Conduits Updates Pocket Player to v2.7

[Janak Parekh]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://conduits.com/company_news.asp?pr20060221.html' target='_blank'>http://conduits.com/company_news.as...pr20060221.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Conduits Technologies, Inc., announced today the release of Pocket Player 2.7, an alternative music player for Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC and Smartphone, supporting the latest media player standards and formats. Pocket Player aims to satisfy consumers who demand more from a media player on a mobile device. The new version introduces new platform compatibility, track metadata (tags) support, Podcasts, new audio format support and additional plugins."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/parekh-20060221-ConduitsPPlayer27.gif" /><br /><br />Conduits has released a significant new version of Pocket Player, including full WM5 support for Pocket PCs and Smartphones, including square-screened units like the 700w. New features include a new UI, better tag support, vastly improved WMA support (including both regular and Janus DRM playback), podcast support, new plugin support, and more. Upgrades are free for 2.x owners; for others, you can download a trial or buy a copy from <a href="http://www.handango.com/ampp/store/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&amp;productType=2&amp;productId=79548">Handango</a> [Affiliate].

[Darius Wey]

This is an awesome upgrade. The new UI makes this a heck of a lot more user-friendly than previous versions. :)

[ctmagnus]

Yesterday I uninstalled the previous version of this app because my iPod does what that version does, only better. I just installed the new version and I'm giving it a whirl.

[Darren Behan]

I think that it's pretty sharp exept one thing that is glaring for me (and maybe only me but it will prevent me from purchasing it).

If I:

Create &amp; save a playlist
Set PocketPlayer to shuffle
Close PocketPlayer
Launch by clicking on the playlist

Then

PocketPlayer always starts off on the first song in the playlist. Personally, I don't love any song enough to want to hear it every single time I use the playlist. By comparison, PocketMusic remembers the last song played and picks up from there.

In fairness, PocketPlayer's playlist management is any day easier than PocketMusic. Still, I create playlists less frequently than I play my music...

db

[abl00m]

PocketPlayer always starts off on the first song in the playlist

Huh, weird, it doesn't work this way for me... it always starts up right where it left off. Although I've been using it for years, and it could be a setting somewhere.

Aaron

[ricksfiona]

I was pretty happy with the previous version. However, the UI and new features are pretty awesome. I'm there!

[Don't Panic!]

It's been awhile since I last used Pocket Player. This looks like a good time to give it another whirl.

[Darren Behan]

Aaron,

Hmmm. If I could get that to be the case, then it's my new player. I'll drop a mail to the Conduits folks to see if I'm missing something.

Appreciate the feedback.

db

[Jason Patterson]

Create &amp; save a playlist
Set PocketPlayer to shuffle
Close PocketPlayer
Launch by clicking on the playlist

Then PocketPlayer always starts off on the first song in the playlist.

Darren,

If you change your last step to 'Launch via Programs screen' then it should pick up when you left off. If you launch it by tapping on a playlist, it currently thinks you're trying to open a new playlist, and starts at the beginning. Sounds like something we should definitely fix for a future release.

We're thinking to jump to a random position if you tap a playlist and Shuffle is enabled, but to keep where you left off if you just launch Pocket Player normally from the Programs menu (which should open up the old playlist regardless).

[PocketPC Addict]

Hey cool! I forgot I bought this a year or so ago. 8O I forgot to reinstall it after I got a new device.

[stevelam]

Yay this means that finally I can use Janus DRMed stuuf on my 2003 PPC, at last!

[Don't Panic!]

This could be a deal breaker for me:

"Visualization Plugins
There currently are no additional visualization plugins. Source code for creating visualizations is available in the SDK."

That visualization looked so nice in the advertisement but it is not availble unless you build it yourself with the SDK.

[Jason Patterson]

Some additional notes:

We've released version 2.71 for Pocket PC today; the Smartphone version will be available tomorrow. It fixes some button problems that people reported, as well as other issues with skins and loading times.

In response to posts here:

Darren: We implemented that shuffle-start feature. It should work much better now; thank you for the suggestion.

stevelam: Janus content is only still playable on devices that have WMP10. You probably won't even be able to sync Janus WMA's to devices that don't have it. Pocket Player now really supports normal protected WMA's (which it has built-in capabilities for) and Janus WMA's (through WMP10 components). Earlier versions did not do a very good job at interfacing with available components, and also required a separate 1MB install of the "Windows Media Control for Pocket IE" which is no longer the case.

Don't Panic: That visualization is bundled in the software. Tap Menu > Options > Vis, and select the Warp visualization. Or, select the Randomization vis to have a variety of the new "CFX" visualizations. The SDK visualizations are something more simple and different (and certainly not needed for full enjoyment with the normal download package!).

Thanks again!

[aquanaut]

Thanks for the heads-up Darius. Along with Resco Explorer, WebIS Informant, this is one of my essential pocket pc apps.

Cheers

[Darius Wey]

Jason, how would you rate the performance of both the small and large visualisations in this new version of Pocket Player? I have it set to 30fps, and they still seem to lag on all my devices (including the Axim X50v). I can't quite recall previous versions doing this.

[haesslich]

Anyone here have issues with songs starting a second or two into the song itself during playback in shuffle mode? I've turned off Crossfading, and I've turned on the 'audio buffer' option to 1500ms (the standard) with file caching left at 64KB. I've bumped up the cache to 5MB, but don't notice any difference there - it'll still start a second in, whether or not I left it to transition naturally or if I hit 'next'.

[martin_ayton]

I was a PP 2.7 beta (7) tester, and with that loaded, v2.71 will not just install stright over the top, not on my Xda2s anyhow. However, uninstalling the beta stuff and then installing the new version seemed to work just fine.

PP looks great, and sounds better. It does seem to want to pick up the smaller of the album art files and blow it up (which looks horrible), but I don't tend to have that showing, so I don't care too much.

[Jason Patterson]

Jason, how would you rate the performance of both the small and large visualisations in this new version of Pocket Player? I have it set to 30fps, and they still seem to lag on all my devices (including the Axim X50v). I can't quite recall previous versions doing this.

Some of the more complex visualizations (FX types like Warp, etc) take more CPU than others. Also, on VGA devices, there's 4x the number of pixels it has to render. Can you try the large Oscilloscope visualization and see if that improves things? What type of media files do you normally use?

One suggestion I would make is to adjust the Decoder Thread priority in the Advanced options. That can influence how the visualization thread is scheduled.

[Jason Patterson]

Anyone here have issues with songs starting a second or two into the song itself during playback in shuffle mode? I've turned off Crossfading, and I've turned on the 'audio buffer' option to 1500ms (the standard) with file caching left at 64KB. I've bumped up the cache to 5MB, but don't notice any difference there - it'll still start a second in, whether or not I left it to transition naturally or if I hit 'next'.

Can you elaborate on this problem? What type of media files are you using? Do you mean that you press play on a track, and the timecode starts incrementing (00:00.. 00:01.. 00:02), and it takes a few seconds for sound to actually come out your speaker? Are you using Bluetooth headphones or anything that might introduce a lag? This is something we have not hread reported or experienced yet.

Also, what make and model of device are you using?

[Jason Patterson]

I was a PP 2.7 beta (7) tester, and with that loaded, v2.71 will not just install stright over the top, not on my Xda2s anyhow. However, uninstalling the beta stuff and then installing the new version seemed to work just fine.

This seems to be related to the Today plugin. We'll be fixing it for a future installer.

PP looks great, and sounds better. It does seem to want to pick up the smaller of the album art files and blow it up (which looks horrible), but I don't tend to have that showing, so I don't care too much.

This is strange. We basically query for artwork in a variety of ways (we'll even be releasing the source shortly, to see how to interface with our tags database). We look for embedded artwork, and then look for artwork in the same folder as the track, in the form of {TRACK-GUID}_Large.jpg, {TRACK_GUID}_Small.jpg, and then finally, Folder.jpg. Could it be that you just have the smaller artwork on your device?

[Darius Wey]

Some of the more complex visualizations (FX types like Warp, etc) take more CPU than others. Also, on VGA devices, there's 4x the number of pixels it has to render. Can you try the large Oscilloscope visualization and see if that improves things? What type of media files do you normally use?

I'm aware that the larger, more complex visualisations are more CPU-intensive and can cause laggy behaviour. Actually, those aren't the ones I'm concerned about.

I'm focused more on the small visualisations in the top-right corner when the playlist is enabled. Those used to run smoothly in previous versions of Pocket Player, though not so in v2.7x.

Also, the media files are standard CBR MP3s.

One suggestion I would make is to adjust the Decoder Thread priority in the Advanced options. That can influence how the visualization thread is scheduled.

That didn't help, unfortunately.

[haesslich]

Anyone here have issues with songs starting a second or two into the song itself during playback in shuffle mode? I've turned off Crossfading, and I've turned on the 'audio buffer' option to 1500ms (the standard) with file caching left at 64KB. I've bumped up the cache to 5MB, but don't notice any difference there - it'll still start a second in, whether or not I left it to transition naturally or if I hit 'next'.

Can you elaborate on this problem? What type of media files are you using? Do you mean that you press play on a track, and the timecode starts incrementing (00:00.. 00:01.. 00:02), and it takes a few seconds for sound to actually come out your speaker? Are you using Bluetooth headphones or anything that might introduce a lag? This is something we have not hread reported or experienced yet.

Also, what make and model of device are you using?

Alright, the device I was using it on (at the moment, it's the only one installed with PP 2.7) is an iPaq hx2490. The problem is that, when I play music off an SD card (PP 2.7 is installed in main memory), that songs will start playing about a second into the song, as you hear it starting that far in, even though the timetrack shows the device is playing normally (from 00:00). I'm using normal wired headphones for this, and I've tried it with both crossfading on and off.

I'm not sure if this is related to the fact that I've noticed that, if you skip a song withthe shuffle/repeat options both on, that if the song shows up in the list again that it starts from where you skipped it. Perhaps this is the problem? I'm not sure how to turn off this option, but it may be the root of my issue, since at times I'll skip a song a second or two in.. but the shuffle/repeat means I'll eventually get back to it. However, I have noticed that, even if I let the song play through, that sometimes it'll 'resume' a second in on a later playing.

It was in Auto Screen Turn-off mode at the time, no wireless turned on. I've got a modified Headphones EQ setting turned on, with the pre-amp adjusted down a few notches. This happens even if I use a 'default' EQ setting, and this is the only task actively running at the time.

(Edit: I turned off Auto-Resume and the problem with the first few seconds being skipped seems to have been fixed, at least for the moment. Now if only there was a way to lock out the 'Menu' buttons only, but not the 'back/forward/up/down' buttons as well, to avoid accidentaly exiting the application when having to use the navigation controls while it's in a pocket... :D)

[Darren Behan]

Jason,

Thanks very much for taking the suggestion for the shuffle on open. Downloading 2.71 now...

Great app, appreciate the responsiveness.

db

[martin_ayton]

This is strange. We basically query for artwork in a variety of ways {deleted} We look for embedded artwork, and then look for artwork in the same folder as the track, in the form of {TRACK-GUID}_Large.jpg, {TRACK_GUID}_Small.jpg, and then finally, Folder.jpg. Could it be that you just have the smaller artwork on your device?

Yeah, I wondered whether I had been an idiot too, but no (not this time anyway): I checked and I have large and small album art images on all my albums. I tend to store albums on an SD card in the following folder structure: \Storage Card\My Music\Artist\Album\... . In each of the 'Album folders there are the following album art files:

1. AlbumArt_{very long code sequence}_Large.jpg
2. AlbumArt_{very long code sequence}_Small.jpg
3. AlbumArtSmall.jpg
4. Folder.jpg

Folder.jpg is a copy of the large AlbumArt file. I didn't put any of these there - they came along with the .wma files after I ripped the CD - and I haven't changed the file names or positions since they were first copied over en-masse. They don't appear to be quite the same as the ones you say PP is looking for...

There may be some problems with my installation - I notice, for example, that I appear to have two copies of each of the 'Media Properties' and 'Search Content' plugins (the options appear twice if I tap and hold on a track and in the list of plugins under 'Options.'

[Jason Patterson]

I'm focused more on the small visualisations in the top-right corner when the playlist is enabled. Those used to run smoothly in previous versions of Pocket Player, though not so in v2.7x.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention! We've patched the problem for the forthcoming 2.72 release. It seems we were dropping visualization data frames, and so there would be intermittent chunks of time where PP thought there was nothing to do. We hope you will like the next release -- things look a lot better now.

We should have 2.72 out later today.

[Jason Patterson]

(Edit: I turned off Auto-Resume and the problem with the first few seconds being skipped seems to have been fixed, at least for the moment. Now if only there was a way to lock out the 'Menu' buttons only, but not the 'back/forward/up/down' buttons as well, to avoid accidentaly exiting the application when having to use the navigation controls while it's in a pocket... :D)

Indeed, this sounded like a case of Auto-resume being enabled, thought it also might have been related to a bug found in our Podcast plugin, which forces Auto-resume to be enabled for Podcasts. We've fixed the problems for 2.72, coming later today.

Also, the button mappings have been tweaked to allow one-handed operation of the menus.

[Darius Wey]

Thanks for bringing this to our attention! We've patched the problem for the forthcoming 2.72 release. It seems we were dropping visualization data frames, and so there would be intermittent chunks of time where PP thought there was nothing to do. We hope you will like the next release -- things look a lot better now.

We should have 2.72 out later today.

Thanks for the rapid response, Jason. I'm looking forward to it. :)

[Jason Patterson]

Folder.jpg is a copy of the large AlbumArt file. I didn't put any of these there - they came along with the .wma files after I ripped the CD - and I haven't changed the file names or positions since they were first copied over en-masse. They don't appear to be quite the same as the ones you say PP is looking for...

Indeed this is a bug in 2.7/2.71! We have patched it for 2.72. In my earlier post, I meant to say AlbumArt_{TRACK-GUID}_Large.jpg (and Small). We've patched this problem for the 2.72 release - it turned out to be another simple problem we overlooked for the 2.7 release.

There may be some problems with my installation - I notice, for example, that I appear to have two copies of each of the 'Media Properties' and 'Search Content' plugins (the options appear twice if I tap and hold on a track and in the list of plugins under 'Options.'

That's remnants of the beta. Delete all the gen_*.dll files in your Pocket Player folder except for gen_all.dll. That will fix the problem. Do the same with vis_*.dll (leave vis_all.dll).

[Don't Panic!]

Well as long as you're here... :)

Would I have to do anything special to see album art that MusicMatch Jukebox downloads from the web automatically? :?

And just to let you know I will not be looking for a free upgrade just because I purchased the very first release of your cool MP3 player. :lol:

[Jason Patterson]

Would I have to do anything special to see album art that MusicMatch Jukebox downloads from the web automatically? :?

Does MusicMatch sync the album artwork to your device, in the same folder as the music? Do they follow the naming conventions discussed earlier in the thread?

[martin_ayton]

That's remnants of the beta. Delete all the gen_*.dll files in your Pocket Player folder except for gen_all.dll. That will fix the problem. Do the same with vis_*.dll (leave vis_all.dll).

Cool, that has worked fine, thanks. I'm looking forward to picking up 2.72 early next week (when I get back to a PC).

[martin_ayton]

Anybody seen v2.72 yet?? It doesn't appear to be on the Conduits Website...

[Darius Wey]

Anybody seen v2.72 yet?? It doesn't appear to be on the Conduits Website...

Nope, I've been checking daily. Either the v2.72 build is up and the page still says v2.71, or Conduits is still busy putting the final pieces together.

[martin_ayton]

Nope, I've been checking daily. Either the v2.72 build is up and the page still says v2.71, or Conduits is still busy putting the final pieces together.

I hope the second. I downloaded the file in case it had been updated but not relabelled, but it was exactly the same size as my previous download of v2.71, so it's probably the same file and I didn't bother installing it.

[Jason Patterson]

Pocket Player 2.72 has been released, with all bug reports in 2.7 fixed, including some critical lock-up reports. Further improvements to visualization speed, album artwork, and tag browsing has been implemented. A new Play/Pause/Hold button has been added. Version 2.72 also fixes time-out problems on Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone.

It's available from the Pocket Player website (http://www.conduits.com/products/player). Thanks again!

[ctmagnus]

How do I check if my version is registered? I had the previous 2.x version installed and registered, but I uninstalled it mere days before v2.7 was released for various reasons. Of course, I installed v2.7 as soon as it was announced here. 8)

[haesslich]

Slight bug - in 2.7, when I selected 'No Action' for the Up Arrow on my directional pad, the up arrow did nothing... which meant that, if I was in a menu, I couldn't use it. Now, in 2.7.2, mapping it to 'No Action' does nothing to the Up Arrow - it functions normally as an Up Arrow, rather than being non-functional in PocketPlayer, the way I preferred it, from 2.7. Anyone else having similar issues with the 'No Action' mapping not working for them?

[Darius Wey]

How do I check if my version is registered? I had the previous 2.x version installed and registered, but I uninstalled it mere days before v2.7 was released for various reasons. Of course, I installed v2.7 as soon as it was announced here. 8)

If you aren't prompted on start-up to register the product, then assume it's already registered. :)

[martin_ayton]

Bug report: if I leave PP2.72 playing a track or playlist, it shuts down the screen (as it should) and then, when it has finished playing, the PPC goes to sleep (as it should). However, the only way to then wake the PPC up again is a soft reset. This was a problem I experienced in the previous versions and in the 2.7 beta and unfortunately it hasn't been fixed. Conduits know about this and I'm sure they're trying to sort it out. However, I'm interested to know if anyone else has the same problem, or if it's just me!! I have an O2 Xda2s (HTC Blue Angel).

[Jason Patterson]

Slight bug - in 2.7, when I selected 'No Action' for the Up Arrow on my directional pad, the up arrow did nothing... which meant that, if I was in a menu, I couldn't use it. Now, in 2.7.2, mapping it to 'No Action' does nothing to the Up Arrow - it functions normally as an Up Arrow, rather than being non-functional in PocketPlayer, the way I preferred it, from 2.7. Anyone else having similar issues with the 'No Action' mapping not working for them?

Here, it was hard to strike a balance. A lot of people wanted the D-pad to still be able to control their menus, even if they mapped it to a function. I assume what you are referring to here is that by mapping it to No Action, it still controls the menu. Can you try enabling Trap All Buttons in Options > Advanced and see if that fixes the problem?

[Jason Patterson]

Bug report: if I leave PP2.72 playing a track or playlist, it shuts down the screen (as it should) and then, when it has finished playing, the PPC goes to sleep (as it should). However, the only way to then wake the PPC up again is a soft reset.

We have an option for devices that are affected by this problem (some are, some aren't) -- see "Power-on screen when stopped" in Options > Advanced. Checking that box should turn the screen on when you are done with a playlist, and then the device should sleep (and power on) as normal.

[martin_ayton]

Jason, thank you - that's a reasonable work-around. I had missed that option when I went looking for it before.

[haesslich]

Slight bug - in 2.7, when I selected 'No Action' for the Up Arrow on my directional pad, the up arrow did nothing... which meant that, if I was in a menu, I couldn't use it. Now, in 2.7.2, mapping it to 'No Action' does nothing to the Up Arrow - it functions normally as an Up Arrow, rather than being non-functional in PocketPlayer, the way I preferred it, from 2.7. Anyone else having similar issues with the 'No Action' mapping not working for them?

Here, it was hard to strike a balance. A lot of people wanted the D-pad to still be able to control their menus, even if they mapped it to a function. I assume what you are referring to here is that by mapping it to No Action, it still controls the menu. Can you try enabling Trap All Buttons in Options > Advanced and see if that fixes the problem?

Actually, the reason I wanted to lock down the D-pad was due to the fears of accidentaly jabbing the Menu button, since one press up and the wrong push on an action button would cause it to exit the application without warning. The newest release and the way you've set up the lock (to lock the menu buttons and softkeys without locking the D-Pad) was just what I'd wanted and asked for some pages back. :D

I'm content with being able to navigate the menu the way you've got it set up, and the lock function as it currently works is perfect for my needs. The only thing I'd be able to wish for, on top of what's there, is the ability to auto-lock the buttons after a set time period.

Oh, and does anyone else besides me run into a problem with PocketPlayer where it'll just pause for about 10-15 seconds by itself after playing for half an hour? I'm not sure if that's PocketWeather trying to connect to the server, PocketPlayer pausing to fill its buffer, or something else.