Two Tips to Make Windows Media Player on WM Suck Slightly Less

[Pete Paxton]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.wmexperts.com/articles/howto/how_to_2_tips_to_make_windows.html' target='_blank'>http://www.wmexperts.com/articles/h...ke_windows.html</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"Understatement: Windows Mobile's default media player, Windows Media Player (WMP), isn't exactly iPod-class. One solution for this issue is to just give up on WMP completely and go with something like Pocket Tunes, currently our top pick for alternate music players (though we have more reviews of media players coming soon -- stay tuned). For some, however, having another media player isn't a great option due to either memory constraints or just plain personal preference. For you crazy folks, we offer two hints to make things a little better."</em></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com//spt/auto/1218154828.usr11642.png" border="0" /></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Personally, I'd just as soon go for an alternative player. I just can't see why it's so hard for MS to make a decent player for their devices. Which player do you use and do you like it? Do the hints provided help make WM player a better music option or does it still "suck"? Let us know what you think?</p>

[stevew]

WM player sucks just as the WM browser and the rest of the apps that are part of WM OS. You would think that after all these years they would have improved. :confused:

[jiltedcitize]

What's wrong with Media Player? And why are others so much better?

[efjay]

I use WM player and have no issues with it whatsoever. Not sure what people want from it but it transfers my music over easily, works flawlessly with A2DP and allows me to create playlists on the go. All I do is connect my BT headset, press play and i'm off. Works for me.

[rlobrecht]

I also carry an iPod nano, and don't listen to music on my MW device. Mostly this is because of the battery life, but storage limitation is also a concern.

[possmann]

You know - wouldn't it be great if we, as consumers. could remove the applications we don't use so we can have more space? Take for instance PIE or WMPlayer... I mean why can't we just select remove - same with the office applications - just like in the desktop world...

My two cents

[moaske]

...All I do is connect my BT headset, press play and i'm off. Works for me....
Me too... I like WMP enough to stick with it...
I 've got a wired remote with music controls from HTC, and that works with WMP or the HTC player only.... So i guess, i have no options...
But WMP is easy, stable and plays everything i've got....it 's ability to turn the screen off is also nice. The interface of opening a playlist could be a lot better though... but spb mobile shell takes care of that for me :) Four thumb-taps and i'm off with my list of choice :)

[Chris Spera]

I agree. WMP was fine (though I have an iPod and now an iPhone 3G) when I used it on my WM device.

The problem is NOT the mobile player, but the desktop interface between your chosen player and your music. If WMP handled that with as much grace as iTunes and my iPod/iPhone; and if it was easy to have (at least) 10's of gigabytes of storage on my WM device, I likely never would have abandoned it for another solution.

Just my 2 cents...

[Jason Lee]

Windows media player works great for my ripped CDs. I rip them into desktop media player then copy them to my MicroSD card. Works great. Album art and everything. Good stuff.

Now for video i use TCPMP. Nothing better. But it pretty much is a pain to use for audio. Media player's media library is just too nice.

I played a bit the the built in HTC audio player and it truly sucks. A nice finger friendly UI stuck on top of a horrid player with no features.

[Gerard]

I've always found WMP glitchy since starting 8 years ago using PPCs. At times it has worked perfectly, especially streaming online video/audio in WMV/WMA and related proprietary formats. But I hate the sluggishness of the playlist/library interface in loading, and worse, find it painfully slow and awkward trying to build playlists. In TCPMP this stuff is a breeze, and the playlists saved aren't location-specific (full paths not stored in the file, just relative paths) so I can move music folders around between locations in a card or to a different device or my PC and the playlists will always work. TCPMP also plays about 10 times as many file types as does WMP, and it's free, so really, what's not to like? Playback is smooth. Interface both screen and mapped buttons is easy to use. Screen toggle etc. is every bit as good as with WMP. And the included options for manually setting all sorts of parameters and associations are easy to use - how many user definable options are there in WMP? (never mind, not really asking... not many)

I tried CORE for a bit, basically a prettied-up TCPMP with some added features and a few missing. Liked it more or less, but it took about twice as long to load so I dumped it. I like programs to load in less than 5 seconds. If I have to wait too long it feels like I'm back in 2000 using my Casio E-115 with its 133MHz MIPS processor......

On the old 'why can't I uninstall PIE and WMP and Pocket Word' etc. question, that's simple enough; Microsoft wants users to be able to cold boot to a fresh, ready-to-use OS and core programs. If users had to install the OS or core apps from a PC every time they wanted a clean slate, there'd be far more expenditure on support questions with such procedures, requests for (and necessity to validate licenses at the same time!) replacements of lost CDs, and other related nightmares. They've kept things simple and efficient in terms of starting out with a fresh device, and I think that's appropriate. As for their particular choices in installed apps, that's another thing entirely. I don't understand why they haven't, for example, made a deal with SoftMaker to install their office suite (TextMaker and PlanMaker as a minimum) as the default word processor and spreadsheet applications. These tools dramatically kick MS butt. Maybe that's why? But still, pride or no pride, why not at least offer such kit as a user option at purchase time? Surely better quality applications booting as part of the OS would bring MS a lot more respect in the market, get their devices taken that much more seriously by business. But of course I'm not a businessman in terms of 'getting' how these things are done, so never mind.

If you really don't want WMP or PIE, just learn how to cook a ROM from somewhere like XDA-developers and do one for yourself. Shouldn't be too hard to ditch Word, Excel, and other nonsense while at it, saving lots more room for flash storage in main memory.

[Menneisyys]

What's wrong with Media Player? And why are others so much better?

cpu usage, lack of features, lack of he-aacv2 support etc. see my recently published multimedia-related articles if interested - they're all been posted to the PPC forum here.

[Menneisyys]

Windows media player works great for my ripped CDs. I rip them into desktop media player then copy them to my MicroSD card. Works great. Album art and everything. Good stuff.

Now for video i use TCPMP. Nothing better. But it pretty much is a pain to use for audio. Media player's media library is just too nice.

I played a bit the the built in HTC audio player and it truly sucks. A nice finger friendly UI stuck on top of a horrid player with no features.

the best of the two worlds: CorePlayer :) It has all the advantages of TCPMP and WMP. (Fpr example, low CPU usage, AVRCP, library support etc.)

[Gerard]

the best of the two worlds: CorePlayer :) It has all the advantages of TCPMP and WMP. (Fpr example, low CPU usage, AVRCP, library support etc.)

Not quite the 'all the advantages of TCPMP', sorry. This for example:

[playlist]
File1=mms://a1885.l961737884.c9617.g.lm.akamaistream.net/D/1885/9617/v0001/reflector:37884
File2=mms://a1886.l961737885.c9617.g.lm.akamaistream.net/D/1886/9617/v0001/reflector:37885
NumberOfEntries=2
Version=2

TCPMP plays that PLS file just fine, so I can listen to local AM radio via Wi-Fi. CORE offers only an unrecognized file error message... I get that a lot more with various streams in CORE than in TCPMP.

[shaminda]

I tried several other players but none of them does a better job than WMP. Most of of my stuff are wma and wmv files, and I don't have time to convert them to MP3. Is there any other player that supports wma and wmv file formats? Also my phone has a volume problem when I listen to music with my bluetooth. I have tried several different players but none of them has a better volume than the WMP. Also I am not willing to pay money for some junk, and WMP is free. I am more than satisfied with WMP. I have not seen nor heard a better player than WMP(free is important). If WMP suck what can do a better job for me?

[Gerard]

Hey, if WMP 'rock' for you, great, no one is forcing you to use anything else. Of course most other players support WMA/WMV/ASF/all Microsoft's proprietary formats of audio and video, and some do a great job of it (TCPMP, CORE, 40th Floor, Conduits, Vito, others), and TCPMP is every bit as free as WMP. GSPlayer is also free, and likewise does a fine job with WM files, and offers a host of options for you to customise playback parameters which WMP does not. But yeah, use WMP. Nothing wrong with that. If it doesn't suck for you, then that's just fine.

[camilhn]

Hi everyone
I really recommend the pocket music player which can be purchased at:
http://www.pocketmind.com/
It gives you all you need and more.
enjoy.

[jamesmcman]

This whole process was horrible- pocket gear was unresponsive and the developer did not respond to any of my inaquiries as to why the skin did not work. I have windows mobile 6 and an htc advantage 7500 and I cannot get Windows mobile to recognize it as a skin. Photo picks it up but that is it.

[jamesmcman]

I bought it and now it won't work on my htc advantage. I cannot get the developer or pocket gear to respond. Windows media does not recognize it as a skin only photo recognizes it as a photo. Any suggestions-