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View Full Version : Movement On The Media Front


Janak Parekh
10-28-2003, 10:00 PM
A number of interesting announcements happened on the media player front today. <li> First, Microsoft is <a href="http://pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,113139,00.asp">delaying the release</a> of Media2Go devices (which, by the way, has now been renamed to "Windows Mobile Software for Portable Media Centers") to mid-2004. In my opinion, they'd better stick to that timeframe; there's a lot of movement in the portable player front right now, and Microsoft should put effort into making sure they hit the market sooner than later.<br /><li> Dell <a href="http://pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,113119,00.asp">released</a> details on their music player and announced that they're partnering with <a href="http://pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,112672,00.asp">MusicMatch Jukebox Downloads</a>. I was curious to see <a href="http://www.musicmatch.com/info/user_guide/music_downloads.htm">how Jukebox's DRM works</a>, and it's very similar to the iTunes Music Store: 3 machines may play the music at any given time, and there appear to be no other restrictions. The files are in WMA format. I wonder if these files can be played on Pocket PCs? If anyone knows, feel free to let us know. :) This will certainly be a market worth watching in the next 6-12 months, as "legal" online content is finally appearing with earnest.

sparkyewu
10-28-2003, 10:11 PM
My only problem with the Musicmatch DRM is once you deactivate a computer it is deactived for life. I'm not a big fan of this. That is why i want an ipod and use itunes, at least there if you deactive a computer you can always reactive it, you can only just have 3 machines activated at any given time.

Just my 2-cents. :clap:

Edited: Oh and the other DRM with Musicmatch is the number of times you can burn a playlist. Same with I tunes except i think musicmatches number is 5 where an unchanged itunes playlist can be burnt 10 times.

lgingell
10-28-2003, 10:12 PM
"Hey is that a Windows_Mobile_Software_for_Portable_Media_Centers_device in your pocket or are you pleased to see me?"

Jeez....I think Microsoft need to think about how they are naming all these devices - its pretty ridiculous. For example, why change PocketPC? that was such a great name, now its windows_mobile_for_who_knows_what_and_where....

now my fingers hurt from cut & pasting those long names!

..lance

doogald
10-29-2003, 12:25 AM
MusicMatch Jukebox Downloads.... The files are in WMA format. I wonder if these files can be played on Pocket PCs? If anyone knows, feel free to let us know. :)

Yep! Though I could not copy the files from Windows Media Player (meaning that I could not resample them to 64 kbs), and though when I tried to copy to my SD card it said it could not because my SD card was not a SDMI compliant device, it did let me copy to my CF card.

doogald
10-29-2003, 02:50 AM
Though I could not copy the files from Windows Media Player (meaning that I could not resample them to 64 kbs)...

Dope that I am, I missed that option in MusicMatch Plus. You can, indeed, change the bitrate to 64 kbs if it was ripped at a higher rate.

MusicMatch recognizes Pocket PC as a portable device, just as WMP does.

Abba Zabba
10-29-2003, 07:01 AM
"Hey is that a Windows_Mobile_Software_for_Portable_Media_Centers_device in your pocket or are you pleased to see me?"

Jeez....I think Microsoft need to think about how they are naming all these devices - its pretty ridiculous. For example, why change PocketPC? that was such a great name, now its windows_mobile_for_who_knows_what_and_where....

now my fingers hurt from cut & pasting those long names!

..lance

:rofl: Seriously what is up with MS and those long names. It's like they have to make sure they absolutly distinguish the type of device. Try to keep it down to a combo of 2 anything like Pocket PC. MS...come on :roll:

Janak Parekh
10-29-2003, 04:40 PM
Yep! Though I could not copy the files from Windows Media Player (meaning that I could not resample them to 64 kbs), and though when I tried to copy to my SD card it said it could not because my SD card was not a SDMI compliant device, it did let me copy to my CF card.
Cool! Thanks for letting us know. The SD card bit is weird, though. :? Do you have to use ActiveSync to copy the music over, or could you just copy the protected files using a CF/SD reader? I'd go nuts if I had to wait for ActiveSync...

--janak

doogald
10-29-2003, 06:06 PM
Yep! Though I could not copy the files from Windows Media Player (meaning that I could not resample them to 64 kbs), and though when I tried to copy to my SD card it said it could not because my SD card was not a SDMI compliant device, it did let me copy to my CF card.
Cool! Thanks for letting us know. The SD card bit is weird, though. :? Do you have to use ActiveSync to copy the music over, or could you just copy the protected files using a CF/SD reader? I'd go nuts if I had to wait for ActiveSync...


I haven't had a chance to try it yet - but when I manually moved the file from CF to the SD card on the PPC and then tried to play it, the file disappeared.

I actually do not mind using Musicmatch or WMP with Activesync to copy the files over if they are going to change the files to 64 kbs (the song that I bought was at 162 or something like that - I'll have to check when I go back home). Musicmatch has a feature called synchronization so that you can create a playlist and it will copy over only the files that are not on the device already.

I will try copying to the CF using the reader tonight (I don't have an SD reader) and let you know unless somebody beats me to it.

Oh, I also have a support call into Viking to see why the card does not support SDMI when their web site says that it should.