The MP3 player you've always wanted?

[Jason Dunn]

<a href="http://www.citsoft.net/solution.asp">http://www.citsoft.net/solution.asp</a><br /><br />Thoughts reader <i>KevDawg2003</i> found a very special piece of software: an MP3 player that has some great potential! Even with Bablefish I can't figure out most of their site, but I think it's a Korean company. I just started using the player, but as the screen shot shows, it has 10-band EQ, preamp boost, an EQ visualizer, playlist support, and it supports an adjustable buffer and screen blanking. I've contacted them about helping them with the English translation (there are many errors in the text elements) and possibly getting it up on to Handango.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/withmp3.gif" /><br /><br /><br />You can download a <a href="http://www.citsoft.net/solution/withmp3_d.html">demo from their web site</a>. I'll make it easier for you though: <a href="http://www.citsoft.net/solution/down/withMP3_v150_ENG_CE2002_ARM_C16.zip">Pocket PC 2002 with 16-bit colour</a>, and <a href="http://www.citsoft.net/solution/down/withMP3_v150_ENG_CE2002_ARM_C12.zip">Pocket PC 2002 with 12-bit colour</a> (XDA, T-Mobile). They also have downloads for Pocket PC 2000 devices, but only SH3 and ARM - no MIPS. Sorry Casio users! I have no idea how or if we can purchase this software - I've emailed them for more information.<br /><br /><b>UPDATE:</b> They now have a MIPS version for Casio owners.

[entropy1980]

Now this is cool looks just like Winamp, I am gonna download it when I get home, why they don't include an EQ with Windows Media player is beyond me...

[dbrahms]

This looks great...performs well. But how do i register? I'd pay $10 for it...if i could figure out how. Anyone have a clue how to register in English?

[Julio]

Wow! I've been waiting for something like this for a long time. Audio is one of the main uses for my pocketpc and I've wanted something significantly better than microsoft's player. Can't be without my tunes! 8)

They also have downloads for Pocket PC 2000 devices, but only SH3 and ARM - no MIPS. Sorry Casio users!

Ouch! What a tease, then! As a Casio e115 user - this happens to me quite often. Even when I sometimes buy PDA products that claim to support all "PocketPC" devices - they really mean just the popular ones - Jornada and iPaq. :x

Now-a-days, I always call the company first and verify that they support Casio before I buy their product.

Well, hopefully they will see fit to do a simple recompile and offer a MIPS version as well.

Julio

[helios]

Very nice. It looks like they modeled (ripped off) the design and layout straight from WinAmp's player/equalizer/playlist setup. Wonder if it supports skinning as well? Too bad there's no MIPS version.

[nirav28]

I wonder if it supports streaming like Winamp (Shoucast) does. Thats one of the biggest problems I have with WMP for PPC. It doesn't support shoutcast streams. WMP for the desktop plays shoutcast server streams just fine.

It would be great if someone actually made a player that supports direct mp3 streams from a remote shoutcast server.

I know I can stream mp3s using other alternative methods (xplayer etc.). But damnit..I want to listen to broadcast on shoutcast.com!

[humphrey22]

Observations:

1)Interface: What a wonderful interface. Clean and uncluttered. Everything you need is right there. I like!

2)Performance: The fastest response bar none. I mean almost instantaneous change when you adjust something. The only slight lag (slight!) is from the EQ when playing CPU intense music files. All other settings respond very quickly when playing music.

3)Sound: I tried and tried and tried (and tried). Sorry to report that I personally am disappointed in the EQ section. This is where I believe the issues are. It seems as though each slider covers way to many "bands" of EQ adjustment. Also you can only adjust down to 60Hz. There is a lot of Bass in the 20-50Hz ranges that may need to be removed or added per your tastes. This is not something you can do. Also I tried every preset and they sound a bit "tinny". I also adjusted the sliders manually and I did sort of close to something I like but as soon as another song came on I found myself hastily trying to "dial in" each song individually. Also the EQ adds a lot of noise when you move the sliders past the halfway point. I had a "sound in a can" effect when I adjusted the settings. Almost like an effect was being inserted. The level seemed a bit low too. When I adjusted the preamp the level was much better, but the sound quality seemed to get worse. Man I am so disappointed. This is one cool piece of software. OH I almost forgot. If you turn the EQ off then things sound a lot better, but the sound level was too low for me (sorry...sometimes I like to jam baby!). There is no playlist management beyond adding or deleting a song.

Conclusion:
Lookswise- This is very appealing to me. I like the way it's laid but.
Performancewise- I couldn't ask for more. Very responsive.
Soundwise- I am not impressed with this version. Not at all.
Optionwise- Contains most of the features we are accustomed to using. A network option is needed for power users IMHO. I think that home networks are going to drive this in the very, very near future!

[Ed Hansberry]

• Does it play WMA files?
• Does it use the standard Windows Media .ASX playlists?

[nirav28]

Ok this thing rocks!!!


I've been playing mp3s off a SD card using WMP and it usually stutters on any mp3s above 96kbps if I have a few apps open. This thing has no problems playing mp3s compressed up to 192kbps on my ipaq 3835. Kick ass!

Someone please try to find out this player can be registered. Very clean interface , well written app. I've been hoping for Winamp to be ported to the PPC. But this will do for now.

Cool find Jason.

-Neal

[mexijew_dot_com]

I posted a message on WinAmp's message boards almost two years ago asking if they were going to be putting out a version for PocketPC's, and no one replied. I'm glad someone finally got to it!

[nirav28]

Observations:

Conclusion:
Lookswise- This is very appealing to me. I like the way it's laid but.
Performancewise- I couldn't ask for more. Very responsive.
Soundwise- I am not impressed with this version. Not at all.
Optionwise- Contains most of the features we are accustomed to using. A network option is needed for power users IMHO. I think that home networks are going to drive this in the very, very near future!

I agree with the above post. The sound quality isn't the best with the EQ. But if I turn off the EQ and not use the presets. The sound is acceptable.

Also, Network playback is good. I'm using Netrunner to open a shared folder on my desktop to open mp3s. So far no hiccups. I know this isn't streaming from a desktop jukebox. But it works.


-Neal

[bblock]

Looks cool, EXCEPT: what about those of us that have GBs of WMA files? It doesn't need to be restated that Windows Media Player's ability to handle playlists SUCKS - all I really need is a player that does WMA and playlists.

PS: anyone found out a way yet to have songs transferred to the PocketPC ordered by name? Windows copies files in reverse alphabetical order, but WMP lists songs in the local content playlist based on the order they are created, NOT alphabetically. Must've been some bad Jolt on the part of that programmer...)

[Foo Fighter]

Excellent! Does it have skin support?

[[Cruzer]]

Yes FINALLY a good mp3 player. I love the playlist I can see what song
is next and yah the EQ isn't all that great but like everyone is saying
just turn it off. The devolpers will soon (I hope) get that fixed. Now if it
can open URL locations and wma files i'm set. Then I can listen shoutcast servers any where.

RC

[heyday]

Anyone figure how to register it yet?

heydya

[Sparky]

Doesn't look like any WMA support.

[Dave Conger]

Look, AOL/Nullsoft could buy this softwares code, make a couple revisions (adding more file format support and such) and label it WinAMP. Maybe they were just waiting for a good player to come along to buy because they don't want to build it from scratch. I will be very interested to see how the compares, and WMP for PPC doesn't get me all to excited...but yet it does to the just (for the most part).

[dbrahms]

Anyone figure how to register it yet?

heydya

nope...i emailed them and got a big long korean email back...sent to a friend to translate 4 me

[Fattizzi]

The MP3 player is awesome. Looks wise and it works great. The only issue I have is I cant use all my WMA's.

What is the best way to change my huge MP3's into smaller ones. What software should i use?

Also as far as registering. If you open up the player and then hit the register screen and then hit the okay button (or close) and it never counts down from the 60 minutes. I have been using it for at least an hour and I have 59m48s left.

[JMountford]

When I first Saw this the first thing I thought was, HEY COOL WINAMP!!!

Still this looks retty cool. I am not so sure about an EQ on a pocket PC Device, Kinda pointless.

[mstie423]

This has happened before, a new MP3 player for Pocket PC released, yay! Then I download, install, and run. And no WMA support. On a mobile device strapped for storage space (unless you have the extra cash..) using MP3's hardly makes sense. Ever take a WAV file and convert it to MP3 at 96kbps and WMA at 96kbps? The MP3 sounds horrible, while the WMA sounds great. So once again, we're stuck with Windows Media with no equalizer, robust features... etc.
Good to see it supports MP1 though ;)

As far as converting MP3's, I use CDEX (http://download.com.com/3000-2140-10138504.html)

And I can see lots of usefulness in an equalizer. Of course using just the built-in speaker the EQ would only be good for fine-tuning the treble ;) But when you use headphones an EQ would be great. Isn't that kind of like saying "Why do CD player's have bass boosts"?

•MARC

[Orange]

Look, AOL/Nullsoft could buy this softwares code, make a couple revisions (adding more file format support and such) and label it WinAMP. Maybe they were just waiting for a good player to come along to buy because they don't want to build it from scratch. I will be very interested to see how the compares, and WMP for PPC doesn't get me all to excited...but yet it does to the just (for the most part).

Doubtful. AOLTW has enough financial troubles already, and wouldn't spend money on something like this. We're talking about the same company that slashed Nullsoft's staff in half a few months ago. In fact, I can't even see a good financial reason for AOLTW to keep Nullsoft staffed and supported (though I love their programs), considering it is an expenditure that brings in basically no revenue.

[Perry Reed]

Very cool!!

I'm got a Archos Jukebox loaded with MP3s, connected to my desktop PC via USB. Then, via 802.11 and Netrunner I'm accessing them on my PocketPC wirelessly and listening to them via the withMP3 software.

And I've impressed the heck out of my co-workers, too. :)

[kaiden.1]

I have asked Conduits to update their palm player and I have sent messages to Win amp to do the same thing. There are a lot of people out there who want something just like this, but I think that everyone thinks "why bother with WMP out there." I personally think that this could go big! I don't like WMP. People want more options. This is GREAT!

Thanks for the post. :D

[sponge]

Many people don't like WMA (myself included) for many reasons, the audible qualities of the sound, and the DRM lockdown personally. MP3Pro is not bad, 64kbit is stereo, but I still stick with normal MP3.

Actually, m3u is a lot more common than asx, commenting on one of the first posts.

This player is great for those who hate WMA. Wish I had an 802.11 network, and the great battery life of a 3900 :\

[pt]

Many people don't like WMA (myself included) for many reasons, the audible qualities of the sound, and the DRM lockdown personally. MP3Pro is not bad, 64kbit is stereo, but I still stick with normal MP3. Actually, m3u is a lot more common than asx, commenting on one of the first posts.This player is great for those who hate WMA. Wish I had an 802.11 network, and the great battery life of a 3900 :\

hmm, hate is really strong for a frickin' music player. there isn't a drm lockdown. i take my cds, convert to wma, send to device, tada. nothing creepy about that. hate should be reserved for really awful things, like death. i hate death, mainly because it kills me.

mp3 is way more popular tho...you're right.

cheers,
pt

[Jason Dunn]

Many people don't like WMA (myself included) for many reasons, the audible qualities of the sound, and the DRM lockdown personally. MP3Pro is not bad, 64kbit is stereo, but I still stick with normal MP3.

WMA does not = DRM. Well, it does if you're ripping to WMA and don't know how to click a box. ;-) MP3Pro is dead, dead, dead. It never truly lived. There are hardly any players or encoders for it, because no one wants to pay another expensive licensing fee. There's also no MP3Pro player for the Pocket PC either...

But I still rip to 192 kbps VBR MP3s. :-)

[pocketpcfox]

I've looked through the Korean on their site, and it looks like they have nothing in place (as yet) for foreigners. They list registration info which requires, among other things a "citizen's registration number" (we non-Koreans won't have one, naturally) and a Korean bank (for those interested: the Housing Bank of Korea) for money orders.

I think we are stymied until they get an overseas payment online.

I'll give them a call on Monday (in Seoul).

Cheers,
Todd

[lee0539]

my grandma and cousin who lives in the same house have a citizenship number and have a korean bank account. I can use that to get one... but can u look it over and see if one can get multiple orders... if there aren't too many who want one.. i can try and possibly get a preorder going and i'll send the registration numbers to everyone by mail... u can email each other to see that u did get a unique number and i didn't just send everyone the same number... dunno if that matters or if there is any of those things... possibly just dling full version... i'll get my cousin to translate for me... right now its late and i didn't get that chance... i'm not too fluant in korean... i can read the basic parts... but not the extremely detailed part of it.

[lee0539]

it will probably be much better if they just released an english version of the site and have ability to give users in america a chance to register for one

[Spenser]

I know of another MP3-Player for PPCs which has got all the necessary features you all were looking for (except WMF-files): it's the "iPlay iPAQ mp3 player" from http://www.40th.com

"iPlay shows just how good the PocketPC can get. iPlay features include a 16-band equalizer with hardware bass boost (iPAQ) & seven EQ presets, a linear 64-step volume control with full control mode at low battery levels (iPAQ), balance & gain controls, L/R channel swap control with enhanced stereo modes; easy-to-use file selection, play lists; plenty of stats and adjustments to make the best use of on-battery time, especially with microdrives; analog and bar-segment VU meters with frequency analysis; network/Wi-Fi file play, remote control of winamp; plus lots more including Load'n'Decode completion technology for quick play even with multi-MB cache sizes. Plays MP3, PCM, and GSM-610 formats."

It was reviewed excellently in the German "IT-Bible" c't several months ago. The interface is sort of crude though.

[robind]

The only thing that I miss is the ability to shuffle the playlist, or at least the playback order. I'll buy it anyway though, as soon as it's possible to do it...

[humphrey22]

Yeah I know! I have been trying to register this absolutely wonderful MP3 player for a month. This guy is extremely allergic to spam so he automatically rejects mail of all sorts. I tried from 4 different accounts (not freebie account either!) and NOTHING!! Good luck to the rest of you.

Maybe one of you that is successful can do it for me. PLEASE!!

[Jason Dunn]

It was reviewed excellently in the German "IT-Bible" c't several months ago. The interface is sort of crude though.

Yeah, but the guy who runs it is a complete jerk - I'll never support anything he does and will gladly go without his over-hyped app. He's rude, dismissive, and refuses to let people buy a license unless he "feels" like it.

[Jason Dunn]

FYI - they E-mailed me back and I'll see what I can do about getting a version for North American release. They're planning to add WMA support and many other things...

[Don Tolson]

Trying to keep storage requirements down, I've been burning mostly 64 and 48kbs MP3's -- they sound 'OK' on WMP -- not great, but listenable to keep out the distractions of a noisy office.

I tried these same files on this player running on an HPJ568:
a) response time was a bit slow -- typically got the 'response' about 1/ second after moving/tapping the icon
b) I agree with the comment that the equalizer still needs work
c) All my songs seemed to be a bit 'muddy'. I distinctly heard a lower-pitched mumble of the main voice in everything played.

For now, I'll stick with WMP until I see a later version of this.

[Jason Dunn]

Yeah, the sound quality of the player needs to be improved - I found that it sounded pretty close to WMP when the EQ was turned off. With the EQ on, no matter what I tried the sound quality was quite poor.

[Jonathan1]

It was reviewed excellently in the German "IT-Bible" c't several months ago. The interface is sort of crude though.

Yeah, but the guy who runs it is a complete jerk - I'll never support anything he does and will gladly go without his over-hyped app. He's rude, dismissive, and refuses to let people buy a license unless he "feels" like it.

Agreed. I did some really basic beta testing when he first came out with this app. I posted a small review over at PPCPass and basically said that while the app itself was solid the interface was much to plain for a color based PDA. The guy slammed me for it. Basically stating that who needs color. *shrugs* Sorry while color may not be all that important how hard would it be to implement a pretty GUI on the thing. If he wasn't looking for input she shouldn't have asked :P

[jlp]

Casio users rejoice !!!

Note that there IS support for MIPS devices now. In fact there are 3 files named MIPS 131, MIPS 150 and MIPS 200, obviously related to the device CPU clock speed (E-115, E-125 and E-750, a Japanese only version)

[Carlos]

Very nice, but no WMA support. I've gotten accustomed to being able to store twice as much music in the precious memory space, so I have to decide whether it is that much better than WMP to cut my selections in half.

[jlp]

I personally think the EQ works fine, you know it's normal it would sound different when activated ;).

I think the problem is wrongly perceived because the EQ reduces the sound. Theoretically if you activate the EQ with all the bars at zero it shouldn't be any different than when not activated as you don't add or substract value.

But with "withMP3" if you do this (activated flat, zero EQ) the sound is the same but less loud. If you push all bars to the max (+20dB) then whether you activate or not the EQ the sound is almost at the same level (and of the same quality).

That means that instead of starting at the value zero and add or substract the given value (between +20dB and -20dB) for any frequency range it starts at around +20dB so it can go down to around -40dB in some frequency range.

Try setting your EQ values (bars) all to +20dB and activate then deactivate the EQ and tell me if ou hear any difference. On my Casio E-125 with this setting it sounds the same (except for the little sound level difference), whether thru the speaker or thru high quality headphones.

[Forget It]

This player look very much like it based on the open
source DivX player for pocket pc and if it is then
the reason why you can by a licence yet would be because
they have not yet settled the open source licence terms.
In any case has any one exhausted their 60 hours free play
time yet?

In any case it is worse at playing my low bit rate recordings
- for example my talk radio recorded on mp3 at
16kbs 8Hz plays at doublespeed - just like Chip &amp; Chop!

[Z]

Hey all,

Just like the subject line says, what happens after the 60 hours? Is the program unstartable?

[LozBoston]

An English version of the vendor's site is now live at http://www.citsoft.net/product.asp?lang=ENG&menu=S

withMP3 costs ~ $15 USD to register and can be registered online.

[altus]

Marvellous piece of work. I just purchased it and I'm very pleased with it.

Now 40th iPlay has a great rival, which is not only better, but also costs a fraction of iPlay's hefty price tag. I'm looking forward to the withMP3 guys adding WMA support and working out quirks that might come up.

[mparous]

Well, it works OK with my Cassiopeia E-125 (at last, a MIPS version...). But since the main issue here is storage, the only logical answer would be WMA support. If they fix the sound a litle and they add wma support, then they've got a winner... I've got a 128MB storage card full with WMA's. All I need is a good player who can pump up the bass a little.

[T-Will]

Man this player is AWESOME! What I wanted to do was share my music folder on my PC then stream them to my PPC over 802.11 in order to listen to then in my car while I cleaned it. I'm using the Network hack on the Pocket PC so my PC network share shows up as a folder. I messed around with Windows Media Player playlists and I could not get it to stream, I did get it to load every singe file I was sharing but it's too tedious select a few random files. I probably messed around for 30 minutes or more, then I remembered I wanted to try this new MP3 player. I installed it and it worked instantly, the playlist support is awesome and it let me just select the files in a directory that I wanted.

There's a couple small things I would like fixed, first I would like to be able to select multiple folders within a folder and have it recurse folders so it will select all files in the folders that are under a certain folder.

Second, it would be nice if there were a bigger buffer, I have a microdrive which eats battery like crazy and when streaming over 802.11 it would save a ton of battery if it could just buffer the whole song.

The EQ is awesome for those audiophiles with the ability to do detailed adjustments on each band.

Even with these little things I'll prolly buy it when it's available.

[altus]

The player is already available for purchase here:

http://www.citsoft.net/product.asp?lang=ENG&menu=S

The price is about $15.75. I purchased it and I absolutely love it!

[jgrnt1]

Has anyone tried the Mobius Jukebox player?

www.mobiusaudio.com

My biggest gripe about WMP is trying to manage large playlists. I want to be able to sort by artist, album, etc. I have all my music on my hard drive and am thinking about a portable drive (8 - 10 GB) to store it all on and play it in my car (I'm on the road a lot). It looks like Mobius does this. My other problem with WMP is performance on XScale processors -- I have a Toshiba e550g. If anyone has tried Mobius, I'd love to hear opinions of it.

[T-Will]

I'm playing music over an 802.11b network and when one song is done it doesn't automatically go to the next song, in order to get it to automatically go to the next song I have to check "Auto Repeat" in the Config screen. Does anyone else have this problem?

[paulbiba]

I've been in touch with these guys, and volunteered to "translate" their Korean/english pages into reguar english pages. They will be posting these soon. Take a look, and maybe some of your questions about how to use the program will be answere. The registration page has been changed and is much easier to figure out.

[T-Will]

So if I purchase this are updates free?

One feature that would be nice is to have a microdrive caching feature and a snooze timer so it shuts off after a selected amount of time.

[paulbiba]

Updates are free. There was a bug in the equalizer, and it is now working correctly. Check the site for the latest version.

[LopuZa]

:devilboy: Here is an alternative player. http://www.projecteam.org/phpwiki/index.php/WinamPAQ

[Fishie]

I posted a message on WinAmp's message boards almost two years ago asking if they were going to be putting out a version for PocketPC's, and no one replied. I'm glad someone finally got to it!

Actually Winampaq for PPCs has existed quite a while now.

[Eitel]

I posted a message on WinAmp's message boards almost two years ago asking if they were going to be putting out a version for PocketPC's, and no one replied. I'm glad someone finally got to it!

Actually Winampaq for PPCs has existed quite a while now.

And if you look at the date of the post, you'll see that it was posted over a year ago. :wink: