Clinton Fitch Reviews Conduits Pocket Player 2.52

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.clintonfitch.com/reviews/conduits/pocketplayer-2-52/default.asp' target='_blank'>http://www.clintonfitch.com/reviews...-52/default.asp</a><br /><br /></div><i>"One of the great movements in the history of Pocket PCs has been the progression of multimedia content being available on the devices. Gone are the days of a Personal Information Manager (PIM) only device. They have been replaced with full featured, rich applications that allow for the playing of video and music in high fidelity. Conduits Technologies has been involved in this aspect of Pocket PC life for several years and has taken a leading role with their application Pocket Player. Pocket Player, now in version 2.52, is full-featured audio applications that allows users to play a variety of audio formats. The application also includes a built-in equalizer, hardware button mapping, bookmarking and play list management. Pocket Player is one of the more established audio applications available for Pocket PC users and the maturity of the product shows straight away with its ease-of-use and flexibility. Any audiophile Pocket PC owner will love Pocket Player."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/img22879.JPG" /><br /><br />Clinton Fitch has a review on Pocket Player by Conduits - and it's not his first review, because he has a <a href="http://www.clintonfitch.com/upcoming/">long list of reviews</a> dating back to April 2004. I believe this is the first time we've linked to his work, which seems like a shame. ;-) I'm especially impressed that he's written all of the reviews on his Pocket PC using a keyboard and TextMaker. Heck, he even has an <a href="http://www.clintonfitch.com/upcoming/">editorial calendar</a> - now that's some serious planning! Go check out his site and his reviews.<br /><br />And speaking of reviews, in the coming weeks we'll be doing another call for reviewers, so if you're interested in writing for Pocket PC Thoughts, get those word processors ready! ;-)

[Vincent M Ferrari]

I just checked in on his site, and you're right. He is a great reviewer and he's done a lot of them. I like that he includes tons of screenshots with his reviews also. UI pics always make me swoon when inserted into a software review.

:ppclove:

[Phillip Dyson]

I tried a demo of PocketPlayer just yeseterday.
I couldn't get it to stream any Windows Media content from a radio station that I listen to.

This is the only reason that I use Windows Media Player.

[alabij]

I like this product but... With my IPAQ H6315 when I use a media player other than WMP the audio continues to play even when I receive or initiate a call. This really sucks.

[Vincent M Ferrari]

I like this product but... With my IPAQ H6315 when I use a media player other than WMP the audio continues to play even when I receive or initiate a call. This really sucks.

Yet another fine "feature" of the HP 6300... :frusty:

[Jason Patterson]

I tried a demo of PocketPlayer just yeseterday.
I couldn't get it to stream any Windows Media content from a radio station that I listen to.

Was it a "MMS"-type stream? Currently Pocket Player cannot stream from those servers, but will do so in a future release. We also hope to support RTSP streams. Pocket Player can stream from standard Shoutcast/Icecast streams, so perhaps see if your radio station supports Winamp-style streaming.

[Jason Patterson]

I like this product but... With my IPAQ H6315 when I use a media player other than WMP the audio continues to play even when I receive or initiate a call. This really sucks.

Have you tried Pocket Player 2.52? It pauses playback when you receive a phone call. It is a new feature we introduced for version 2.52.

[cgavula]

It has a wonderful interface, but it doesn't appear to support MPEG 4 - AAC. That makes it a no-go for me.

If I'm going to pay for a player, it needs to support the formats I use. I'm an iTunes users (as are many, many other people) and I prefer it's AAC format. I don't need FairPlay DRM support, just AAC support.
Last time I checked there was a fairly steep licensing fee ($15,000 plus 50 cents per audio channel) and that isn't trivial - but neither is asking $19.95 for a player when I can get something like BetaPlayer for free. And, by the way, BetaPlayer does play the AAC format.

--Chris

[Phillip Dyson]

I tried a demo of PocketPlayer just yeseterday.
I couldn't get it to stream any Windows Media content from a radio station that I listen to.

Was it a "MMS"-type stream? Currently Pocket Player cannot stream from those servers, but will do so in a future release. We also hope to support RTSP streams. Pocket Player can stream from standard Shoutcast/Icecast streams, so perhaps see if your radio station supports Winamp-style streaming.

Ii was Windows Media Audio 9 codec.
Here is the URL http://mmslb.eonstreams.com/wbalam/

[jimski]

This application appears to provide the best playback through my HP Bluetooth headphones. WMP seems to snap...crackle....pop continuously and trying a couple other players, they either did not work at all or locked up the PPC while playing.

I have listened to many hours of enjoyable music using Pocket Player in the past few weeks. Nice clean interface.

[Jason Dunn]

Last time I checked there was a fairly steep licensing fee ($15,000 plus 50 cents per audio channel) and that isn't trivial - but neither is asking $19.95 for a player when I can get something like BetaPlayer for free. And, by the way, BetaPlayer does play the AAC format.

(Going a bit off-topic here...)

Are you suggesting that the makers of BetaPlayer are paying $15,000 in order to play back AAC inside a piece of software they give away for free? I want to make sure I'm understanding you here before I make any further comments...

[Jason Patterson]

It has a wonderful interface, but it doesn't appear to support MPEG 4 - AAC. That makes it a no-go for me.

If I'm going to pay for a player, it needs to support the formats I use. I'm an iTunes users (as are many, many other people) and I prefer it's AAC format. I don't need FairPlay DRM support, just AAC support.
Last time I checked there was a fairly steep licensing fee ($15,000 plus 50 cents per audio channel) and that isn't trivial - but neither is asking $19.95 for a player when I can get something like BetaPlayer for free. And, by the way, BetaPlayer does play the AAC format.

While we don't like to announce features ahead of time, we're certainly hoping to support AAC in Pocket Player 3.0.

[Jason Patterson]

This application appears to provide the best playback through my HP Bluetooth headphones. WMP seems to snap...crackle....pop continuously and trying a couple other players, they either did not work at all or locked up the PPC while playing.

I have listened to many hours of enjoyable music using Pocket Player in the past few weeks. Nice clean interface.

Thanks! I might add that we are working on getting the headphone remote buttons to "talk" to Pocket Player as well.

[Jason Patterson]

Are you suggesting that the makers of BetaPlayer are paying $15,000 in order to play back AAC inside a piece of software they give away for free? I want to make sure I'm understanding you here before I make any further comments...
Jason,

They are likely not paying the $15,000 but are certainly liable for it, plus the per-unit royalties of $0.50 per channel ($1/unit for a stereo decoder). IIRC, there are no exceptions in the AAC licensing for freeware and/or open source programs, but it seems the AAC licensors have not approached open source developers (likely to spread use of the format).

Case in point is iTunes on the desktop -- apparantely Apple has paid the $15,000 and does pay the per unit fees, but AAC licensees have a clause which puts a cap no the per-unit fees for desktop software. Basically Apple pays this maximum amount. They dont have that exception for "portable device software" so they do pay $1 for each iPod. Software for Pocket PC should be abiding by these royalties -- Pocket Player certainly will, once we support AAC.

[Jason Dunn]

They are likely not paying the $15,000 but are certainly liable for it, plus the per-unit royalties of $0.50 per channel ($1/unit for a stereo decoder). IIRC, there are no exceptions in the AAC licensing for freeware and/or open source programs, but it seems the AAC licensors have not approached open source developers (likely to spread use of the format).

That's exactly what I thought, but I wanted cgavula to see how silly it was to expect Pocket PC shareware developers to dish out $15,000 + per unit payments to support AAC.

I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade, but AAC is an incredibly poor choice for ripping CDs in - it restricts you to essentially Apple-based players, which are the "hot" thing right now but what about five years from now? Why pick an audio file format that might not be around? MP3 is the best choice for guaranteed compatibility, with WMA running a close second simply because there are so many players that support it...and you know Microsoft isn't going to give up. ;-)

If Conduits is going to pony up the cash to support AAC (which I don't think is an investment you'll see a return on), you guys have more money than I thought and we should talk about advertising. :lol:

[Julio Ortiz]

Why pick an audio file format that might not be around? MP3 is the best choice for guaranteed compatibility, with WMA running a close second simply because there are so many players that support it...and you know Microsoft isn't going to give up. ;-)

Two words- Ogg Vorbis (http://www.vorbis.com). Though, to not sound so geeky, I shorten it to Vorbis, and people still have no idea what I'm talking about. :)

[Jason Dunn]

Two words- Ogg Vorbis (http://www.vorbis.com). Though, to not sound so geeky, I shorten it to Vorbis, and people still have no idea what I'm talking about. :)

Ogg Vorbis is a great idea, but how many players support it? Not nearly enough to make it a good choice IMO. :-(

[Jason Patterson]

Ogg Vorbis is a great idea, but how many players support it? Not nearly enough to make it a good choice IMO. :-(

Certainly true (though Pocket Player does support it :wink: ). Personally, after thinking, I rip to 160 kbps WMA files and 128 kbps AAC files. That way, WMP sees one half of the library, and iTunes sees the other half. Though it sounds like double the disk space is needed, for my ears I'd want 320 kbps MP3 if I were to rip to that format. This way, whatever device I use (a PlaysForSure device or an iTunes/AirTunes/iPod) can read my library, and when syncing to a portable device, less space is used overall than having high quality MP3s.

[Julio Ortiz]

Ogg Vorbis is a great idea, but how many players support it? Not nearly enough to make it a good choice IMO. :-(

The only one that springs to mind is the iRiver H320, which makes it a strong contender for me. When I had a Pocket PC, I used the GSPlayer and found that I liked fitting more music on my meager 128MB card with Ogg Vorbis than MP3. :) I tried WMA, but I had a bad experience with it. The sound quality was unimpressive. Using Vorbis, ripping to a 64K bit-rate (using VBR), I am very happy with the results, and the smaller file sizes.

Vorbis doesn't have the mindshare of MP3, WMA, or AAC/iTunens, but it is a great format, it's open, and I would use it over WMA until the day I die. Or something like that. 8)