08-08-2008, 06:00 PM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 716
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Two Tips to Make Windows Media Player on WM Suck Slightly Less
"Understatement: Windows Mobile's default media player, Windows Media Player (WMP), isn't exactly iPod-class. One solution for this issue is to just give up on WMP completely and go with something like Pocket Tunes, currently our top pick for alternate music players (though we have more reviews of media players coming soon -- stay tuned). For some, however, having another media player isn't a great option due to either memory constraints or just plain personal preference. For you crazy folks, we offer two hints to make things a little better." 
Personally, I'd just as soon go for an alternative player. I just can't see why it's so hard for MS to make a decent player for their devices. Which player do you use and do you like it? Do the hints provided help make WM player a better music option or does it still "suck"? Let us know what you think?
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iPhone
Tmo Dash
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08-08-2008, 06:33 PM
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Theorist
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 281
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WM player sucks just as the WM browser and the rest of the apps that are part of WM OS. You would think that after all these years they would have improved. 
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08-08-2008, 06:40 PM
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Neophyte
Join Date: May 2008
Posts: 2
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What's wrong with Media Player? And why are others so much better?
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08-08-2008, 06:53 PM
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Theorist
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 274
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I use WM player and have no issues with it whatsoever. Not sure what people want from it but it transfers my music over easily, works flawlessly with A2DP and allows me to create playlists on the go. All I do is connect my BT headset, press play and i'm off. Works for me.
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08-08-2008, 07:02 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 333
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I also carry an iPod nano, and don't listen to music on my MW device. Mostly this is because of the battery life, but storage limitation is also a concern.
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08-08-2008, 07:43 PM
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Oracle
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 974
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You know - wouldn't it be great if we, as consumers. could remove the applications we don't use so we can have more space? Take for instance PIE or WMPlayer... I mean why can't we just select remove - same with the office applications - just like in the desktop world...
My two cents
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08-08-2008, 09:06 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 140
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Quote:
Originally Posted by efjay
...All I do is connect my BT headset, press play and i'm off. Works for me....
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Me too... I like WMP enough to stick with it...
I 've got a wired remote with music controls from HTC, and that works with WMP or the HTC player only.... So i guess, i have no options...
But WMP is easy, stable and plays everything i've got....it 's ability to turn the screen off is also nice. The interface of opening a playlist could be a lot better though... but spb mobile shell takes care of that for me  Four thumb-taps and i'm off with my list of choice
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Touch PRO & TyTN II .... doin' CE since 1997 :)
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08-08-2008, 09:18 PM
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Sage
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 740
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I agree. WMP was fine (though I have an iPod and now an iPhone 3G) when I used it on my WM device.
The problem is NOT the mobile player, but the desktop interface between your chosen player and your music. If WMP handled that with as much grace as iTunes and my iPod/iPhone; and if it was easy to have (at least) 10's of gigabytes of storage on my WM device, I likely never would have abandoned it for another solution.
Just my 2 cents...
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Kind Regards,
Christopher Spera
Gear Diary Review Team
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08-08-2008, 10:39 PM
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Contributing Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,389
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Windows media player works great for my ripped CDs. I rip them into desktop media player then copy them to my MicroSD card. Works great. Album art and everything. Good stuff.
Now for video i use TCPMP. Nothing better. But it pretty much is a pain to use for audio. Media player's media library is just too nice.
I played a bit the the built in HTC audio player and it truly sucks. A nice finger friendly UI stuck on top of a horrid player with no features.
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08-08-2008, 11:04 PM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 1,043
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I've always found WMP glitchy since starting 8 years ago using PPCs. At times it has worked perfectly, especially streaming online video/audio in WMV/WMA and related proprietary formats. But I hate the sluggishness of the playlist/library interface in loading, and worse, find it painfully slow and awkward trying to build playlists. In TCPMP this stuff is a breeze, and the playlists saved aren't location-specific (full paths not stored in the file, just relative paths) so I can move music folders around between locations in a card or to a different device or my PC and the playlists will always work. TCPMP also plays about 10 times as many file types as does WMP, and it's free, so really, what's not to like? Playback is smooth. Interface both screen and mapped buttons is easy to use. Screen toggle etc. is every bit as good as with WMP. And the included options for manually setting all sorts of parameters and associations are easy to use - how many user definable options are there in WMP? (never mind, not really asking... not many)
I tried CORE for a bit, basically a prettied-up TCPMP with some added features and a few missing. Liked it more or less, but it took about twice as long to load so I dumped it. I like programs to load in less than 5 seconds. If I have to wait too long it feels like I'm back in 2000 using my Casio E-115 with its 133MHz MIPS processor......
On the old 'why can't I uninstall PIE and WMP and Pocket Word' etc. question, that's simple enough; Microsoft wants users to be able to cold boot to a fresh, ready-to-use OS and core programs. If users had to install the OS or core apps from a PC every time they wanted a clean slate, there'd be far more expenditure on support questions with such procedures, requests for (and necessity to validate licenses at the same time!) replacements of lost CDs, and other related nightmares. They've kept things simple and efficient in terms of starting out with a fresh device, and I think that's appropriate. As for their particular choices in installed apps, that's another thing entirely. I don't understand why they haven't, for example, made a deal with SoftMaker to install their office suite (TextMaker and PlanMaker as a minimum) as the default word processor and spreadsheet applications. These tools dramatically kick MS butt. Maybe that's why? But still, pride or no pride, why not at least offer such kit as a user option at purchase time? Surely better quality applications booting as part of the OS would bring MS a lot more respect in the market, get their devices taken that much more seriously by business. But of course I'm not a businessman in terms of 'getting' how these things are done, so never mind.
If you really don't want WMP or PIE, just learn how to cook a ROM from somewhere like XDA-developers and do one for yourself. Shouldn't be too hard to ditch Word, Excel, and other nonsense while at it, saving lots more room for flash storage in main memory.
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Gerard Ivan Samija
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