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View Full Version : Can my PC play the music that is on my PPC?


gregmills
11-24-2004, 03:41 PM
Here's the scenario...

A couple of times a week I load my SD card with a fresh batch of MP3s to listen to while I commute (I use a cassette adapter to put the sound through the truck's sound system and Voice Command to control WMP).

When I get to work I use a sync/charge cable to connect to my office PC. This keeps it charged and sometimes I move files back and forth from home to work on my PPC.

What I want to know is, since I have a selection of MP3s on my PPC and it's connected to my office PC with a "Guest" partnership over ActiveSync and I see the files on it from my PC, is there a way to get WMP on the PC side to play the music on my PPC? I've played around with it a bit and I can't get it to work. I know I can copy the files over to the PC to play them but it would be so much easier just to play them from the PPC.

IanG
11-24-2004, 04:55 PM
There's no way to do this. The pocketpc isn't assigned a drive letter by windows, and so you can't open files directly from the pocketpc.

You could invest in a SD card reader, which would plug into your work PC and let you play songs from the card. A SD reader would also make tranferring songs onto the card at home a lot faster - activesync is a very slow connection in my experience. Card readers are pretty cheap - officemax usually has them for <$10 for example. You wouldn't need a 8-in-1, just a simple SD reader.

hth

Ian G

tobyrne
11-24-2004, 08:06 PM
There's no way to do this. The pocketpc isn't assigned a drive letter by windows, and so you can't open files directly from the pocketpc.

You could invest in a SD card reader, which would plug into your work PC and let you play songs from the card. A SD reader would also make tranferring songs onto the card at home a lot faster - activesync is a very slow connection in my experience. Card readers are pretty cheap - officemax usually has them for <$10 for example. You wouldn't need a 8-in-1, just a simple SD reader.

hth

Ian G

I don't see what the problem is. The PPC is registered under "Mobile Device" on the host computer. Can't you just create a playlist pointing to files found on the memory card via ActiveSync Explorer ? If it's possible to *copy* files from the device to the host, why wouldn't the host be able to *read* those files via a media player ?

The same principle applies when streaming media over a Local Area Network. The remote computer is not listed as a drive, but one can still stream music from one computer to another.

I'll test it out tonight and see what happends.

gregmills
11-24-2004, 09:13 PM
Thanks for the responses.

You would think that since WMP10 on the PC side can see the device and navigate it's folders from "Sync" tab that it would also be able to play files from the device as well. The ideal situation would be for me to be able to have the Library monitor the device so that when an ActiveSync connectionw as established it would automatically find the music and add it.

But it doesn't seem to work that way. I can't add songs to the playlist, or library or even play them from the PPC. While "My Computer" sees the device, when browsing files in WMP it does not. Oh well, I've been needing to get a card reader for my work computer anyway.

I hope you can get it to work. But I'm afraid Ian may be correct.

Sven Johannsen
11-24-2004, 09:23 PM
IanG is correct. You won't get this to work. Just like you can't double click a file on your PPC in the Explore function of AS, you won't be able to open a media file on the PPC with Media Player.

Might I suggest a stereo mini to mini cable to connect your headphone out of the PPC to the Line-in of your PC sound card. $5 Radio Shack
http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&product%5Fid=42-2387

IanG
11-24-2004, 09:29 PM
It's the same problem as trying to open a word document stored on the device. Activesync doesn't create a drive letter for the device, merely lets you browse it and copy/move stuff to/from it.

WMP only lets you create a playlist from the items in the library, which are located on drives or network shares. It treats the pocketpc as a dumb device for copy operations only.

The case of streaming media is slightly different: you can either open a file from a network share (\\pcname\folder\) which is treated like a drive, or it is streamed from a media server directly to WMP (in essence this is what happens using a network share). Activesync doesn't provide a way of doing either of these things, partly because activesync assumes it has to convert files from the device when copying them across (which it would have to do in real time), and also because of the errors that would occur if the device is removed with the files still being accessed.

Ian G