Since the latter days of leisure suits, 8-tracks, and disco, people on the go have been able to listen to their favorite music playing on a device that fit into their pocket. In 1979, Sony introduced the Walkman, a portable personal cassette player. It immediately gained immense popularity, and went on to become a synonym for any personal portable audio player. Twenty-plus years later, personal portable audio is still a booming industry, as evidenced by the wide range of portable cassette players, portable CD players, and portable MP3 players available. Each of these devices let you play the music you want to hear, when you want to hear it--no matter where you are.
With the introduction of Pocket PC 2000, Microsoft included a pocket version of its popular desktop Media Player software. In doing so, they dropped their hat into the personal portable media device market. At the time, because of limited file storage space, the high costs for storage cards, and a somewhat limited player, the Pocket PC user was left with a bit of an "underwhelming" experience. But most of the new Pocket PC 2002s have more onboard memory, storage cards are much cheaper, and the new version of Media Player is a lot nicer.
Pocket Windows Media Player version 8 (WMP8), like 7.1 before it, continues to bring features found on the desktop version to the Pocket PC (see Screen 1). Version 8 supports a wider variety of media files, including some video formats. It will also stream audio/video content from most sites that stream content for the desktop version of Media Player. WMP8 will also play packaged (encrypted) content, if the user has the rights to do
so.
Screen 1: Main window of Pocket Windows Media Player, version 8.0.
MP3, WMA, and streaming audio
The calling card for all portable MP3 players is that you're able to listen to the digital music you want to hear, in the order you want to hear it. Pocket Windows Media Player allows you to do this, and gives you the ability to create custom playlists based on the content contained on the device.
For audio playback, Pocket WMP8 supports the traditional MPEG Layer 3 (.mp3) format, as well as the Microsoft Windows Media Audio format (.wma/.wmp) and Microsoft Advanced Streaming Format (.asf). Those familiar with the .wma format know that it offers high quality sound at a better compression rate than .mp3, resulting in smaller files and more music on the device!
If you can connect your Pocket PC to the Internet, Pocket WMP8 also supports the streaming of .wma and .asf files through the player. Most sites that stream audio or video designed for desktop Windows Media Player will also stream on the Pocket PC. Check out
www.WindowsMedia.com for some demonstrations of both.
WMA video now supported
Windows Pocket Media Player 8 also now supports Windows Media Video files (.wmv) in both local and streaming format. Windows Media Video is the default save-file format for Windows Movie Maker, which is included with Millennium and XP desktop machines. Like .wma for audio, the .wmv format offers better compression than popular .mpg and .avi formats for video.
Playlist simplifies and organizes your media files
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