REQ: Portable Media Center for Pocket PC

[Yorch]

I just finished watching a video review (http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=23661) of the Portable Media Center, and I immediatly though that....my pocket pc could do that.
Nowadays prices of SD cards keep going down, (I just bought a GIG for $80, and the Lexars are running for $65!), and Also these PMC devices are Windows CE based, meaning that can be either ported or imitated.

Why there are no developers that have tried to do this?, what are they waiting for?.

It would be ideal, to have one main program to handle Pictures, video and music. There are programs that do that already, for pictures like Resco Picture Viewer, for video Beta player, and music, pocket music. But wouldn't it be extremely cool if a program could do that?.

I don't think there would be any legal issues about it, being that you offer also skins, so the user can customize it the way they want it.

I have seeing plenty of programs that do that for the PC, (SageTV, Meedio, Snapstream, etc) that ressemble just like the Media Center from Microsoft, and none of them have gotten into trouble.

Also, a killer app would be if it would bundle with a desktop plugin that can sync, ala SyncNGO, where users can just connect their pocket PCs to their cradles and the computer can sync content from their computer, maybe for video take 1 or 2 files at the time, different each time, (this would be specially useful if you have a series of programs, lets say the Simpsons, and you want to have a different episode everytime in your pocket pc). for music, maybe they can take an X amount of music, different everytime, with the user having the capability to mark their "favourite albums", those stay in the pocket pc. Also, even better, the choice to select if you want to keep the media in original format or to transcode it to make it smaller, like AVI, DIVX, etc, to change it to WMV (I say this since the WMV support is already built in), but if not to something else. And MP3, to smaller bitrate, or even to WMA.

Am I dreaming?. I know pretty much all of these things can be done already, I just want ONE program that does it all, I'll be willing to pay good money if they do it right!. What are your thoughts.

PS. Maybe Jason or any moderator can put this in the headlines' front page, as a call to developers to make this "KILLER APP". I'm sure if this app is done, it could revolutionize even more the Pocket PC.

[spinedoc]

Welcome to the head scratchers club! There are many who wonder why PMC's were even created. There is nothing they do that a Pocket PC could do, NOTHING! Companies could have even sold the whole PMC thing as an addon package for Pocket PC's. Maybe a 2gb microdrive, a larger battery and the software for an extra $500. This way those of us who did not want the functionality and did not want to pay for it would have the option to just buy their stripped down PPC.

This also leads to the old hard drive debate. Why cant a Pocket PC have a 20G hard drive incorporated into it? Will it really run the battery down that much? Will it really cost that much more? Does the fact that you can get a PMC for $500 with a 20G hard drive really mean that a Pocket PC with a hard drive will be that much more expensive?

Who knows what reasons Microsoft chose to fragment the market. I would assume they are jumping on the "ipod" bandwagon in making their "media" device, leaving the PPC for the more hardcore users.

[Yorch]

well, there is hope!. I was informed from a reliable source that there is something cooking that might be just exactly what we talk about here, and It might come from the people you least expect it!. But I was told to be SHHHH,......so....SHHHHH :mrgreen:

[Sven Johannsen]

There are tradeoffs in making a PPC do a PMC function. The most noticeable will be size, battery life and startup time. To get the battery life that the iPODs and PMCs get they have significantly larger batteries at the cost of size and weight. The PMCs need to boot, they do not have the OS in RAM ready to go at a moments notice. The effect is like having to soft reset everytime you want to use your PPC. Keeping the OS in RAM takes battery power which is why we need to charge our PPCs fairly regularly, where I can take my 20G Samsung Yep and set it aside for a week and it pretty much has the same charge I left it with.

While there are those of us who would like to use the PPC we have, as a media center, there are many more folks that don't want to encumber their media player with PIM functions, and cost. It's a different market. It is an electronic version of the portable DVD player I already have. It can do picture CDs, DVD movies and play MP3s, but I don't need to carry the fragile media. I trade that for having to manage content. The MS PMC seeks to de-technify that.

If you want a common interface for all your Media stuff, just get yourself a copy of Pocket Plus, make a media tab, and put Resco Picture Viewer, PocketTV, and Conduits PocketPlayer on it with big icons. (or whatever your favorites are). Get yourself a honking big CF or SD card and a card reader and have at it. Better still get yourself a USB host capable PPC and one of those little laptop drive enclosures, but be sure you cover the power requirements as the PPC isn't going to run it. Probably the closest thing to what you want is obsolete. Take an old iPaq with a PC Card sleeve, with battery, and slap a 5G PC card drive in there. You get a fairly good PMC, that is about the size of the ones being released, with a PPC to boot.

[Yorch]

I beg to differ, the only thing that we need really, is a software based application, like I said, everything is there already, I run my raggedy old XDA and I can watch about 2 episodes of Friends, fine, (mind you the XDA is a PPC and a phone, so extra drainage for the battery), and It works great, same thing with music. Most of the PPC nowadays are capable of handling 2~3 hours of media just fine. As battery gets better, and memory gets cheaper, this is a very good solution. this is of course for the casual Media user, if you are going to use the video heavily, or you need to have 400 hrs. of video, go get yourself a PMC, but for the most PPC users, like me, who have random episodes of sitcoms, or cartoons (to entertain the kids) might fit perfectly, in a 512MB or a GIG SD card. With programs like the Nakayama DVD to Pocket PC, makes portable moviemaking easy.

[Sven Johannsen]

I beg to differ, the only thing that we need really, is a software based application.

To do what? If you are already satisfied with the storage capacity and battery life, it sounds like all you want is a front end app to launch the various players. What would you pay for an app that looks like an XPMCE and launches the media players of choice. In fact just go get an rx3000 series. It does essentially that. At most you want one app to support all the formats. What would you pay for that?

[spinedoc]

The only point of contention really is the hard drive. I have a 4gb CF microdrive and a 1gb SD card, but I would surely love to have 20-40gb for video, and built in at that.

In regards to the battery you can either have a PPC that matches current PMC playing times of 2-3 hours, or you can upgrade to a larger battery. The ability to upgrade to a larger battery is a CHOICE the user has, if he just wants a PPC and no additional costs then he does not need to buy the extended battery.

In regards to size, there is no reason why a PPC with a hard drive should be any larger than existing PPC's. The newer 20gb drives are pretty small and I cant see it adding much bulk when they fit pretty good inside the tiny HD based MP3 players were are seeing nowadays.

The PMC software should be available to PPC users. In my opinion if a PPC had 20gb of storage space a PMC would be a major waste of cash, but hey thats only MY opinion. I also think an Ipod is a major waste of cash.

Now how about they just add the PIM functions to a PMC?

[Yorch]

well, this is what I was told...

Introducing the Windows Media Player 10 (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/windowsmobile/default.aspx)

Kind works and is a welcome upgrade, but it still not like the media center as I was expecting....

Don't get me wrong, I can't wait until the upgrade is released for the XDAII!! 0X

[Jeff Rutledge]

Fixed URL above.

[jkendrick]

Only available on a few devices via a ROM upgrade. Don't hold your breath.