Blog entries about Multimedia

If you are looking for a super, finger-friendly photo organizer, and I really mean  organizer, you will want to consider SplashPhoto. It works on a wide array of platforms including Palm, Windows Mobile, Symbian, and Blackberry, but not iPhone.

Listening to or watching podcasts is great fun. If you think they are boring, meaningless or can’t entertain you during, say, a long fight, you’re wrong. For example, watching all the clips of X-Play, played back on my VGA HP iPAQ 214 (thanks to Smartphone & PPCMag / iPhone Life’s Hal Goldstein for the gift!) could entertain me for long-long hours.

Compared to the capabilities of desktop multimedia players (see for example the excellent WMP vs Winamp vs iTunes vs MediaMonkey for more info on their capabilities), the mobile ones certainly lack when it comes to fetching, searching for, editing, storing and, in several cases, even accessing / displaying different kinds (album art and/or other images; textual genre / composer / title etc. info; lyrics etc.) of information in audio files.

Along with tags and cover arts, lyrics are also highly sought-for and widely used metadata, particularly with non-English folks who would like to know the lyrics of the songs they listen to.

The built-in Windows Media Player has always suffered from a major flaw: it didn’t support resuming the song from the last position after restarting the player. XDA-Devs forum member Wolfman-XP (the same guy that has also developed AVRCP support for GSPlayer) has fixed this: he has released a plug-in that remembers the last position where you press(ed) the Pause button.

Following is an update to my previous article on the CPU usage of the audio player applications. Please consult the old article on how the data should be interpreted.

GSPlayer is a well-known, excellent, free (!!!!), constantly updated audio player application I’ve very frequently elaborated on (search my blog for my related articles).

Not all notebooks or desktop computers have a built-in web camera. With desktop PC’s, this isn’t that big an issue: as you don’t carry them around, you can just buy an inexpensive, clip-on USB camera and you’re set. Not so with notebooks, UMPC’s or Tablet PC’s – with them, purchasing (and carrying!) a cabled solution might be overly suboptimal. Then, just using your camera-equipped smartphone may turn out to be the best solution; preferably over a wireless connection like Bluetooth.

Hardware

There’s a really interesting article comparing the built-in camera of the four most widely discussed new Windows Mobile phones: HTC Touch Diamond, HTC Touch Pro, Samsung Omnia, Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1. There is also a dedicated PPCT thread HERE, with some of my comments.

Games

Here is a cool little product that I saw today that allows you to listen to stereo music on the move.  

How many people have V CAST or some such carrier-branded media service on their cell-phones, offering games, music, a horrible browser, etc.? How many actually use it or like it? Looks like Spb Software House has announced they will use the engine (and positive reputation) of the popular Windows Mobile GUI replacement, Mobile Shell, as the impetus for a new media access environment (and a new line of business for Spb), tailored for carrier branding of Windows Mobile handsets.

A_C’s S2P, S2V and S2U2: excellent iPhone-alike apps (music player, screensaver, pic viewer)

I can’t say I’ve been lazy in the last few days. Thanks to the excellent feedback the XDA-Develeloper folks provided, I realized I need to check out XDA-Develeloper coder A_C’s latest, pretty nice and, if you’re a big fan of iPhone-alike interfaces, pretty much recommended, free (!) utilities.

1. Compared to the Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox 718 / 720, the major advantage of the hx4700 is the sheer existence of a WM5 / WM6 / WM6.1 upgrade. On top of that, the larger screen, the quality magnesium casing and the faster CPU with a graphics co-processor greatly helping in playing back MPEG4 Part 2 (a.k.a. ASP / DivX / XviD) videos, on the long run, made it the winner (while this wasn't certain back in 2004-2005; the author of this article has also chosen, back then, the Loox 720 over the hx4700). Of course, it has had major problems compared to the Loox: the touchpad, initially, the higher price, the very low speaker volume (while the Loox has been one of the loudest ever PDA’s around), the lack of a camera (even if the one in the 720 isn’t anything to write home about, quality-wise) and the lack of USB host support. These problems, however, are easily mitigated by the really excellent WM6.1 upgrades released in the last few months. As the Loox isn’t upgradable to WM5, several current software titles (like Esmertec Jbed to run MIDlets like Opera Mini) just can’t be run on it.
2. It’s too better than the Dell Axim x50v/x51v. The Dell has vastly inferior battery life, much-much worse screen almost useless in Landscape for many users because of the major polarization issues, the plastic, thick body and the x50v WM5 upgrade having major compaction issues (as was the case with pre-WM6.1 hx4700 upgrades, though). The only real advantage, in addition to the louder buzzer, th emore gaming-friendly D-pad controller and (at least in the U.S.) lower price of the Dell is the Intel 2700G support, offering both excellent 3D hardware acceleration and great help in playing back ASP videos.

Watching YouTube videos is a favorite pastime of many. With data charges constantly decreasing (or, should I say, plummeting), not-that-expensive flat 3G data rates getting common, Wi-Fi’s getting pretty ubiquitous and, of course, YouTube’s getting really-really full of videos worth checking out, you might be tempted to watch YouTube (or other) videos on your handset. After all, it's a great pastime and these handhelds have both the processing power, the necessary hardware and, in most cases, connection speed to render these videos well.

In this YouTube Bible, I show you how this all can be done on the three major non-iPhone platforms: Windows Mobile, Symbian S60 and BlackBerry. (As the iPhone, as opposed to most other solutions, already comes with a decent player, there isn’t much point in elaborating on it. You just fire up the YouTube icon and off you go at – if you have Wi-Fi connectivity – very good quality. Nothing needs to be installed and there’re no alternatives you will need to know to make an intelligent decision.)

Note that I’ve published several YouTube-related articles (a quick search for YouTube on my blog reveals these tutorials). These, however, are pretty outdated now – particularly that a lot of vastly superior solutions have been released in the meantime. I’ll, however, refer back to for example the HTC Streaming Media tutorial.

Also note that this Bible is multiplatform, as with the majority of my later Bibles. If you're a fanboy of any of the three reviewed operating systems, don't post angry messages like "Why on earth did you include operating system X? I hate it, it's sooooo inferior and lame!". Sorry, both as a gadget-loving geek and as a professional IT advisor / consultant, I MUST know all the mobile operating systems. (Particularly now that the Microsoft folks have just told me they would be interested in some of my week-long lectures on the differences on BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices. I need such kinds of work because I (more precisely, my employer) prefer getting mobility-related IT consultant contacts as opposed to non-mobility-related ones. This is also why I keep posting on other operating systems - as I need to know them, why wouldn't I post on them? Finally, I won't create a separate version of the Bible for Symbian, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices for two reasons: 1. it'd cause me a LOT of additional work not only initially but also when I post a revised, updated version: restructuring the entire Bible, taking out all references to other OS'es; 2. knowing what other operating systems are capable of won't do anyone any harm - you may even find that having read info on another OS useful if you are given a handset running a different OS.)

Also note that, Windows Mobile-wise, the discussion applies to both touchscreen-less MS Smartphones (Windows Mobile 6 Standard) and touchscreen-enabled Pocket PC’s (Windows Mobile 6 Classic / Pro) models. All the reviewed Windows Mobile solutions run on both platforms. In the compatibility lists, I've listed the earliest Windows Mobile operating system a given solution is compatible with but didn't list them all. This means if you see WM2003+, it means compatibility with WM2003 and all subsequent operating system versions (WM2003SE, WM5, WM6, WM6.1), not only with WM2003.

1.1 Browsing the desktop Web version of YouTube

This section applies to both platforms of Windows Mobile starting with WM2003+ and used with Internet Explorer Mobile (IEM) and Opera Mobile; Symbian with integrated Flash Lite 3.

1.1.1 Windows Mobile

1.1.1.1 IEM / Opera Mobile + Flash 7 plug-in

If you install the Flash 7 plug-in (see the Flash Bible HERE for more info on the availability etc.) on your Pocket PC and either use the WM5+ (not earlier: due to bad JavaScript support, they won’t work) Internet Explorer Mobile (IEM) or WM2003+ Opera Mobile (any version), the videos will be played back in-line, just like on the desktop.

This is, however, the worst approach you should ALWAYS avoid because it, in some cases, grinds the entire handset to halt and is very slow, even on high-end Windows Mobile devices. All in all, it’s in NO WAY recommended - there are far superior approaches.

1.1.1.2 IEM + FlashVideoBundle

This is an immensely better solution having all the advantages of the desktop version; most importantly, direct access to YouTube, Google Video & Veoh links sent in, for example, mails. Then, when IEM is invoked, you’re shown a context menu, where you can instruct IEM to show the video in TCPMP, save it into a file or, alternatively, take you right to the page so that you can see for example the comments / related videos:

If you directly enter the URL in the address bar (by, for example, pasting it to there), it’ll too present you with the same context menu; the same will happen if you just click a video link on YouTube (GV etc.) pages.

The current version is 1.4.4; CAB file available for download HERE (if you don’t want to register, I’ve mirrored it HERE); my old, now-outdated article HERE. Installing it is pretty straightforward; just follow the section "Installation instructions" in the tutorial on the homepage.

This is one of the most recommended ways of playing back online videos, particularly if you get links in e-mails / other, offline documents like Word files.

1.1.2 Symbian with Flash Lite 3

In order to play back (Flash, including YouTube) videos embedded in Web pages, you’ll need to have a device with Flash Lite 3 preinstalled. One of them, the, currently, best multimedia handset of all, the Nokia N95 received Flash Lite 3 support in firmware version v21 released some weeks ago.

If you have a compatible handset, you don’t need to install anything else (no third-party apps at all): videos will be played back right in the pages that contain them, with much-much less adverse effects than (currently) with Windows Mobile relying on the CPU-hog Flash 7.

As has already been emphasized, Flash Lite 3 on Symbian behaves much-much better than the full Flash 7 on Windows Mobile. While the latter is in no way recommended, the former – if you have a Symbian device – is. Note that you can still use the Mobile YouTube Web and the MIDlet-based interface too (see sections 1.2 and 1.3, respectively), but they only deliver 3GP videos at a much lower quality than Flash Lite 3. Alternatively, if you need high-quality (Flash / H.264) videos, you may also want to prefer Mobitubia – or the soon-to-be-released, YouTube-capable version of CorePlayer.

Note that Portrait playback will always be oversized as can be seen in THIS screenshot (source link HERE). Also, if you use the standard Nokia Web menu (Options / Rotate Screen) to switch to Landscape mode, it’ll stay oversized. The trick is clicking the Flash Lite 3 surface with the Action button – it’s then that it’ll be resized to fit into the screen as can be seen in the first screenshot.

Also note that there’s still no Flash Lite 3 on Windows Mobile but will, hopefully, be soon released; see THIS and THIS for more info.
 

TCPMP is a very nice, multiplatform (Palm OS, WinCE, Pocket PC and MS Smartphone) multimedia player with some, even by the current, latest CorePlayer, unmatched features like HE-AACv2 playback or subtitle support.

XDA-Devs forum member milesmowbray has released a TCPMP source compatible with VS2008 to fuel further, independent development.

1. The latest, 1.2.1 version of CorePlayer has JUST been released, with the long-promised Mobile YouTube support. It also has Configurable YouTube quality control; let me cite their post on this: “But the BIGGEST reason why YouTube is better in CorePlayer then on YouTube.com or any other third party application? CorePlayer is the first media player to feature Configurable YouTube quality control.... You control the bandwidth and quality that your platform can handle. From Low, Medium, to High quality (H.264) streams.