Using a Smartphone as Your MP3 Player

[Robert Levy]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/resources/communities/experts/joneill.mspx' target='_blank'>http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/resources/communities/experts/joneill.mspx</a><br /><br /></div>A new article in the "community" section of the Windows Mobile website talks about using Windows Media Player 9 on the desktop in conjunction with a Smartphone. Check it out!<br /><br />"I'd like to shed some light on the great listening and music portability that your Smartphone or Pocket PC can provide with the Windows Media Player 9. For me, the best thing about Windows Media Player 9 is the way it works with mobile devices. I used to listen to CDs, but now many of my CDs have never been played on a normal CD player! I have been copying them to my computer hard disk-legally, of course-and playing them through the machine. However, it's also very easy to just copy them from there to a storage card and pop that into a Smartphone. More about that in a minute; first, I'd like to describe the benefits of using this software to listen to music."

[cmorris]

Hmm... since the MPx200 doesn't have WM2003 (no WMP9) is the desktop WMP9 smart enough to re-encode using an older codec?

[TANKERx]

I prefer to use the Ogg format and Pocket Music, much better on-the-phone playlist editing.

[DubWireless]

not too impressed with Windows Media Player on the Smartphone 2002:
- doesn't resume play after call interruption (*really* annoying :x)
- no way to move through a track
- slow to load up initially

does anyone know if any of those are implemented in the the Windows Media player on Smartphone 2003?

thanks

[krissnken]

I'm been using my MPx200 for almost a month now, and can play WM9 encoded WMA files just fine. I've got all my music encoded to 192 kbps WMA files in my Windows Media Player Media Libary, so I just keep copying and deleting files to my 256 MB (SD) Storage Card using WMP9 Copy to Device feature.

I really want to know if anyone has figured out a way to use Windows Media Player 9 (WMP9) Copy to CD or Device function, to convert/copy at 96 kbps. The Storage Card Properties dialog (Tools -> Options, Devices tab, select Storage Card, click Properties) only enables you to select 128 Kbps, 64 Kpbs and smaller For Select quality level option.

An earlier version of the The Windows Mobile - Smartphone FAQ http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/products/smartphone/faq/default.mspx recommended encoding WMA files at 96 kbps for playback on Smartphone, but there isn't support for this in WMP9. The 128 kbps files sound great, but sometimes skip or get distorted on playback, probably because of the processor resources required to decode at this high bitrate, and most of the 64 kbps files don't sound very good.

Other tools like the Microsoft Plus! MP3 Audio Converter support 96 kbps, but don’t support writing the converted files directly to Smartphone or Storage Card devices, so you’ve got to save them first to your hard disk Media Library (creating duplicates) before copying to the Storage Card with Windows Explorerer.

I've tried to hack the Windows XP registry to set the properties to WMP9 properties to 96 kbps, but cou'dn't find the key.

Any suggested on converting WMA files to 96 kbps directly to Smartphone Storage Card using WMP9 or other tool would be appreciated!

[4clubchamps]

I have a Motorola Q with WMP 10, I have stored all my music on my storage card but cannot access it through the WMP Library, it looks to internal storage. How can I get it to look to the storage card for my media and playlist. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

stan

[billcalle]

Stan,

I had a similar problem and found that it was a simple user error. When you are in the Media Player library, simply bring up the menu and look in submenu 4 - Library. From your you can select 1- My Device or 2 - Storage Card. The first time I did this I almost ended up missing a flight because I kept downloading and redownloading the music thinking I'd somehow made a mistake. It wasn't until I was on my flight that I realized you had to tell it to scan the storage card.

By the way, I did read elsewhere that you should not download the information directly to the storage card (as in through a card reader) but through the phone. In doing this I noticed that downloading directly to the card results in no album art but through the phone includes the album art. The part I don't like, however, is that the phone is only a USB 1.1 device, so it is MUCH slower than my card reader.

Good luck,
Bill