streaming from my desktop of Internet over Wi-Fi connection.


I enclosed one of the soundtrack tracks with my e-mail for your testing. I hope you guys can fix it before the official release of ver. 2.1.

Cheers,

[jasoncli]

I noticed something kinda cool. You can launch files directly from a shortcut...

Such as "program files\conduits\pocket player\pocketplayer.exe" storage card\my documetns\music\test.mp3

However I couldent get it to read all files in a directory. It had to link directly to a specific file. It would be perfect if we could have the command line read a entire directory and begin playing music directly from a shorcut. That would be heaven. Would never need to delete and recreate playlists each time you modify content in a directory. Something I do several times a week.

[PeteTh]

I'm looking for an MP3 player that will stream from a network, so I gave this a try. I'm using a Bluetooth USB Adaptor for network LAN access.

When I play an MP3 from the network it just stutters, am I asking too much ?

I've tried playing around the Settings for Playback, varying the

- File Caching

- Audio Buffer (in particular I tried setting this to the max)

- and checking / unchecking the 'Fill buffers' option,

No combination seems to work, any ideas ?

My mp3 test file is 192kbps

[Vance D. Erwin]

I have a trial version and was hesitant to buy. But after looking at this thread I am so impressed with the responce from Conduits that I am compelled to buy before my issue is solved!

Any idea when or if you will be able do gapless with WMA's?

Thanks for any help you can provide!

-Vance

[Vance D. Erwin]

Anyone having this problem with v2.1?

Playing wma's is fine untill you turn on the equalizer. After a few seconds it starts skipping like mad. Turn it off and its fine

-Vance

[GadgetMan]

Anyone having this problem with v2.1?

Playing wma's is fine untill you turn on the equalizer. After a few seconds it starts skipping like mad. Turn it off and its fine

According to Jason this is normal behaviour for now. It will be corrected in the final release (something to do with troubleshooting WMA playback).

Cheers,

[Vance D. Erwin]

Thanks Georce!

Patience is a virtue. I wait for the final release!

Thanks!

-Vance

[Chairman Clench]

I have a trial version and was hesitant to buy. But after looking at this thread I am so impressed with the responce from Conduits that I am compelled to buy before my issue is solved!

Any idea when or if you will be able do gapless with WMA's?

Thanks for any help you can provide!

-Vance

I agree! 2.1 is working fine for me since I only play .ogg files. Usually I would wait for all the bugs, but I just purchased the program because the support has been so great.

Conduits is truly one of the best PPC software companies in both products and support.

[mhoepfin]

I am addicted to CEPlaylist....

Any hopes of integration with that. Have you talked to those guys?

http://www.ceng.com/CEPlaylist/description.asp

Mike

[kwjohnson]

Maybe I missed it in the thread, but is Windows Media format streaming in the works at all?

[dgroover]

Pocket player will not install on my 3950. The add/remove software window opens and says retrieving data or something like that and does nothing. Other programs will ask me where I want to install. I even tried copying the cab file to my device with no luck. :(

[GadgetMan]

According to Jason Patterson's July 9th post here, the final version of the fixed PocketPlayer 2.1 was supposed to be officially released on July 10th.

Well, I cannot find it on Conduits sites and it seems that Jason has not posted any messages here since July 10, so I wonder if anyone knows when we can expect this final official 2.1 release?

Any reasons for this additional delay?

Cheers,

[GadgetMan]

Speak of the devil :D

Literally minutes after making the above post here, I got e-mail from Jason that ver. 2.1 of PocketPlayer will officially launch today :D

That's great! Now I will go and start checking Conduits site every five minutes :lol:

Cheers,

[Raphael Salgado]

That's a bunch of five-minute intervals so far, and I've yet to see anything on the Conduits site beyond the original, buggy release of 2.0. I'm just as anxious as you!

[GadgetMan]

Raphael142,

I agree with you. Jason already announced two release dates for final version 2.1 of the player (July 10 and July 15). Both did not materialize.

Oh well...

[jasoncli]

I am just happy that he released 2.01a, I think that was a cool move from the developer. I am happy that they are getting a final version right and hopefully perfect. A rushed product is a buggy product. So I am anxious, but I understnand.

[Jason Patterson]

Greetings all,

We have released Pocket Player 2.1 (http://www.conduits.com/products/player)! The launch was delayed Monday and Tuesday due to some last-minute WMA issues. The 2.1 version, as stated earlier, now supports WMA equalizer and visualization, even on slower 200MHz StrongARM devices. The blips in playback should be gone at this time (the early release contained an unoptimized equalizer). Also in this release (mentioned earlier):

- Sleep Timer
- "Hide/Show Pocket Player" button mapping
- Open Folder instead of Open File option (for the skin's Open button)
- Several other smaller options, see Options > Advanced

We also patched up the last few bugs related in this thread, reported by Raphael143 and jasoncli.

Also, we have our own support forums over at http://www.conduits.com/community if there are any issues with 2.1.

Thanks again everyone!

[GadgetMan]

Jason,

Thank you very much! In my opinion this is now the best available all-in-one music player for Pocket PC.

Needless to say, I am buying it right away!

Thanx again!

[l0o5er]

man I've had a gutsful of buggy untested software from Conduits. You may laud their quick response in fixing bugs but if they tested their software properly before releasing it rather than relying on their early adopter users to test it (unpaid & unrecognised) then they wouldn't have to be so reactive in the first place.

This time the problem is with the installer. It won't. It extracts the files then comes up welcome to Pocket Player 2.1 Setup; I click next, it shows a progress bar then says "Maintenance Complete" & then wants to install WMC4IE.

Come on Jason! You guys have SO dropped the ball so many times.

[Jason Patterson]

l0o5er: First, let me address your first paragraph. Pocket Player was developed and tested over several months. It was several last-minute things which caused the critical errors you and a few others experienced, such as the close release of the IPAQ 2215 and Pocket Player launching (the 2215 passed initial tests). Second, installing WMC4IE in Flash ROM is something that we did not test; in retrospect we should have. Thirdly, the critical wakeup problems originated from another workaround (namely the stop-on-device-wakeup) and were only in our 2.01 and 2.10 early release software -- not our public 2.0/2.1 releases.

Regarding this strange install problem -- we have seen it happen with some of our other InstallShield-based products -- basically the IS engine can get into a confused state somehow, and not present you with the Modify/Repair/Remove screen. To fix this, navigate to:

C:\Program Files\InstallShield Installation Information\

and delete the directory named:

{66F53EE9-1320-4994-B458-F0F706888AE3}

along with all of its contents. This is where InstallShield holds temporary files for the software installation. By removing those files, InstallShield will think it has a fresh installation, and will install properly. After removing the directory, simply re-run the installer, and it should install properly. This seems to happen when using a combination of the 2.0 release, 2.1 early release, and 2.1 final -- we're certainly investigating it more in depth here.

[l0o5er]

thanks Jason.

I notice you've done something to the playlist - most of my (WMA) files seem to be showing just the Artist & track. But I've noticed that those files that don't seem to have changed also have a problem whereby the "time-elapsed" counter is not updated - ie. stays at "00:00". I'm sending you a sample by email.

Also the visualiser is still way out of sync with the music (on my 5450)

Also just listening to some music now I find that it's pausing - jittering. Actually has just stopped now. Trying to select another track to listen to doesn't do anything. Program will close down though.

This release seems a reasonable step backwards. At least the so-called pre-release 2.1 version played all my tracks ok.

[Jason Patterson]

The out-of-sync visualization is definitely still a problem in 2.1. That was essentially the only unfixed item since the pre-release. We haven't had any other reports of the 00:00 readout, but we will test the file you sent by email. We did include new WMA header reading information in 2.1 -- it now reads both standard ID3 tags for WMA format, as well as the special metadata that is sometimes at the start of WMA files.

When it pauses/stops, is it on a WMA file with the eq enabled, or another audio type? Again, we haven't heard any reports of that either, and it's not happening on our side. When you say "program will close down though" -- do you mean it's just crashing, or that you can still exit cleanly? Can you try disabling the WMA equalizer under Options > Advanced to see if it still pauses/jitters?

It's quite hard to find and fix issues that you can't replicate -- we thank you for your understanding, and hope to get these issues resolved.

[l0o5er]

The out-of-sync visualization is definitely still a problem in 2.1. That was essentially the only unfixed item since the pre-release. We haven't had any other reports of the 00:00 readout, but we will test the file you sent by email. We did include new WMA header reading information in 2.1 -- it now reads both standard ID3 tags for WMA format, as well as the special metadata that is sometimes at the start of WMA files.

The tracks that it's now (since 2.1 "full release") not updating the counter for are listed with their file name including a ".wma" extension

When it pauses/stops, is it on a WMA file with the eq enabled, or another audio type?
WMA file = yes. Eq not enabled.
Again, we haven't heard any reports of that either, and it's not happening on our side. When you say "program will close down though" -- do you mean it's just crashing, or that you can still exit cleanly?
Not crashing - just mean that it will exit cleanly.

Can you try disabling the WMA equalizer under Options > Advanced to see if it still pauses/jitters?
Still jitters

[Jason Patterson]

We've found the problem -- it had to do with our new header reading functions I mentioned previously. I can say with certainty that we've fixed the problems you described (we replicated both in our tests). If you'd like to try this release, the Pocket PC EXE can be downloaded from:

http://www.conduits.com/products/player/PocketPlayer211.zip

Installing that version to your device should do it! We'll get this on our website shortly.

[l0o5er]

that seems to do the trick. No more jittering & playlist looks much cleaner

how far away do you expect before we see fix to visualisation sync problem?

[l0o5er]

One or 2 more problem(s);

The track quality/bit rate readout doesn't seem to be working - mine is reading "44kHz 141kbps stereo" for both 64kbps & 128kbps WMA tracks.

Also I'm not getting very satisfactory results with the equaliser - adding even a teencie bit of bass-end produces a distorted sound (like you get when your amp is turned up higher than your speakers can handle). I thought it was the headphones I was using but I tried another couple of headphones (both earbud & full-cover types) & got the same result (& same result at low volume anyway). Anyone else having problems/not with the equaliser on WMAs.

[PeteTh]

With the old version I had a problem in that in order to see MP3 Files on my network, I had configured a 'Network' folder containing network mappings in Resco Explorer so that I could navigate to mp3s on my netwrok. But if I started Pocket Player when connected to my network (via wifi or bluetooth) Pocket Player would appear to hang for ages, this was because it immediatedly goes off to find any local content and scans the mapped network drives as well.

Is there a way around this ?
Can I stop PP scanning for local contact or network mappings ?

I'm about to try the new version but guess this isn't fixed ?

[Raphael Salgado]

Sorry, I almost had given up. I tried the retail release of 2.1 and half the WMA's that I had stopped playing in the middle, or showed 00:00, and even started breaking up the playback, all of these I hadn't seen in previous versions. No offense, but I never use the EQ, since I mix them down just right before I turn the entire batch into WMAs.

I'll try 2.11, and though I don't care so much about visualization, I hope it gets fixed.

Most other users have probably tried PocketMusic, and they can't seem to get their act together past version 1.6. Many users got that "cannot create wnd" error that couldn't even get the app started.

Let's hope the latest version of Pocket Player will win me over.

[Raphael Salgado]

Hmm.... looks like 2.11 may have done it! My only concern at this point is that when something interrupts it's auto-screen off feature and brings the screen back up, such as a Windows Notification (i have an i700 so I get annoying CDMA 1x RTT notification popups and SMS messages), or if I inadvertently launch another application (i.e. hit a hardware button assigned to one), it doesn't try to automatically turn the screen off anymore. It's only when I return to the GUI of the player and tap on something, it'll apparently begin the counter again, then shut off the screen as needed.

Yeah, what's with 141Kbps?

Can you add a minimize on startup option, so that way it just leaves the today and/or notification icon (whatever you have enabled)? I love its ability to begin playing on startup, so it's like music on tap (no pun intended) when you begin the app, then you can continue with whatever you were previously doing, i.e. surfing the net, playing Solitaire, etc.

[sjr]

i mentioned about he playlist bug with displaying adobefnt playlists. instead of displaying adobefnt it's now displaying random chars (like an unitilised variable).
sorry for the late respose about this bug

[Vance D. Erwin]

V2.11 still stutters and the equalizer sounds horrible with WMA.

-Vance

[l0o5er]

I'm getting a "cannot execute \temp\pocketplayerwakeup.exe" message when turning on my PPC.

The chain of events leading up to this were;
1) executed Pocket Player but it didn't open & my PPC froze (I had a eVb-based program open at the time which seems to take up a lot of room)
2) reset my PPC
3) Now when I turn my PPC on I get this message

Jason can you tell me how to get rid of (& preferably fix so is not likely to happen again in similar circumstances).

thanks

Mitch

[PocketMind]

2 Raphael143:

Raphael, error 43 "Create main wnd. Can't create main wnd" is in warez (cracked) version of PocketMusic Bundle only.
Nobody of registered customers has such a problem.

We suggest t those who have such error to use freeware version of PocketMusic or registered version of PocketMusic Bundle.

Yours sincerely,
Ann Braun,
PocketMind team,
www.pocketmind.com.

[Raphael Salgado]

I downloaded PocketMusic 1.5 from PocketGear's site a month before 1.6 was released. I liked it, but didn't use WMAs at the time, so I stuck with it. Being a version number fanatic, I pulled 1.6 down from PocketGear and then it no longer launched, coming up with that error. I wasn't the only one with that error, but no one had a solution, citing they tried to contact PocketMind regarding this error, but they had no response.

So I went back to PocketMusic 1.5 until I realized I really could save much more space by converting everything to WMA (never tried OGG yet), so now I'm in a head-to-head battle on trying to decide which I should go: PocketMusic or Pocket Player.

My copies aren't warez or cracked, it was either your free version on PocketGear, or the trial of Pocket Player. I keep hard resetting my device to start fresh and reinstall, since I don't have much installed, which helps me give me more time to decide which way to go.

As you can see from the feedback, I wasn't the only one with this error, and I don't think it's warez related, if anything:

http://www.pocketgear.com/software_detail.asp?id=7256

[sjr]

pocket music and pocket player are made by entirly different people... isnt this the pocket player thread...

[PocketMind]

2 Raphael143:

PocketGear allows unregistered users to write reviews. Handango does not and - http://www.handango.com/brainstore/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&jid=D56D4FB6D32CE18DACCBAB4BX2F49996&platformId=2&productType=2&catalog=0§ionId=0&productId=51696
you can't see any mentions about this error in reviews.

There are no emails from _registered customers to PocketMind support with this problem too. :!:
Warez (piracy) registration codes are blocked in the new versions and PocketMusic error 43 "cannot create wnd" occures if you used such code before.

2 sjr:
Sjr, I'm really sorry to write about PocketMusic here, and as you can see I did not write before, but when I see such things about PocketMusic I just can't keep silent. I'm sorry again. :roll:

Yours sincerely,
Ann Braun,
PocketMind team,
www.pocketmind.com.

[Jason Patterson]

Greetings all. Pocket Player 2.11 final will be released tomorrow. To answer some issues before the release:

l0o5er: PP2.11 will fix the WMA visualization sync issues and the khz/bps issues. The equalizer has also been tuned a bit to produce better results; though still not as pristine as the mp3 and ogg equalizer, it's much more acceptable.

PeteTh: we've added it in to not scan the NETWORK folder any more.

Raphael: We've fixed the "not dimming in background" problem -- originally we figured you wouldn't want dimming when in another application (for example, playing a chess game would dim the screen while you're thinking), so it's an option now.

sjr: thanks for the pointer, fixed.

Vance: what device are you using? We're experiencing no stutters, even on 200MHz StrongARM devices.

l0o5er's second question: Simply re-run Pocket Player one more time, and exit it. It will clean up after itself. Basically that file is a temporary file that exists while Pocket Player is running. If you soft reset, you still shouldn't get that error since the file will still be there (Did you clear out your Temp folder?) -- just running Pocket Player again will clear out the error from happening again.

Raphael: Interesting to hear your past music player experiences -- we'd like to certainly give a plug for Ogg in this case -- at 64kbps, we think it is a strong contender to WMA in most cases.

[Vance D. Erwin]

Jason:

I have an iPAQ 3955. EQ off no probs. On, it stutters.

Also, any eta on gapless for wma? That's really more important to me than the eq.

-Thanks!!

Vance

[Raphael Salgado]

Well, this thread really settles it. You guys get my $20 (or whatever it is). I really like both programs, but I have to say you've (meaning the company as a whole) really been on top of things when it comes to dealing with customer issues and releasing patches, updates, or whathaveyou.

I thought it was a major progression from the original release (over a year ago?), and it seems like it was just as much a major release from 2.0 to now.

I bought was Pocket Launcher back when you released 1.23, and the quality and dedication of your work continues to show.

Regarding PocketMind, I'm a bit disappointed that it feels like I've been accused of wrongdoing when in fact I've been wracking my brain out trying to make the right purchase for myself and recommend a program to others. I'm just starting to design my own PocketPC apps, so I know the hard work that goes into it. I wiped out my PocketPC endless number of times, installed both the Pocket Player 2.1 trial and PocketMusic 1.6 freeware, and always got the same error message from PocketMusic, but I don't recall seeing a specific error number, just the fact that the program simply would not load after the message.

Regardless, to that end, this message will be the end of discussion of PocketMusic in this thread altogether, also respecting the fact that this is all about Pocket Player in the first place.

Kudos again to Jason, and I am eager to see the new release.

[Raphael Salgado]

The "dimming in the background" I assume refers to the "screen off" feature, yes? And, not just shutting off my backlight? I assume that if the screen is constantly tapped or hardware buttons are being pressed, regardless of whether or not it's mapped to Pocket Player or not, then the screen will never go off? So, if I'm playing a game or actively surfing while listening, there should be no reason for Pocket Player to shut my screen off inadvertently.

Any chance of allowing to minimize the application on start up, and just leave the today or notification icon when it launches? I'll assume you'll have a failsafe procedure that won't allow you to enable "minimize on startup" if both the today or notification icons are disabled, and/or if there's no "show/hide" command mapped to a hardware button. Obviously, that will make it impossible to restore or "maximize" Pocket Player once it's launched.

[Jason Patterson]

Everyone,

We've launched Pocket Player 2.11. Basically bugfixes for 2.11 and not any new features.

Raphael: yes, I was referring to the screen off feature. For 2.11 we have an extra checkbox saying "Auto-screen off in background" -- basically checking that will enable screen turnoff even if Pocket Player's in the background. There is still one issue, that we just could not resolve, and that is how to get the "idle time" on the device when Pocket Player's not in the foreground. It's actually a larger issue affecting other developers too, and after digging all through online documentation and other sources, we couldn't hit upon a decent solution. So basically, it might turn off even while you're using another application. We'd highly suggest using a mapped hardware button instead. We haven't totally given up on this issue and will attempt to rectify it for a future release.

Vance: expect gapless WMA for 2.2; we don't have a definite timeframe on that, as we'd like to give some time for other product suggestions to roll in as well.

Thanks again!

[l0o5er]

equaliser with WMAs still sucks & totally unuseable.

Visualiser syncing on WMAs is a little better but still not good enough

[Raphael Salgado]

I'll have to agree with the last post - Like I said before, I never used the equalizer on WMAs, but the 64K WMAs (which Pocket Player now reports!) that I tried to tweak with the equalizer just destroyed the sound completely - I just moved one slider a little up or down and the song distorted completely.

[Evee Ev]

i've downloaded the latest version of pocket player (2.11). when i click on the "pocketplayer.exe" file i get this error message:

The image file C:\PocketPC Programs/PocketPlayer/pocketplayer.exe is vailid, but its for a machine type other than the current machine.

can anyone help me to understand what is happening here? i used to have this program installed, but had to do a hard reset recently b/c my ipaq couldn't read my SD card slot...anywho...i can't reload the player. i even put the .exe file into a folder on my ipaq but that didn't work either.

help a brotha' out!

[juni]

Finally finished first skin for the pocket player :)

http://koti.welho.com/kruohio/lhstyleppl.png

[GadgetMan]

Juni,

Fantastic skin! Thank you very much :D

Can't wait to see more of them...

Cheers,

[Raphael Salgado]

I just wanted to follow up on the progress of the latest Pocket Player. It seems everyone left off at 2.11 with problems on the WMA playback with equalizer being active or used.

Also, as a thought (or perhaps a Pocket PC Thought :wink:), Jason noted that he was having difficulties in trying to turn off the screen while the program was actually in the background. Is there a way to tie in or grab the value of the timer of the PocketPC's backlight or auto-shut off counter? I'm assuming this value is a counter that always gets reset to zero when the user is tapping on the screen in another application, or pressing a hardware button. If one could grab a hold of that number, then the screen could automatically shut off if it goes past a predetermined value set in Pocket Player.

I've stopped listening to music now that I've begun eBook reading on the train, but I remembered that the annoying popups from SMS messages, signal strength changes, and network notifications on my PocketPC Phone Edition would reactivate the screen - whether or not Pocket Player was in the background or foreground, and the auto-off feature would no longer work until I was tapping on the controls within Pocket Player again.

Also, as a sidenote, I remember seeing a setting called "full screen visualization" or something to that effect. Was the cool visualization plug-in supposed to do something full-screen? How did one go about activating it?

Lastly, the skins I saw in a previous post on this thread are just AWESOME. How does one go about creating their own PSZ files?

[Jason Patterson]

Raphael143: We fixed the turn-off bug in 2.11, so that you can still turn off the display (automatically) when it's in the background. The problem is that it's quite, quite hard to detect screen taps. There is no counter value publically available to software to inspect for screen taps (consequentially, the screen may turn off when you are actively tapping on the screen in another application). We recommend binding a button to the Screen Toggle function, to turn the screen back on.

Full screen visualization can be enabled in Options > Vis. It's a checkbox that applies to whatever visualization you have selected.

We'll be launching a skin SDK quite soon (with a desktop skin designer program); for now, there's the documentation of the PSZ format at http://www.conduits.com/products/player/documentation.asp?13.

Thanks again!

[pepemosca]

I have an h5450 with the WM2K3, and when the screen is off (player on, and playing some music); and i press the "Volume Up" or "Volume Down" keys, the screen goes on (and goes off after some seconds, because i've set on "Automatically turn off screen").

On my h5450 (with PPC2002), this doesn't happend.
Jason, could you fix it: I mean, could you make that the screen never goes on by pressing the "Volume keys"

Note: As you probally know, they have change the Volume software, now you have a pop up with the volume bar, every time you change the volume

[Jason Patterson]

Pepmosca,

This will be quite difficult to fix, since Pocket Player automatically turns the screen back on when the window "loses focus" -- i.e. when another window appears in the foreground, accepting user input. The volume window on WM2003 causes this to happen. Have you tried hooking the Volume Up/Down buttons to perform the same function (Volume Up/Down) from within Pocket Player? That should possibly do the trick, since then Pocket Player would intercept the buttons betfore WM2003 did. Then if you disable "turn on screen upon button press", the screen won't turn on.

Thanks!

[pepemosca]

Pepmosca,

This will be quite difficult to fix, since Pocket Player automatically turns the screen back on when the window "loses focus" -- i.e. when another window appears in the foreground, accepting user input. The volume window on WM2003 causes this to happen. Have you tried hooking the Volume Up/Down buttons to perform the same function (Volume Up/Down) from within Pocket Player? That should possibly do the trick, since then Pocket Player would intercept the buttons betfore WM2003 did. Then if you disable "turn on screen upon button press", the screen won't turn on.

Thanks!

:(
No luck. I try what you said, but doesn't work.

The WM2003 volume still apearing when i press the Volume buttons.

In some way, WMP9 don't turn on screen when i press the Volume buttons. But the sound quality is not as good as Pocket Player.

Hope you can solve this in a future release :)

Thanks!

[pepemosca]

No solutions?
:(

[Jason Patterson]

Pepemosca,

Please PM me with your email address. We'll get a beta of the next version to you ASAP. Basically we're having to special-casing that window, but it makes sense to.

[franck_nyc]

Hi,
I 've been testing Pocket Player but had a really annoying issue :
Whenever I switch off my 2215 with Pocket Player running, The ppc freezes when I switch it back on and I need to do a soft-reset.

This is a show-stopper for me. Is there a fix ?

Thanks,
Franck

[Jason Patterson]

Franck_nyc,

We haven't heard that error reported from anyone else, nor experienced it here. Could you email us at [email protected] so we can debug this situation and resolve the problem? Or, PM me with your email address so we can get more details.

Thanks!

[terrypin]

I'm trying Pocket Player. The Help file on PPC says
'An expanded manual is available at www.conduits.com/products/player. Downloadable documentation in eBook format is also available'

I had a prompt email reply from Conduit telling me
'To download various file versions of the manual, visit:
http://conduits.com/support_documentation.asp'

That page lists 9 other products, but does not include any mention of Pocket Player.

Where can I find the manual in downloadable form please?

Using iPAQ 2210 with WM2003, PI 4.6, PIToday 0.1.0.1002


--
Terry, West Sussex, UK

[Jason Patterson]

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. The portable documentation is, as it turns out, at this time, still under development and being updated with the new features for version 2.11. We took down the Pocket Player 2.0 downloadable documentation in the meantime, and hadn't realized the revamp was not completed and uploaded.

We expect to have the portable documentation online by the end of the week.

[terrypin]

We expect to have the portable documentation online by the end of the week.

OK, Jason, thanks for the fast response. No big problem - I'll postpone my experimenting for a week! The PPC-based Help is OK up to a point, but its lack of any images is a handicap to a newcomer like me.

Using iPAQ 2210 with WM2003, PI 4.6, PIToday 0.1.0.1002

--
Terry, West Sussex, UK

[grinny11]

i just upgraded and i love this player. i really like how pocket music has the landscape mode. it says it supports it but it doesnt seem to work on my axim x5. do i need one of those landscape programs cause all of them require u to reset.

[pepemosca]

i just upgraded and i love this player. i really like how pocket music has the landscape mode. it says it supports it but it doesnt seem to work on my axim x5. do i need one of those landscape programs cause all of them require u to reset.

I have the same issue (with version 2.5)... And also I hope that to view the program in LS doesn't requier a LS program :S

Another issue I found is that the player gets too slow to start, I mean, you have to wait -even before you hear the music- to start changing or pressing buttons; or the Visualization doesn't start until some time.

[Jason Patterson]

i just upgraded and i love this player. i really like how pocket music has the landscape mode. it says it supports it but it doesnt seem to work on my axim x5. do i need one of those landscape programs cause all of them require u to reset.

Currently the LS support is done through a LS program. If you are running Pocket PC 2003 you shouldn't have to soft reset on a LS switch though. We do plan to have an actual landscape skin for a portrait orientation -- we simply didn't include one at launch time.


Another issue I found is that the player gets too slow to start, I mean, you have to wait -even before you hear the music- to start changing or pressing buttons; or the Visualization doesn't start until some time.

Could you explain this in more detail? With Crossfading enabled, the visualizations can be delayed a bit when tracks switch.

[pepemosca]

I have done some more tests.

And now the "problem" is gone... I don't know what happened but I don't have the delay any more (was like about 21 seconds of "freeze")

I'll keep you update about it.

Thanks.


Note: All times were counted since the program shows his "Skin", I mean, I'm not counting the time the program takes to start.
Also, I'm playing an MP3, 192Kbps 44KHz (a 4:16 min song)

[Jason Patterson]

pepemosca,

Thank you for the update. Please do share any future issues with Pocket Player as they occur. As always you can email [email protected] for any troubleshooting too.

grinny11,

I have confirmed with Nyditot that the next release of Nyditot Virtual Display (3.5) will be shipping within the next month (targeted), and will support landscape switching, without resetting the device, on Pocket PC 2003 devices. Pocket Player will seamlessly switch skins in this scenario.

[grinny11]

I think the skin would be more usefull then having to use and purchase another piece of software. It almost seems like it would be easier to create then working with all the other pieces of software. Can't wait, i always have my ppc turned to the side when i drive, been wanting this for a while. Keep up the good work, let us know!

[grinny11]

also wanted to comment on the delay with version 2.5. when skipping to the next track on my axim, it takes longer for the buttons to become availible then in the previous version. i could skip each track with maybe at most a .2 seconds delay. now when i skip tracks on the second track skipping to the third and so forth it usually takes about a second maybe 2.

[Jason Patterson]

grinny11,

That's likely due to changes in our crossfading engine. Do you have that enabled? It takes a bit of CPU time between tracks for the crossfade to occur. We'll address that in the 2.51 release.

[grinny11]

thanks jason, that was it. i had the crossfader at 8s. the higher the number the slower the skip is. its bareble at 5s but it would be so kewl if you guys could get it to skip faster at the higher crossfades. it's one of my favorite features of the player.

any expected time period when 2.5.1 going to released?

[Jason Patterson]

any expected time period when 2.5.1 going to released?

We currently don't have a definite timeframe on that, but it should be within the next 30 days.

[TERRYHOAX]

I am very sad about the circumstance that the Asus isn't supported by pocket player.

I can't switch off the display.
Only if I use Vitos Button mapper. But then I can't use the control-buttons in Pocket Player... arghh.

In many freeware players like Gsplayer, Winampaq, pocketmusic or Mortplayer is this working.

Why not with the professional program like Pocket Player?

I tested many players (all players that are able to play Ogg Vorbis).
Pocket Player is a very stable program, but without using the control-buttons and toggling the screen it's worthles for me.

I hope that there is a chance that the developer have a heart for the many Asus users and fix that problem... :)

[Jason Patterson]

Terry,

We have answered this question over at our support forums, here:

http://www.conduits.com/community/forum_posts.asp?TID=98&TPN=1

Thanks!

[juni]

Jason, I made that winamp2 skin you asked for and sent you the images of it....maybe you didn't really want it since you never answered? :D

[Jason Patterson]

Juni,

Sorry about that. We were a bit occupied getting Pocket Launcher 2 (http://www.conduits.com/company_news.asp?pr20040308.html) released.

[juni]

That is understandable :)

[brianphung]

hey everyone. so far ive tried out windows media player, pocket music, and pocket player, and i have to say that windows media player is the most stable 8O. both of the third party programs i have tried are fairly buggy, although i do understand they are still works in development... anyways, the reason for this post is to report a bug i have seen from the day i started using pocket player (today). other than the random crashing and not being able to make proper playlists (i have a 2210 if anyones wondering, maybe its just that its more problem prone than other pdas... although i do want an asus mypal a716 :D), when pocket player opens it is set to local content, which includes rings and stuff for the alarm clock. i found this annoying so i tried to remove them. the next time i started the application i found that the program had eaten part of my playlist! (like 10 songs) i found this very odd to say the least. i closed the program and reopened it, thinking it was just a temporary thing. i just gaped when i saw that it ate another 10 or so songs... as you can tell, i was quite surprised... i reopened the application another time and yet the same thing happened. i didnt bother to try again. the problem is solved once i reopen the local contents playlist (? i dont know whether to call it a playlist or folder). that is if i can even get to that menu. the playlist generating seems to be very buggy and i cannot even add folders twice without it freezing up. i have soft resetted my pda over 20 times today... must be a new record or something... anyways, if you guys could fix this problem it would be greatly appreciated, i love the interface as well as the font size (my fonts look squished and unreadable in windows media player, but look great in pocket player! (and pocket music as well)) ah yes, on a side note, my files are all chinese, which is why i appreciate the font size so much. i dont think this is part of the problem though, because there are english names in some of the chinese songs as well, ie. boy'z - girls (boy'z is a singing duo... girls is the name of the song). well, this is getting a bit long for my tastes, but i had my rant, so im happy 8). not really a rant but you know what i mean ^^. thanks again in advance for a great player (im looking forward to a bug free version :wink:).

[Jason Patterson]

other than the random crashing and not being able to make proper playlists

Brian, could you explain what you mean by these two problems? How are you not able to make a proper playlist? When and how does it randomly crash?

when pocket player opens it is set to local content, which includes rings and stuff for the alarm clock. i found this annoying so i tried to remove them.

This is due to Pocket Player's WAV file support. To disable this, simply check "Disable WAV support" on the Advanced menu options page.

the next time i started the application i found that the program had eaten part of my playlist! (like 10 songs)

Do you mean that you were on the Local Content auto-playlist, and then removed the WAV files from the list; and upon re-entering Pocket Player it not only had removed the WAV files, but also 10 "normal" tracks from the playlist too? That's certainly not something we have heard reported before.

i cannot even add folders twice without it freezing up.

This is another problem we have not heard reported from any other users. What type of media files are you using? Where are they stored?

my files are all chinese, which is why i appreciate the font size so much. i dont think this is part of the problem though

This certainly should not be a problem, but are these problems consistently happening on those types of files? We have done extensive tests with unicode file names and have heard no problems with them. Could you load on some english-named files and see if the problems repeat themselves? Thanks!

[brianphung]

hmm, well, after using it for another day, the crashing might not be so random... sometimes after playing a song after some of my playlist has been eaten, it just stops and wont play. or it just wont play the song at all (this is much more common than playing it then crashing). sometimes it freezes my whole ppc up, sometimes i can close it (and sometimes it just freezes and i dont have a close button nor can i just click where the close button should be)... if i just play normally without having the playlist eaten or modifying it, then it works fine. usually when this sorta thing happens, when i click the left button beside the playlist (playlist editor), the first time the top and bottom parts of the gui disappears, and the top part of the gui is replaced with a white bar and in the top left corner it says "PlayList Header" and the bottom part of the gui is replaced with a grey bar with the keyboard icon (as if it were transparent and you can see behind it). if i can get out of this playlist menu, then the second time i try to go back into it the whole gui is replaced with white and the playlist header text is still there... and IF i manage to get out again, and i try to go to it, it just opens a textbox (like an error message box, but white box with blue top) that says "Playlist" in the blue part, and says "Playlist Header" in the top left corner of the white box, and then there is a single space (like pressing the enter key twice after the first line of text), and then it says "PlayList List". when this happens, i can open and close this window as many times as i want. but it will not go back to the regular playlist editor.

&lt;quote> Do you mean that you were on the Local Content auto-playlist, and then removed the WAV files from the list; and upon re-entering Pocket Player it not only had removed the WAV files, but also 10 "normal" tracks from the playlist too? That's certainly not something we have heard reported before. &lt;/quote>

it does not matter if i remove the wav files or not. each time i closed and restarted the application, about 10 tracks where gone and the name of the last track on the playlist was either partially missing or it was replaced with some code.

&lt;quote> This is another problem we have not heard reported from any other users. What type of media files are you using? Where are they stored? &lt;/quote>

i am using mp3 files. they are stored on my cf and sd cards.

i have tried using just english names, but the problems still remain. now i cannot even access any other tabs of the menu other than the first one. i can click on them but the menu does not change. the tabs are highlighted, but it is still on the first tab's menu. i have soft resetted numerous times, and i still cannot use the player as i did the very first time (working perfectly with all the local content). i will try to remove and reinstall the application tonight, if i find the time to do so.

[Jason Patterson]

i have tried using just english names, but the problems still remain. now i cannot even access any other tabs of the menu other than the first one. i can click on them but the menu does not change. the tabs are highlighted, but it is still on the first tab's menu. i have soft resetted numerous times, and i still cannot use the player as i did the very first time (working perfectly with all the local content). i will try to remove and reinstall the application tonight, if i find the time to do so.

Do your media files reside in folders that also contain non-english characters? We are thinking that this is all in regards to the way we save a copy of the Local Content playlist just before exiting. It is saved in the M3U format which is an ASCII format. We plan to change this for 2.51 and make it UTF-8 based.

To reset Pocket Player to how it was first installed, remove the 'infocache' and 'current' files that are in the Pocket Player install folder.

[pepemosca]

Hi Jason,

I'm also having problems with the playlist.

Sometimes (I wasn't able to isolate the problem yet) I'm playing a file, and when it has to change to the next file, just the "Open dialog" appears and the playback stops.

Is like it's not able to open the file, but if I go and do a doble-tap over the song-name, the file opens.

I try by changing the folder names, but it still happening.
I have the .MP3 files on my SD card (I have an iPAQ h5450)..

I'll keep you update about this, If I can find the scenery that makes this error.

[Jason Patterson]

Hi Jason,

I'm also having problems with the playlist.

Sometimes (I wasn't able to isolate the problem yet) I'm playing a file, and when it has to change to the next file, just the "Open dialog" appears and the playback stops.

Is like it's not able to open the file, but if I go and do a doble-tap over the song-name, the file opens.

I try by changing the folder names, but it still happening.
I have the .MP3 files on my SD card (I have an iPAQ h5450)..

I'll keep you update about this, If I can find the scenery that makes this error.

We've had a user on our own forums that reported the same problem. Apparantely it's not isolated. We're wrapping up development on Pocket Player 2.51 currently -- I'll PM you to get you the latest beta. We did fix some issues with the Next functionality of the playlist in some circumstances.

[weisco]

I read on Conduit's website that Pocket Player supports Audible books. I have a T-mobile PPC running 2003. I have Audible installed (which is quite buggy).

I downloaded the trial of Pocket Player, but it does not recognize the format of Audible books on my storage card.

Is there a way to use Pocket Player for Audible books?

[Jason Patterson]

I read on Conduit's website that Pocket Player supports Audible books. I have a T-mobile PPC running 2003. I have Audible installed (which is quite buggy).

I downloaded the trial of Pocket Player, but it does not recognize the format of Audible books on my storage card.

Is there a way to use Pocket Player for Audible books?

Where did you see that Pocket Player supports Audible books? We certainly don't list that on our website. We support "Audio Books", meaning any content ripped from a "Book on CD" that you would like to play in Pocket Player, with bookmarking support. We hope to have Audible support in a future release.

[weisco]

I apologize--I did read Conduit's website incorrectly. Bummer! I guess I will uninstall the demo. Maybe I'll try again if Pocket Player has Audible support in the future.

[Jason Patterson]

Greetings everyone,

We have released Pocket Player 2.51! This includes full WM2003SE compatibility, all known issues have been resolved, and we have added plugin functionality and have made a plugin SDK available. Visualization, DSP, decoder, and general plugins are all supported now. For skin developers, we have a desktop skin tester application.

More information is in our press release, available at http://www.conduits.com/company_news.asp?pr20040413.html.

Thanks again!

[pepemosca]

Greetings everyone,

We have released Pocket Player 2.51! This includes full WM2003SE compatibility, all known issues have been resolved, and we have added plugin functionality and have made a plugin SDK available. Visualization, DSP, decoder, and general plugins are all supported now. For skin developers, we have a desktop skin tester application.

More information is in our press release, available at http://www.conduits.com/company_news.asp?pr20040413.html.

Thanks again!

Jason,
I've installed the 2.51 version, and I've this little problem, the vis takes like 21 seconds to show.
I mean, I start the player, and takes 21 seconds to start watching the visualization. Is that ok?
(I have an iPAQ h5450)

Besides that, everything seams to work very well :)

[Jason Patterson]

I've installed the 2.51 version, and I've this little problem, the vis takes like 21 seconds to show.
I mean, I start the player, and takes 21 seconds to start watching the visualization. Is that ok?
(I have an iPAQ h5450)

Besides that, everything seams to work very well :)

That's quite strange. Is it consistently that long? So you press play, and about 21 seconds into the track, the visualization starts up? Are you referring to a visualization plugin (which occupies the playlist area of the screen), or the mini-visualizations (with Oscilloscope/Spectrum above the volume control)? What type of media files are you using?

Are you reading from a Microdrive, with "Agressive buffering" enabled in the Advanced options? If so, that might explain it, since visualizations run at a very low priority, and agressive input buffering runs a little higher than that. We will look into this for the next release.

[grinny11]

I just wanted to tell u guys how excited i am for this new version. The skip/next is much faster then previous and things seem to be bug free. the landscape skin that is included in with the software does not work properly with my WM2003 Axim. i guess its for PPCs with SE installed or who use nyditot. The skins that are lanscape in the skins section of the website are viewable landscape without having to rotate, though the playlist isn't rotated. It's good enough for me though. 2/3 of the screen rotated and viewable is still better then none of it rotated. keep up the great work guys!

[Jason Patterson]

I just wanted to tell u guys how excited i am for this new version. The skip/next is much faster then previous and things seem to be bug free. the landscape skin that is included in with the software does not work properly with my WM2003 Axim. i guess its for PPCs with SE installed or who use nyditot. The skins that are lanscape in the skins section of the website are viewable landscape without having to rotate, though the playlist isn't rotated. It's good enough for me though. 2/3 of the screen rotated and viewable is still better then none of it rotated. keep up the great work guys!

grinny11,

Thanks! Indeed, the landscape skin that's bundled is in preparation for WM2003SE / Nyditot NVD3.5; the one off our website is a landscape-oriented skin for portrait displays.

Thanks again for the kind comments!

[pepemosca]

I've installed the 2.51 version, and I've this little problem, the vis takes like 21 seconds to show.
I mean, I start the player, and takes 21 seconds to start watching the visualization. Is that ok?
(I have an iPAQ h5450)

Besides that, everything seams to work very well :)

That's quite strange. Is it consistently that long? So you press play, and about 21 seconds into the track, the visualization starts up? Are you referring to a visualization plugin (which occupies the playlist area of the screen), or the mini-visualizations (with Oscilloscope/Spectrum above the volume control)? What type of media files are you using?

Are you reading from a Microdrive, with "Agressive buffering" enabled in the Advanced options? If so, that might explain it, since visualizations run at a very low priority, and agressive input buffering runs a little higher than that. We will look into this for the next release.

What I do is, open the program and wait a few seconds and the music starts, but I wait like 20 seconds to see the mini-visualizations start to move (before the 20 seconds, the mini-visualizations area is black).

I'm playing a simple MP3 from my SanDisk SD of 256MB.
I don't find that "Agressive buffering" option, where is that? I try by unchecking the "Use fast input buffering" but I get the same problem.

Please, feel free to ask me for testing.

[grinny11]

Thanks! Indeed, the landscape skin that's bundled is in preparation for WM2003SE / Nyditot NVD3.5; the one off our website is a landscape-oriented skin for portrait displays.

Thanks again for the kind comments![/quote]


It would be kewl if you guys could include both skins with the software or maybe make it clearer on the skin's section of your website. i just was desperate to make that feature work and i gave the one on the website a try. not so sure others might do the same. thanks

[Jason Patterson]

What I do is, open the program and wait a few seconds and the music starts, but I wait like 20 seconds to see the mini-visualizations start to move (before the 20 seconds, the mini-visualizations area is black).

I'm playing a simple MP3 from my SanDisk SD of 256MB.
I don't find that "Agressive buffering" option, where is that? I try by unchecking the "Use fast input buffering" but I get the same problem.

What are your playback settings set to? What skin are you using? The default visualization area shouldn't ever be 'black' (unless you are using the Brushed Steel skin, for example).

[pepemosca]

What are your playback settings set to? What skin are you using? The default visualization area shouldn't ever be 'black' (unless you are using the Brushed Steel skin, for example).

You were right, if I use the "default" skin, I don't have any problem.

Can I send you my configuration file or registry?

[Jason Patterson]

What are your playback settings set to? What skin are you using? The default visualization area shouldn't ever be 'black' (unless you are using the Brushed Steel skin, for example).

You were right, if I use the "default" skin, I don't have any problem.

Can I send you my configuration file or registry?

That's pretty strange. Are you saying that starting up the program with the Steel skin takes a good 20 seconds before visualizations show up, while starting it up with the Default skin shows visualizations immediately?

[pepemosca]

The truth is that I cannot check because I sold my iPAQ... I will check with a new h4150 soon.

But, what you say is what used to happend with my ex-h5450.

[pepemosca]

I've try the "Slow Vis" problem with my new h4150 and the problem is gone.

But I have noticed a new problem:

If I press a hard button, the screen turns on, no matter if I have un-setted the "Turn on screen after any button press."

Oh, I don't have this problem if I press the D-Pad.

BTW, I have installed the Battery Pack Pro 1.0.. maybe is the "Power Buttons" program... I'll try to test it later.

[Jason Patterson]

I've try the "Slow Vis" problem with my new h4150 and the problem is gone.

But I have noticed a new problem:

If I press a hard button, the screen turns on, no matter if I have un-setted the "Turn on screen after any button press."

Oh, I don't have this problem if I press the D-Pad.

BTW, I have installed the Battery Pack Pro 1.0.. maybe is the "Power Buttons" program... I'll try to test it later.

This problem afflicts certain devices (many IPAQs especially) -- try unchecking "Turn on backlight when a button is pressed" in your Backlight settings. That might fix the problem. We had an issue in versions prior to 2.5 where the system would turn the screen on, and Pocket Player wouldn't realize this, and wouldn't turn it back off -- that problem's certainly been fixed.

Thanks, and glad to hear the "slow vis startup" isn't a problem any more!

[pepemosca]

Nope, the problem isn't solved by uncheking that :(

[Jason Patterson]

Nope, the problem isn't solved by uncheking that :(

That's what I thought would happen. Unfortunately on some devices, that box in the Settings controls only the backlight brightness, and not the actual screen power. We currently know of no workaround, apart from setting Pocket Player to dim after 2 seconds (it'll come on, and turn back off pretty quickly).

You should be able to reproduce this problem in Windows Media Player, for verification purposes.

[pepemosca]

That's what I thought would happen. Unfortunately on some devices, that box in the Settings controls only the backlight brightness, and not the actual screen power. We currently know of no workaround, apart from setting Pocket Player to dim after 2 seconds (it'll come on, and turn back off pretty quickly).

You should be able to reproduce this problem in Windows Media Player, for verification purposes.

You were right; I have the same problem with Windows Media Player.

I just hope you figure out how to solve the problem, like you did with the h54XX volume button :)

Count on me for testing :D

[pepemosca]

I was thinking, you know what can be cool, a Button Mapping that considers the "Press and hold".

I'm thinking that could be nice to map the "record button" to "Play/Pause" and "Hold the button" to "Next" (track).

Hope you consider it.

[Jason Patterson]

I was thinking, you know what can be cool, a Button Mapping that considers the "Press and hold".

I'm thinking that could be nice to map the "record button" to "Play/Pause" and "Hold the button" to "Next" (track).

Hope you consider it.

This is certainly something we would hope to support in a future release.

[pepemosca]

This is certainly something we would hope to support in a future release.

Great :)

[pepemosca]

I was thinking, and I start to believe that "Double button press" will be easy to use than "Press and hold".

Just another thought.

[Jason Patterson]

I was thinking, and I start to believe that "Double button press" will be easy to use than "Press and hold".

Just another thought.

Definitely. Basically, we'll hope to have different mappings available for Single press, Double, Triple, and Press-and-hold, for any key.

[pepemosca]

I have been having problems with the player.
I have again the problem that is playing a file and after the actual file, the "Open dialog" appears.
I've notice that the problem only happened when the Shuffle is On. If it's off, I have no problem with the same files.

I don't know exactly what it is, but I just want to tell you about that.

PS: I have the 2.51 version installed.

[Jason Patterson]

I have been having problems with the player.
I have again the problem that is playing a file and after the actual file, the "Open dialog" appears.
I've notice that the problem only happened when the Shuffle is On. If it's off, I have no problem with the same files.

I don't know exactly what it is, but I just want to tell you about that.

PS: I have the 2.51 version installed.

We have seen this happen in a few circumstances, and it has been fixed for version 2.52. If you would like an early copy, simply email our support. Thanks!

[Jason Patterson]

Greetings everyone,

Today we have released version 2.52 of Pocket Player. This fixes all of the issues that were reported for version 2.51, inclusing any installation/uninstallation problems (with the today plugin), all playback problems, UI quirks, and includes full Windows Mobile 2003 SE support.

Thank you to everyone that provided feedback and bug reports on version 2.52. We now look forward towards the next release. Thanks again!

[Underwater Mike]

Anyone care to offer opinions on PP versus PocketMusic, given that both have relatively new versions out? I have the first iteration of PocketMusic but have been unable to get a response from the vendor WRT upgrades, even though I've emailed several times since last spring. In contrast, my experience with Conduits' support has been great. That point alone has me leaning toward Pocket Player, unless the current version of PM is something really wonderful.

TIA

[pepemosca]

Greetings everyone,

Today we have released version 2.52 of Pocket Player. This fixes all of the issues that were reported for version 2.51, inclusing any installation/uninstallation problems (with the today plugin), all playback problems, UI quirks, and includes full Windows Mobile 2003 SE support.

Thank you to everyone that provided feedback and bug reports on version 2.52. We now look forward towards the next release. Thanks again!

I cannot wait to try it :)

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

I've been using the 2.52 beta for a few days prior to the official announcement and it works really well with WM2003SE. No problems at all.

I'm actually one of those who had previously registered both PocketMusic and then PocketPlayer. I haven't played around with the latest version of PocketMusic (version 3 now?). But back in previous versions, I found PocketPlayer to be more stable and more robust. I would have been willing to give the latest version of PM a try but they're charging an upgrade fee for version 3 (which is what I need to use with WM2003SE) while PocketPlayer was able to get me a WM2003SE version for free.