You CAN Take It With You

The Pocket PC is a very functional personal information manager, but it does double duty as a portable entertainment center. The built-in Windows Media Player not only lets you view .asf or .wmv formatted video, it lets you listen to .wma or .mp3 audio. Current Pocket PCs have stereo headphone jacks, and card slots that let you add storage capacity for your music files. All in all, the Pocket PC is a great way to take your favorite music with you wherever you go. But first you have to copy your music over to your Pocket PC. The latest version of Windows Media Player for the desktop PC can help you with this.

Using Windows Media Player 9 to format and transfer music to your Pocket PC

Even though you can add file storage to your Pocket PC, you still need to conserve space. After all, the more space you conserve, the more you have available for music. Windows Media Player 9 helps you do this by allowing you to change the bit rate of a music file when you copy it to a Pocket PC or a memory card. The higher the bit rate, the better the sound quality of the music and the larger the size of the music files. Generally, the lower bit rate files sound fine played through the Pocket PC's built-in speaker or stereo headphones. You may have to experiment with bit rate settings to fine an acceptable balance of file size and sound quality. In addition, Windows Media Player 9 saves the transferred files in Media Player's .wma format, which is more compact than the .mp3 format. Windows Media Player 9 for the desktop PC can be downloaded for free from Microsoft's Web site (www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/default.asp).

Once you've downloaded and installed WMP9 on your desktop PC, sync your Pocket PC and launch WMP9 on your desktop PC. Click the "Copy to CD or Device" button on the left side of the player and the "Select items to copy..." screen pops up. The left side of the screen shows the songs available to copy (Screen 1). Use the drop-down menu on the left side of the screen, below "Items to copy," to select the music you want transferred.

Screen 1: The "Select items to copy" screen on the desktop PC version of Windows Media Player 9.

Use the drop-down menu on the right side of the screen, below "Items on device," to select where you want the music files to be copied (to your Pocket PC, a storage card, a CD, etc.). Once you've selected a location, the folders and files at that location are displayed. Click on the "+" next to a folder to display what's inside it. (When a folder is open the "+" turns to "­".) Click on and highlight the folder into which you want the music files copied. The amount of free space available for your music files is displayed at the bottom of the screen.

In the upper-right corner of the screen there's an icon that looks like a sheet of paper with an "i" on it. Click on it to bring up the Portable Device panel (Screen 2). By default, the "Select quality level automatically" radio button is selected. Check the one below that, labeled "Select quality level," and move the slider to change the bit-rate to 32, 48, 64, or 128. Then click Apply and OK to save the changes and close the window. A lower bit-rate will make a smaller file but decrease the sound quality of the music--experiment to see which setting is best for you. This setting will be used every time you copy music to that device or card, unless you change it.

Screen 2: The Portable Device dialog box lets you set the bit rate of the music transferred from Windows Media Player 9 to your Pocket PC.