mp3 as alarm sound

[Tunico]

Hi,
I have a Qtek S200 phone running Windows Mobile 5.0
The Alarm function in very important to me. But my phone only have a few beeps and dog-barks as alarm sound.
I am a heavy sleeper...I need some loud rock and roll to wake up !

Does anyone knows how to use mp3 files as alarm sound on this phone?

I'm sure there is some software out there that I can install...but I would like to use the built in function.
I located the directory where the "beeps and dog-barks" files are and tryied to put an mp3 file there. When I go to the alarm function and tap the drop-down menu the files does not show up.

Anyway, any advice will be very wellcome.

Thanks in advance for any tips...

Tunico (from Brazil)

[Mike Temporale]

Actually, the S200 is a Pocket PC device and not a Smartphone. ;)

It's been a long time since I played with a POcket PC, and even longer since I used it as a alarm. It should work. It's my guess that your MP3 is encoded at too high a bitrate. Try something lower and shorter in length.

Alternatively, you should ask your question over at our sister site Pocket PC Thoughts (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com) where you'll find more users with the same device type as what you have. :)

[Tunico]

Actually, the S200 is a Pocket PC device and not a Smartphone. ;)

Sorry for the confusion.
Now that I visited pocketpcthoughts.com as you sugested I'm just beginning to understand the difference...

Anyway, hoping this post can be useful to smartphone users too, bellow I describe the makeshift solution I found.

Turns out that my phone only plays .WAV files as alarm sound. So that´s what I did:

- Used Windows Media Player to rip a CD track using the "encode to wav" option.
- That gave me a huge 30MB + file, unaceptable for my device's memory, so I used Creative Wave Studio to cut the file and keep only 15 to 30 seconds of music.
- Now the file was down to 2 or 3 MB. Still too large. So I did as you sugested and lowered the bit rate. For every file I tested a few diferent bit rates to get the file down to 100 or 200 Kbytes.
- Dropping these files in the \Windows directory made then show up in my alarm function.

I still can't play mp3 files as alarm sound. And using low bit rate .wav files the sound quality is crap...but for me the important thing is to have a strong and loud sound to wake me up. And now I have some of my favorite songs, not a simple beep or ding-dong!

Thanks,

Tunico

[ditch_azeroth]

i haven't played with a ppc for some time but i guess most proggies have ppc and smartphone versions...

anyway, there is a software called pocketmusic (version 2.0 for smartphone). it has an 'alarm' function wherein it allows you to play mp3s at a set time... (but i think their current version does not support full screen yet for qvga smartphones...) they have ppc versions of it in their site http://www.pocketmind.com you might want to check on that ^_^

[Tunico]

Hi ditch_azeroth...
Thanks a lot for the tip.
I downloaded and instaled PocketMusic as you recomended.
Nice program but... a bit of overkill just to have an alarm that palys mp3s.
I also could not get my current playlists (that took me quite some time to organize) to transfer to the new Player.
AND the alarm function only is implemented in the paid version :(
I'm satisfied with Windows Media Player as my default music player, as I can organize my Playlists (audio AND video Playlists) in the desktop version of WMP and just synch.
By the way, Windows Movie Maker (free with Windows XP) does a nice job of encoding my home videos and recorded TV shows to a resolution/bit rate that plays smooth in my slow Qtek S200 (as .WMV files).

Anyway, thanks again for taking your time to try to help.

Tunico (from Brazil...on the road to the World Cup Final!) :drinking: :beer: