Conduits Technologies, Inc. Announces Pocket Player 2.5 for Pocket PC

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.handango.com/brainstore/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&productId=79548' target='_blank'>http://www.handango.com/brainstore/...productId=79548</a><br /><br /></div>Pocket Player from Conduits has just gotten even better! Version 2.5 adds some great new features and improvements upon previous features. You can <a href="http://www.handango.com/brainstore/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&productId=79548">download a free trial from Handango</a> or buy the full version for $19.95. [Affiliate] Here's the press release describing the new features:<br /><br />"Conduits Technologies, Inc., announced today the release of Pocket Player 2.5, an alternative music player for Pocket PC, supporting the latest media player standards and formats. Pocket Player aims to satisfy the Pocket PC customers who demand more from a media player. Pocket Player runs on all ARM-based Pocket PC devices, such as the Pocket PC 2000, Pocket PC 2002, and Windows Mobile 2003 Software for Pocket PC.<br /><br />Pocket Player 2.5 improves upon earlier versions by increasing the product's overall strength and usability while including 16 new and updated feature implementations. All known bugs and defects in previous versions of Pocket Player have been resolved. This includes streaming and connection problems, input buffering issues, playback stuttering, memory leaks, volume adjustment problems, and screen dimming issues.<!><br /><br />By popular request, Pocket Player 2.5 now sports a Today screen plugin, where the user can control playback, launch Pocket Player, or open content. The plugin uses the Today theme colors and background. Pocket Player now has Landscape skin support, as well as display mode switch detection. Through the use of an orientation mode switcher, Pocket Player will automatically switch skins based on the orientation of the screen, either Portrait or Landscape. Support for VGA-enabled Pocket PC screens is included, with a VGA-resolution skin available. Other skins will automatically be scaled to fit the VGA screen, instead of filling the top-left quarter of the screen.<br /><br />Support for multiple media formats is one of the defining qualities of Pocket Player. Playback of common audio formats such as MP3 and WMA are supported, as are WAV files that the user has recorded with the built-in Pocket PC Voice Recorder. Playback of Ogg Vorbis files is also supported. <br /><br />Now for Pocket Player 2.5, the equalizer for WMA and WAV playback has been rewritten to replace the existing equalizer found in previous versions of Pocket Player, greatly improving audio playback. Crossfading support is also enhanced with a variable crossfading engine. The fade is adjustable, and the playback output is much smoother between tracks. <br />Developers can now write decoder modules for other audio formats or input methods. Support for Digital Signal Processing (DSP) plugins is also included, and software development kits will be posted to the Pocket Player website for perusal.<br /><br />Pocket Player 2.5 boasts myriad playback features: the user can play files that are stored locally on Windows Mobile software for Pocket PCs, in RAM or on a memory card. The wireless connectivity features of Windows Mobile software for Pocket PCs permit Pocket Player to stream audio files over HTTP connections, and Internet radio stations are supported. In addition, streaming audio files over the user's local network is supported. Advanced audio features such as gapless playback, or track crossfading are also part of Pocket Player's feature set. In 2.5, online stream support with Live365 and other providers is now fully supported. Network browsing is now supported on the Add Folder screen. By adding a network path to the folder tree, it is much easier to play networked content.<br /><br />A ten-band audio equalizer and preamplifier control is supported for MP3 and Ogg Vorbis media formats. Support for bookmarked files, and track positions are supported in Pocket Player, which are generally used by listeners of audio books. In 2.5, the new Seek menu includes common jump forward and backward time amounts, plus an Auto-Resume feature, which can jump to the last location heard in the track. It's bookmarking made easy! Helpful for DJ's using Pocket PC devices - the Manual Playlist Advance option enables users to control how songs proceed from one track to the next.<br /><br />New for Pocket Player 2.5, additional Winamp 2 skins are supported with enhanced WSZ skin support. Screen dimming support has been retooled for different devices, which have different screen power properties. <br />Support for screen shut-off in the background is now fully supported on Pocket PC 2003 devices. The Playlist picker now cascades multiple playlists to reduce scrolling."

[JohnJohn]

Nice Player but... gimme some AAC support. :D

[Jason Patterson]

JohnJohn,

We're currently investigating AAC support for a future release. What would you primarily use AAC playback for? Note that AAC files bought through the Apple iTunes store have their own DRM layer (FairPlay, produced by Apple), which has not been licensed by Apple to any third parties at this time. AAC/MP4 playback would simply let you play those AAC files you have created yourself (through ripping CD's, etc).

Would you be open to a separate AAC package to Pocket Player, bought extra? AAC carries with it its own set of licensing fees.

P.S. Pocket Player 2.5 does support codec plugins, so do expect to see some plugins and an SDK available soon. First on the list is a MOD plugin.


Thanks!

[JohnJohn]

Thanks for the info about Apple. Being in a one iPOD family makes the morning a rush to the den to see how gets it for the day. I sure wish I could play my iTunes purchases on my PPC.

I would be very interested in playing iTunes songs on my PPC and would pay extra for licensing that "add-on" if and when that's possible.

Thanks

[egads]

Do 2.1 owners get his update for free ?
I don't see any mention of this on the Conduits web page...

[Jason Patterson]

JohnJohn,

Do you also have a lot of ripped content in AAC format? Until Apple changes their FairPlay licensing business model (allowing other players to use it), it's unlikely we'll see any iTMS playback on non-iPods.

Confusing the situation further is Real's store, which uses AAC too, but with a DRM system based off Helix, an open DRM system.


egads,

Indeed, 2.X users get free 2.X upgrades. Simply download and install it ontop of your existing installation.

[Len M.]

It's a great player.

Might you consider including 24-bit WAV file playback at 44.1, 48, 88.2 and 96 KS/s? That's what our PDAudio-CF let you record with PDAs.


Len Moskowitz
Core Sound
www.core-sound.com

[foldedspace]

Can't you convert your iTunes purchases into MP3? Or do you lose quality when you do that?

just thinking outloud

[Mandrake]

Well, I've given it a go (I've purchased 2.1 already) - and it seems like it's all working as advertised. It'll be a little while before I can test whether my previous problem, that of causing TomTom Navigator to freeze when PP is running in the background, has been fixed... Hopefully the memory leaks mentioned in the list of bug fixes will solve it!

And one last thing... Why would anyone want a Today plugin for a music player?

[dlangton]

Why would anyone want a Today plugin for a music player?

Some people want Today plug-ins for everything. Me, I just delete the registry entry - all they do is cause problems with what I already use. Keep the Today plug-ins to a minimum and your PDA works a lot better.

[cgavula]

I, for one, do have a lot of AAC ripped files - the compression rates / quality are better than MP3. AAC is the standards-based successor to MP3. The basic format is not a proprietary format like WMA.

Another reason to support AAC - eventually Apple will probably license the DRM. iTunes/Apple Music store is the single biggest LEGAL music source out there. When iTunes and the music store first came out, folk said Apple would never support PCs and they did. If the market demands it, it's only a matter of time before they extend their DRM through licensing. It will only help strengthen their marketshare.

By the way - everything I've read says you do lose quality when you convert between any digitally compressed formats. The generally preferred approach is to convert to an uncompressed format like aiff, then back to the new compressed format. There's lots of info available online about this and why there are issues.

--Chris

[szamot]

Will this one stream MP3's off the net via wireless?

[Nikhil]

I would love to see Apple release the rights to ITMS files, but until then, there is no choice but to burn and rerip. I find that the quality is nearly identical (though I am not quite the audiophile) and it works rather well. I rerip from CD to OGG at 160kbps.

[Jason Patterson]

Thanks everyone for the great comments and feedback so far!

Might you consider including 24-bit WAV file playback at 44.1, 48, 88.2 and 96 KS/s? That's what our PDAudio-CF let you record with PDAs.
Certainly, though it might require creating an Output plugin. If I recall correctly, any WAV files over 44.1KHz are downsampled to 44.1KHz (Does KHz = KS/s?). We basically play any WAV files that have an installed ACM codec, so that we are not tied to the PCM format. For example, we support the GSM codec encapsulated in WAV (the low quality recordings that Notes takes), since the system has a GSM ACM driver.


Can't you convert your iTunes purchases into MP3? Or do you lose quality when you do that?
Certainly, though you do lost quality since both methods are "lossy". We've found the best results here involve ripping to Ogg or WMA instead of MP3.


Why would anyone want a Today plugin for a music player?
This was actually the top requested feature for this version, though it's only one of many that we implemented!


I, for one, do have a lot of AAC ripped files - the compression rates / quality are better than MP3. AAC is the standards-based successor to MP3. The basic format is not a proprietary format like WMA.
That's quite interesting. Most people request AAC support, but then realize that supporting AAC doesn't necessarily include iTMS support. Of course, if and when Apple licenses FairPlay to ISV's, we would support it ASAP.


Will this one stream MP3's off the net via wireless?
Certainly, via a shoutcast stream, LAN playback, or simple web downloads, that should work.

[dmy]

Jason,

Kudos on the new release..... I'd also like to put in a big and public thank you to Carrie Hall, who (at least with me) worked through several sticky issues I was seeing on my iPAQ 2215.

As for AAC..... I'd encourage everyone to check out the detailed compression tests on Hydrogen Audio (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org). AAC isn't bad, but not enough different from MP3 to make it real worth the effort. OGG Vorbis tests consistently better quality at the lower bitrates. But with any lossless compression (be it Audio, Video, or still image) YMMV and quality is in the eye of the beholder.

Cheers,
D.

[boanerges]

Yes. Carrie Hall was so helpful to me about alot with problems I had using Pocket Player with my personal mp3 server. I use the software called Andromeda (http://www.turnstyle.com/andromeda/) as my mp3 server and I must say it is very Pocket PC friendly. I have all 55GB of my music available through wifi now!
This new version of Pocket Player is excellent. It is in my opinion THE premier streaming mp3 player for the Pocket PC.

[juni]

Cool, I deleted it and installed Pocket Music after Pocket Player crashed once (I had it in "screen-off" mode on my HP2210) and hung the whole device. But maybe this new version fixed the issue. :)

[ChristopherTD]

Add my vote for AAC support, even if only for non-ITMS tunes. I use AAC to rip all my recent CD purchases, and have to exclude them when I copy selected tracks to my iPaq.

ITMS is not available here in Europe anyway, so it is just support for non-DRM AAC tracks!

[cxc4u]

Slightly off topic, but does Pocket Player or any other music player out there have the feature of volume normalization across tracks?

[jonlien2003]

My setup: Siemens SX56 pocket pc phone with WM2003 upgrade

Bug 1: The Play/Pause action is mapped to the button on the side of my device. When I press this button, the desire action is invoked. However, the screen turns on even though I did not check the box 'Turn on screen after any button press'. Interestingly, when Play/Pause action is mapped to the d-pad buttons, the screen does not turn on when Play/Pause action is invoked.

Bug 2: The option to 'Automatically turn off screen' is checked 'after 5 second of playback. 'Auto-screen off in background' is checked. When I press play, the screen shuts off after 5 seconds as expected. However, when I press pause, the screen also shuts off after 5 seconds. This behavior should not occur. It should only shut off the screen when you press play, not when you press pause. Note: this only happens when the device is not connected to a power source (in other words, you are running on the battery).

Bug 3: There is a bug when you press pause and turn off the device via the Power On/Off button. When you turn on the device again by pressing any of the buttons on the device, Pocket Play starts to play automatically. Pocket Player should remain pause until the user clicks Play.

Enhancement request: I listen to audiobooks that are longer than 100 minutes. The time indicator on the bottom right of the screen should be lengthen just a tad so it can accomodate displaying times over 100 minutes. Right now, the seconds are being cut off if the audio is playing over 100 minutes.

[Underwater Mike]

Well, I may have to try this out. I've been using PocketMusic for the last year or so, but I can never get them to respond to my emails asking if the upgrades are available at a reduced cost for registered users. As a happy Conduits customer, I'm willing to consider spending on this.

BTW, Carrie is a great resource: She's helped me several times with issues on other Conduits products. Hope she's compensated accordingly!

[Jason Patterson]

Add my vote for AAC support, even if only for non-ITMS tunes. I use AAC to rip all my recent CD purchases, and have to exclude them when I copy selected tracks to my iPaq.

As for AAC..... I'd encourage everyone to check out the detailed compression tests on Hydrogen Audio (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org). AAC isn't bad, but not enough different from MP3 to make it real worth the effort. OGG Vorbis tests consistently better quality at the lower bitrates. But with any lossless compression (be it Audio, Video, or still image) YMMV and quality is in the eye of the beholder.

Interesting. We've noted that for future reference, and hope to have AAC support in some future version. Has anyone used the Real Networks music store? They use AAC format files, encoded with the Helix DRM standard (open standard). That's something that we might support as well.

[Jason Patterson]

Slightly off topic, but does Pocket Player or any other music player out there have the feature of volume normalization across tracks?

Such as ReplayGain support? That's certainly something we would like to feature.

[Jason Patterson]

jonlien2003,

Thank you for the bug report.

My setup: Siemens SX56 pocket pc phone with WM2003 upgrade

Bug 1: The Play/Pause action is mapped to the button on the side of my device. When I press this button, the desire action is invoked. However, the screen turns on even though I did not check the box 'Turn on screen after any button press'. Interestingly, when Play/Pause action is mapped to the d-pad buttons, the screen does not turn on when Play/Pause action is invoked.

This happens on many devices, such as the IPAQ 2210. We cannot prevent this from happening, and it turns out to be a decision by the OEM to turn on the screen whenever an application button is pressed. Try it with Windows Media Player with the screen off, and you'll get simliar results.

Bug 2: The option to 'Automatically turn off screen' is checked 'after 5 second of playback. 'Auto-screen off in background' is checked. When I press play, the screen shuts off after 5 seconds as expected. However, when I press pause, the screen also shuts off after 5 seconds. This behavior should not occur. It should only shut off the screen when you press play, not when you press pause. Note: this only happens when the device is not connected to a power source (in other words, you are running on the battery).

Indeed, we detect whether AC Power is connected to the device, and do not turn the screen off in such cases. However, we have heard much feedback for users who still want the screen shut off when the playback is paused. If you hit Pause using a hardware button, would you want the screen on until you hit Play again? You might want to try the Auto-resume function in tandem with the Stop button if you would like the screen on.

Bug 3: There is a bug when you press pause and turn off the device via the Power On/Off button. When you turn on the device again by pressing any of the buttons on the device, Pocket Play starts to play automatically. Pocket Player should remain pause until the user clicks Play.

Thanks for reporting that! We'll certainly fix that for Pocket Player 2.51.

Enhancement request: I listen to audiobooks that are longer than 100 minutes. The time indicator on the bottom right of the screen should be lengthen just a tad so it can accomodate displaying times over 100 minutes. Right now, the seconds are being cut off if the audio is playing over 100 minutes.

Great suggestion. We'll hopefully figure out something for the next release too.

[Zack Mahdavi]

Nowadays, I only rip in AAC. Although about 90% of my music collection are mp3s, I am beginning to rip more and more in AAC. I find the quality of the files at a lower bitrate to be on par or higher than a higher mp3 bitrate.

I also download a lot of music from Apple's iTunes Music Store. It's unfortunate that Apple won't license their DRM. From what I've read, the iTunes Music Store doesn't bring in any money for Apple... it just helps drive iPod sales. So I'm guessing we won't see their DRM licensed for a while.

Anyway, I'd still be interested in an AAC add-on for PocketPlayer. Thanks!

[Jason Patterson]

Greetings everyone,

We have released Pocket Player 2.51! This includes full WM2003SE compatibility, all known issues have been resolved, and we have added plugin functionality and have made a plugin SDK available. Visualization, DSP, decoder, and general plugins are all supported now. For skin developers, we have a desktop skin tester application.

More information is in our press release, available at http://www.conduits.com/company_news.asp?pr20040413.html.

Thanks again!

[dgage]

I am looking for a MP3 player that will work with a Microdrive to give the best battery life. Of course, sound quality and features are important too. Does Pocket Player read one song ahead into memory if I give enough cache memory? Meaning, will it retrieve the next song in memory while the current one is playing so there is no pause between songs when reading into memory? If yes, will this also work when shuffle playing?

If Pocket Player doesn't support reading the next song into memory, does anyone know of a player that will? I am currently testing withMP3 and it skips (using SD, Muvo2 with MD on order) when trying to buffer the next song so then I set it to cache the whole song before playing which leads to a few second pause between songs. I have downloaded Pocket Player and Pocket Music and will be testing them in the next few days.

Thanks.

David

[Jason Patterson]

I am looking for a MP3 player that will work with a Microdrive to give the best battery life. Of course, sound quality and features are important too. Does Pocket Player read one song ahead into memory if I give enough cache memory? Meaning, will it retrieve the next song in memory while the current one is playing so there is no pause between songs when reading into memory? If yes, will this also work when shuffle playing?


David,

This is something we were shooting for for version 2.51, but it did not make the final cut. However, it is quite easy to accomplish via other means. If you set your playback buffer to 'Auto', by dragging the slider all the way to the right in Playback Options, Pocket Player will agressively buffer the current track into memory (usually only taking about 6 seconds per MB of file). Then, if you enable a bit of crossfading, even as small as 1 second, the next file will be start to be buffered into memory a few seconds before the current track ends. We have not heard any reports of skipping with the latest release.

For the next release, we will certainly have it set up where you pick a buffer size, say 15-20MB, and we will fill that up, advancing into the playlist if necessary (with shuffle support). The method above works pretty well for now, though.

[dgage]

Thanks for the info Jason. I will be testing Pocket Player out today.

David

[Menneisyys]

. AAC/MP4 playback would simply let you play those AAC files you have created yourself (through ripping CD's, etc).

Would you be open to a separate AAC package to Pocket Player, bought extra? AAC carries with it its own set of licensing fees.


Any words on whether AAC LC and, more importantly, HE-AAC support will be added some time? (Just working on the Multimedia Bible; so far, found your stuff excellent, except for the lack of AAC support.)