Many Pocket PC games contain “tracked” “module” music that are very easy to be extracted and listened to without actually running the game. Just run a search for “tracked” in my games reviews (or follow this link).
In my article on listening to the .MOD tracked files of the great shoot’m up game Enslave, I’ve already elaborated on the quite Spartan and MOD-only JT MOD Player 1.0. In the current article, I elaborate on the latest developments in the Pocket PC world as far as playing back tracked music is concerned. In the second section, I also explain how you can use the tutorial to listen to the great tracked music of Astraware’s hugely popular Bejeweled (2).
There are a lot of tracked file formats; .MOD used by Enslave is only one of them. The above-mentioned JT MOD Player doesn’t handle any else (for example s3m / Impulse Tracker) formats. Neither does, unfortunately, CorePlayer (the commercial successor to the best Pocket PC all-in-one multimedia player TCPMP) or any other “traditional” Pocket PC music / media player (without additional plug-ins, that is).
On the Pocket PC, there are two tracked music playback tools (not counting in the mod-only JT MOD Player): MilkyPlay and Zerker’s MortPlayer / GSPlayer plug-in.
MilkyPlay
This free standalone player plays almost all the existing other tracked formats (to see the list of the supported files, see this, this and this), except for, unfortunately, Impulse Tracker (*.IT) files. This means, for example, it has no problems with Bejweleled’s .s3m music. It, however, can’t play back Bejweleled 2’s Impulse Tracker (.IT) music.
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To make MilkyPlay work, just download the archive here or here (not available on pocketpcfreewares.com and the original homepage doesn’t work) and transfer MilkyPlay (ARM).exe to anywhere on your Pocket PC. Start it, go to the Playlist menu and, in the upper frame, find and, then, select the files (you can use mass-selection in a directory with the All button and also scan for files). After adding the files, you can safely play them.
It’s worth pointing out that another very important, free (!) product of the same author is Milkytracker, a fully-fledged, highly recommended module tracker for all computing platforms (for example, even the Sharp Zaurus / Amiga OS4), including the Pocket PC (!).
(here, it shows the Bejeweled 2 music loaded in on the Pocket PC; a screenshot of the configuration screen is here)
Zerker’s MortPlayer / GSPlayer plug-in
This title, as opposed to MilkyPlay, is a plug-in into either MortPlayer or GSPlayer (two high-quality multimedia players for the Pocket PC I’ve often elaborated on; see for example the Midi Playback Bible and the Bluetooth remote control (AVRCP) Bible).
It can play back Impulse Tracker (.it) tracks (and has no problem with the Bejeweled 2 music). It, however, can’t play back some other module types (see the list of the supported types here and compare it to that of MilkyPlay.)
The installation is easy: just follow the quick tutorial on the just-linked homepage and copy the two provided DLL files to the player’s home directory.
CPU usage
Fortunately, these two players don’t consume much CPU cycles; the CPU usage is around 10-11%, which is about the same as with standard MP3 playback (also see the figures here (the “CPU usage: no equalizer / DSP's” row in the chart here)) with the built-in WMP, slightly larger than with TCPMP and considerably larger than with iPlay BUT lower than MortPlayer and considerably lower than with Conduits Pocket Player.
Conversion to WAV / other formats
You may also want to convert your module files to WAV files to, then, reconvert it to MP3/ WMA / OGG / anything to avoid the need to stick to a second media player to play your Module files. Unfortunately, MilkyTracker isn’t able to export WAV files; however, it’s able to read .IT files and it saves all files in the very common .XM format, which is already digestable by MilkyPlay.
Note that the PPC version of MilkyTracker is also able to load .IT files as can also be seen here. Using a full tracker to play back a file is, however, a real overkill. It, however, is also able to do the above-mentioned trick of the desktop version: it’s able to load .IT files and, then, export them as .XM files, which can already be played back with MilkyPlay. A really excellent and useful program, even if you don't plan to actively use it as a tracker, just as a file converter!
If you’re ready to fight with making MS-DOS programs run under XP, convert the file with the original MS-DOS version of Impulse Tracker (also see this on making it work under Windows) to WAV file for further conversion.
Now, let’s move on to explaining where the music files of Bejeweled (2) are to be found.
Ever wondered how you can listen to the in-game music of Bejeweled (2) while not playing?
Many of you may already know Astraware’s Bejeweled and Bejeweled 2, the most famous Pocket PC (and Palm OS) titles of the Color Matching game category.
Both these titles have really excellent in-game music. The music of the first part was entirely composed by well-known Finnish musician Skaven aka Peter Hajba), the composer of the PC FPS megahit Unreal, well-known for its excellent music and sound. The music track (which is over 30 minutes long!) of Bejeweled 2 has been co-authored by him.
If you’d like to listen to these music tracks while not playing the game actively, just do the following:
get the games and install them
go to the home directory of the two titles (\Program Files\Astraware\Bejeweled\ and \Program Files\Astraware\Bejeweled2\ for the two titles when installed to the main storage)
with part I, the three tracked music files are named Bejeweled-music*.s3m, where * is either 1, 2 or 3. They can be played back with both reviewed applications
with part II, the over 30-minute-long music track is bejeweled2-music.it. As has been explained, you’ll need either Zerker’s plug-in to natively play it back or convert it to .XM to be played back in MilkyPlay.
BTW, as some additional information on the two games on both the Pocket PC and Palm OS multimedia-wise, following is a quick comparison of the latest versions:
mirror site for zerker's files
Zerker's webpage seems to be down, can anybody upload the plugins to the xda ftp or post a mirror site for downloading? Thanks
I'll try to find it.
Zerker MOD plugin
Zerker's website is back up. I hope it's okay to post the files here just in case. GSPlayer along with this plugin makes a very nice MOD player. I'm surprised why it has not so had much attention.
Related
In several of my articles (for example, ROUNDUP: Bluetooth remote control (AVRCP) compatible media players), I’ve reviewed several Pocket PC-based audio players. Now, I elaborate on two (with the second, brand) new Pocket PC players, WinVibe and LGC Jukebox.
WinVibe
This free, Korean player is pretty capable – just look at the feature list at the WinVibe homepage (BabelFish translation here).
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It supports Surround/Bassboost/Reverb/Echo effects, playback speed change (see the similar capability of VITO Sound Explorer), Support Showing lyrics when playing music (both ID3 Tag lyrics and LRC / TXT file), button reassignment (unlike LGC Jukebox), HTTP streaming playback (MP3/Ogg Vorbis) and SHOUTcast streaming playback (MP3/Ogg Vorbis). Pretty imporessive!
Unfortunately, it doesn’t support AVRCP (Bluetooth remote control).
Availability, compatibility
It’s available for download here (QVGA) and here (VGA) and, as has already been pointed out, is a free download. I haven’t had any problems on any of my WM2003+ devices. (HTC Wizard, Universal, PL720, WM5-upgraded hx4700, x51v.)
The default skin is Portrait-only; it automatically switches to Portrait when started in landscape.
CPU usage
In the related, recommended AximSite thread, many have complained about the CPU usage. With my standard test 112 kbps MP3 file (Värttinä: Oi dai) and with the default QVGA / VGA skins, I haven’t measured problematic CPU usage at all. It only consumes about 12-13% CPU on my x51v; with maximal reverb, about 14-15. With iPlay, the corresponding figures are 10-12 and 16%, respectively, with Pocket Player, 14-16% (about 1% less with no visualizations) and, finally, with WMP, 11.6-14%.
The case is similar on the overclocked (to 240 MHz) HTC Wizard; on it, the CPU usage is 27% (with reverb/echo at default: 34%; reverb at max: 30%). This is slightly lower than the, by default, 30-31% CPU usage of WMP.
All in all, unless you use custom skins (with visualization), you won’t have CPU usage problems – on the contrary, it’s slightly better than WMP.
Sound effects; their quality
It also supports echo and reverb.
The latter is, unfortunately, REALLY inferior to that of 40 iPlay, the best player in this respect (screenshot of enabling reverb is here). (Note that of iPlay, I could only test the October 2006 version of the player, due to the, to put it mildly, funny “protection” banning out most of the world and also discussed in this AximSite thread. This means I don’t know if the developer has come out a brand new version in the meantime.).
I’ve also compared the reverb / echo effect to the Conduits Pocket Player 3.01 Echo Effect DSP. I’ve found the latter much more unnatural-sounding.
This also means the reverb quality is around that of other reverb-capable Pocket PC media players (for example, Conduits’ Pocket Player).
LGC Jukebox 2.10
The developer of this title, Lonely Cat Games is well established in the Symbian world, unlike on the Pocket PC, where, so far, their only product is the (not-really-recommended) ProfiMail (see the Mailer Bible for more info).
The Pocket PC conversion of their well-known Symbian audio player LGC Jukebox is a brand new release; it’s so new the official homepage of the title doesn’t even show it; it must be downloaded from third-party sites like this. Note that the trial version will only work for 120 minutes.
Compatibility
I haven’t had any problems on any of my WM2003+ devices. (HTC Wizard, Universal, PL720, WM5-upgraded hx4700, x51v).
It’s Landscape-compatible (even left-hand one), unlike WinVibes.
Capabilities
While it supports radio streaming (and has a radio station manager) and offers quick positioning inside a track (as with WinVibe but unlike iPlay – he latter only has buttons for quick forwarding/rewinding), playback-wise, it pretty much lacks: it’s only capable of playing back MP3 and OGG files. No WMA, no Flac, no AAC.
Also, it has absolutely no DSP’s and pretty little visualization; all it offers is equalizer, album art display / download and lyrics display / download (more on this later) support. It doesn’t even let for reassigning hardware buttons (here’s the settings menu), which is a BIG minus – even the most basic players (including WinVibes and, of course, the built-in WMP) allow for this! Needless to say, as with WinVibe, it doesn’t support AVRCP either.
Lyrics support
One of the (not many) strengths of this application is lyrics display and download. Some examples: see this on online searching, this and this on the downloaded lyrics. As can be seen, this is pretty useful at quickly finding lyrics.
It’s also capable of auto scrolling the lyrics; or course, as it’s not Karaoke, it’ll only make guesses on what the current position in the song is. That is, in most cases, auto scroll will be useless.
CPU usage
It’s pretty good: definitely lower than that of WMP and most other players; on the reference x51v: 9.0-9.8%; with an activated equalizer (tested most of them), ~12.5-13.2%. The results were pretty similar on the HTC Wizard (27%, while WMP consumed about ~30-31%).
Verdict
Unfortunately, with WinVibes, you get what you pay for and the situation is even worse with the, in my opinion, pretty basic LGC Jukebox. I’m still waiting for a, battery consumption, AVRCP- and reverb-wise, iPlay-killer title.
UPDATE (02/12/2007): I’ve thoroughly tested the (offline) lyrics, MP3 tag and album art support of the two players.
WinVibe (as of the latest, 4.9.5 version) has turned out
not to support files with .lrc at all (you can, however, (mass-)rename these files to TXT files; then, all will work
to support lyrics .txt files flawlessly
its MP3 lyrics tag support is flawed as can be seen in here – the starting three “Kuin oisin omilla mailla / Oman pellon pientarilla, / Oi” rows are completely missing from the original lyrics. This means it may not display the start of other embedded lyrics either.
Unfortunately, it has absolutely no support for album art or MP3 tags at all.
LGC Jukebox, on the other hand, only supports .LRC files, not embedded lyrics or .TXT files. (The latter, again, can be very easily converted into .LRC files with a simple (mass) file rename.) I should also point out that, while it doesn’t support directory-level album art, it does show embedded thumbnails as can be seen in here. Unfortunately, it doesn’t display MP3 tags at all.
Menneisyys said:
UPDATE (02/12/2007): I’ve thoroughly tested the (offline) lyrics, MP3 tag and album art support of the two players.
WinVibe (as of the latest, 4.9.5 version) has turned out
not to support files with .lrc at all (you can, however, (mass-)rename these files to TXT files; then, all will work
to support lyrics .txt files flawlessly
its MP3 lyrics tag support is flawed as can be seen in here – the starting three “Kuin oisin omilla mailla / Oman pellon pientarilla, / Oi” rows are completely missing from the original lyrics. This means it may not display the start of other embedded lyrics either.
Unfortunately, it has absolutely no support for album art or MP3 tags at all.
LGC Jukebox, on the other hand, only supports .LRC files, not embedded lyrics or .TXT files. (The latter, again, can be very easily converted into .LRC files with a simple (mass) file rename.) I should also point out that, while it doesn’t support directory-level album art, it does show embedded thumbnails as can be seen in here. Unfortunately, it doesn’t display MP3 tags at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hallo,
please can you help me. I use Winvibe, if i click on show lyrics i see text of this song. But this text is not showed during the playing.
What do i do wrong?
File with the text has the same name as song and the end of name of file is .txt. it is in the same directory.
Thank for your answer and best regards
Petr
just try 40iplay...
brewde said:
Hallo,
please can you help me. I use Winvibe, if i click on show lyrics i see text of this song. But this text is not showed during the playing.
What do i do wrong?
File with the text has the same name as song and the end of name of file is .txt. it is in the same directory.
Thank for your answer and best regards
Petr
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
See http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=414279
nothin said:
just try 40iplay...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
...inaccessible for the majority of the world....
Many older computer users know what adventure games the excellent folks Magnetic Scrolls have produced some really good adventure games. (See THIS (if the link doesn’t work, THIS) for more info). If you want to play these really excellent games on your Windows Mobile (WM for short) device, I have some very good news for you: yes, they’re all playable – and not only under CPU-hungry and not-the-best-suited-for-the-Windows-Mobile-UI emulators, but also real interpreters.
You may have already heard of “Magnetic”, THE Magnetic Scrolls games interpreter. It, fortunately, also has a Windows Mobile port.
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(another VGA shot; a QVGA one)
There are three main revisions of Magnetic: 1, 2 and 2.2. Of course, the higher, the better (see the three charts comparing them HERE for more info on the version differences if interested). For WM, fortunately, a port of the latest, 2.2 version is available; as with the desktop Windows. Note that there is another version called for WindowsCE-based Handheld Pro and 2000 devices: chiark’s MagnetiCE; you will NOT want to use it on your WM device because it uses H/PC menus even under Windows Mobile.
Installing the interpreter
Download it from here (linked from this IF-Archive page) (alternative, direct download here). Unzip MagneticWinCE.exe and transfer it anywhere on your handheld.
Note that the interpreter is only compatible with WM2003SE and newer operating systems. It doesn't seem to run under WM2003 (tested on my iPAQ 2210), let alone PPC2k2. I had no problems running it on my (several) WM2003SE+ devices; worked flawlessly even under WM6. It makes use of built-in keyboards and landscape modes without problems. It also supports command history (up/down cursor keys), which is very useful particularly if you want to, say, repeat “wait” many times.
Getting and installing the games
Fortunately, all compatible games are available online and you don’t need to do any conversion. Go HERE and go to the bottom, to the bottom-most Game Files chart. Download the “Story files” of all the games you’d like to enjoy. Unzip it to anywhere on your storage card. Make sure you only put it in a direct descendant (subdirectory) of the root of the card and not the second, third etc. one; this, unfortunately, also applies to the \My Documents directory on your card) or in the main storage, under a directory in \My Documents.
If you don't like this restriction because of the standard file selection dialog, you can fix the problem by getting Mad Programmer’s File Dialog Changer , the current WM5/WM6-compliant version of which is 1.66. Get it HERE. You'll also need GSGetfile.
I’ve often elaborated on the installation / usage of this really useful utility (see for example THIS). Just a quick recap (with WM6 screenshots): after transferring ARM\filedlgchg.cpl from filedlgchg.zip and ARMRel\gsgetfile.dll from gsgetfile-i.zip to \Windows on your mobile device, go to the new Settings / System / File Dialog Changer applet and just check in “Exchange Standard File Dialog”. This will make it possible to peek in anywhere in the file system as can be seen in here.
In addition to the (text-only) story, you may also want to download the image repository (see the “Graphics file” column for all the games you’d like to run). Title graphics and title music files are also downloadable (if present); you will need to separately watch / listen to them from a multimedia player and an image viewer. Hint files, on the other hand, are also handled by the interpreter engine; therefore, you will want to download them too if you do need hints.
Then, just start MagneticWinCE.exe, select File / Open and select the game to play.
The menu of the interpreter is pretty straightforward; in addition to the standard Open / Exit functionality, in Edit / Verb, you can select five predefined verbs to speed up input words. In Display, you can set the size of the images displayed (and whether they’re displayed at all).
The Palm OS Kronos emulator
If you have a Palm OS device, you may have heard of Kronos, an emulator for Magnetic Scrolls, Infocom-style ZMachine, and Scott Adams style adventure games. It’s very advanced: as opposed to the original Windows (and Windows Mobile) version, it supports automaps and popwords.
Unfortunately, it (as of the latest, 1.4.7 version) crashes the current version (1.0.025) of StyleTap, the Palm OS emulator for WM, in the 66% screen mode and, as can be seen in here, in 100% mode, on VGA devices, it uses a low-resolution display. However, if you can live with this (because don’t want to enjoy the images), running Kronos under StyleTap may be a good alternative.
Note that as far as QVGA (low-resolution) Windows Mobile devices are concerned, images are almost invisible on them; example screenshots here and here. However, if you don’t need images at all or can play in 66% mode on QVGA devices, the images are, then, correctly displayed (1 2).
Note that Kronos offers autoload/save features. This is missing from the WM version. The latter, however, supports saving and loading the game state (via the save/load commands) any time.
TUTORIAL: Playing the latest DoomGLES version with full Doom / Doom2 maps &other tips
After publishing my tutorial on the, then-current version 0.04 of Kokak’s excellent Pocket PC port of Doom offering 2700G (3D acceleration) support, DoomGLES/PPC, a lot has happened. The 0.5 series of DoomGLES offers a lot of goodies you MUST check out if and only if you have a Dell Axim x50v or x51v equipped with an Intel 2700G 3D accelerator by default. (Unfortunately, the brand new O2 XDA Flame, the, currently, only other Pocket PC to sport a 3D accelerator, doesn't run DoomGLES.)
Note that the changes & new features are NO longer implemented in the version meant to play the shareware version of Doom I. This means the latter can’t play back music and doesn’t offer for example Portrait screen orientation support.
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(Doom 2 main screen in Portrait mode on my Dell Axim x51v)
Unfortunately, unlike with the shareware version (which comes with a pre-converted WAD file), you must manually convert your WAD files to both get a playable version and also to extract music. As this question generally causes a LOT of headache to Pocket PC users (some PocketGamer.org forum members even use the line “trying to convert wads for DoomGL” as their “favorite game”), I’ve decided to devote a full tutorial to the question. In the following two sections, I elaborate on this.
The first step is essential – without this, you won’t be able to make anything run. The second is optional and will only be needed if you would also like to listen to the original music while playing.
Converting WAD files
To convert the WAD files of your games, extract the main DoomGL ES file (with the current, 0.56 version, it’s DoomGLESB056.zip) and go to the Converter subdirectory of it. Copy doom.wad (and/or doom2.wad) in the same directory and start either DoomConvert.bat or Doom2Convert.bat, depending on whether you want to convert Doom I or Doom II. After some dozens of minutes (on my 3.2 GHz P4, it took almost an hour to convert Doom I and almost 1.5 hours to convert Doom II) of converting (during which the converter application will open a LOT of DOS batch windows), a newly created, OpenGLES directory will contain the converted data. You will need to copy the contents of this directory to your Pocket PC.
Converting music
To convert music, stay in the Converter subdirectory. Assuming you still have doom.wad (and/or doom2.wad) in there, you will only need to decompress the contents of timidity.zip in the same (!) directory. That is, there will be several new files in the Converter subdirectory and also a new timidity subdirectory.
After this, just issue the
DGLESConvert -iwad doom.wad -convertmusic
(where just change doom.wad to doom2.wad with Doom II) command to convert the midi files inside the WAD file to WAV files. The new music files will be created in a brand new Music directory; with subdirectories separating the two Doom versions. You will need to copy this Music subdirectory to your Windows Mobile device.
Fortunately, music conversion is MUCH faster than WAD conversion (see the previous section).
Making everything ready
After you’ve converted the WAD files and, possibly, extracted the music, you will need to copy the following files to your Windows Mobile device (either a storage card or the internal storage, if the latter is large enough; you can use any directory name):
the PPC subdirectory of DoomGLESB056.zip containing the executable and the config file (DoomGLES.exe and doomgles.cfg) and the subdirectory OpenGLES with only one file, haze.pvr, in it. You do NOT need to copy the Converter subdirectory on your Windows Mobile device – it’s only meant for desktop-side WAD conversion. Also note that, unlike with ALL the other directories (OpenGLES and Music), you don’t need to preserve the PPC directory name either.
the converted WAD files – that is, the contents of the automatically-created OpenGLES directory. During this, you will also overwrite haze.pvr, which is also auto-generated during the conversion.
the converted music files, if any – that is, the contents of the automatically-created Music directory.
the contents of the OpenGLES_Datas.zip file, which must be separately downloaded. As with Bullet 2, you must put its content in the OpenGLES directory.
copy doom.wad (or doom2.wad) in the same directory where DoomGLES.exe resides – that is, the main directory.
All in all, you MUST have the following directory structure in your home (main) directory containing DoomGLES.exe and doomgles.cfg:
OpenGLES/doom (or doom2) containing both the converted files AND the files from OpenGLES_Datas.zip. (The latter are in sky* directories)
OpenGLES/MD2, entirely coming from OpenGLES_Datas.zip
Music/doom (or doom2), entirely coming from your Timidity conversion
In the home directory DoomGLES.exe, doomgles.cfg (coming from DoomGLESB056.zip) and doom.wad (or doom2.wad) (manually copied there).
After this, you can start the game by executing DoomGLES.exe.
Switching between Doom I and II
It’s pretty easy to switch between the two games – just make sure only one of the two WAD’s (doom.wad or doom2.wad) is in the home directory of DoomGLES before starting the game. You can just rename / move the other WAD file to somewhere else so that the other WAD file is activated. Note that you don’t need to touch the contents of the OpenGLES\doom or OpenGLES\doom2 subdirectories – it’s only the single WAD files that you need to (re)move / rename.
That is, if you (after, of course, converting the WAD and making sure you also copy the contents of OpenGLES\doom2 to your storage card) just leave doom2.wad in there, then, Doom2 will be played.
Switching between the portrait and the landscape mode
Kokak has also implemented a comparatively easy screen orientation change method, which is a godsend to everybody suffering from the polarization issues of the x50v/x51v screens.
By default, the game is started in Landscape mode. Should you want to override this, just edit doomgles.cfg after at least once running the game on your handheld (this key/value pair isn’t in there by default) and change
Orientation 1
to
Orientation 0
After the following restart, the game will start in Portrait.
Don’t mix up the shareware and the commercial versions!
They’re entirely different and shouldn’t be mixed up. Fortunately, Kokak’s homepage separates them pretty well – the three commercial files are listed under DoomGLES V0.56 (beta) and the four files of the shareware version are listed under DoomGLES V0.04 (shareware version - last alpha) in the Downloads section. Naturally, if you want to play the version meant for the commercial version of Doom I / II, you won’t need to bother with the latter four files – just download the first three (or two – without the Timidity converter – if you don’t need in-game music) under DoomGLES V0.56 (beta).
Other news / tips for another, free, 2700G-enabled FPS game, Quake 3
Anyone having read my article “Great games for Dell x50v/x51v” knows Quake 3 doesn’t run on Dell Axim x51v devices using official ROM versions. BEEF34T3R’s post HERE explains how you can provide sufficient memory for Quake 3 on the Dell Axim x51v by decreasing the pagepool and reflashing the x51v. (A related thread is HERE.)
Ever wanted to play your RMVB videos without converting them? Now, you’re taken a little bit closer to the solution – a RVMB plug-in has just been released for Windows Media Player Mobile, which makes it possible to play RMVB videos on Windows Mobile devices.
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"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
No, don’t think everything is OK now. The plug-in, while it’s indeed compatible with RMVB videos, won’t play back the currently available, high(er)-res videos without severe slowdowns. As it’s only “old” RM videos that are, generally, encoded at low (say, QVGA at max) resolutions and RMVB files are, generally, encoded with the width of at least 576 pixels, you will encounter very choppy (2…5 fps even on the fastest devices) playback. Therefore, you might want to forget playing back this format entirely and transcode them into either MPEG-4 Part 2 (DivX / XviD) or, if your handset is powerful enough, MPEG-4 Part 10 (H.264 / AVC) for seamless playback in either TCPMP or CorePlayer. Please see THIS for more info on these target formats and THIS for more info on RMVB-compliant transcoder tools.
Furthermore, it only runs on devices using the Intel Xscale PXA-27x CPU’s. This itself rules out most of current models based on other CPU’s like the TI OMAP (I’ve tested the plug-in on my HTC Wizard; it exits at once upon activation), Qualcomm 7200 (HTC Kaiser, Touch Dual etc.) or Samsung (Trinity etc.). That is, you can only run it on some scarce or somewhat outdated models like the HTC Athena (x7500), the HTC Universal, the Dell Axim x50/x51 series, the previous-generation HP iPAQ’s etc.
Note that it isn’t even compatible with the previous, PXA generations (25x, 26x). I’ve tested the plug-in on my PXA-255-based HP iPAQ 2210; after activation, it started to endlessly buffer. I, however, don’t know how it behaves on the latest-and-greatest, Marvel PXA-3x0 Xscale generation.
Should you still want to watch them on your handset but would still like to stay compatible with the earlier .RM videos and sound files, you’ll want to (re)install the official Windows Mobile RealAudio player (available for download HERE as a convenient – you won’t encounter install problems – CAB file) after installing this title. This is because the plug-in also associates itself with these file extensions. There isn’t much point in its doing so because it’s not able to play back any non-RMVB file. If you don’t want to reinstall, you can just restore the .RM and .RAM file extension associations by importing THIS Registry import file I’ve created for your convenience.
Nevertheless, should you still want to give it a try, it’s available HERE for download.
I’ve tested the plug-in with several publicly available test movies and sound files, all available in the official Mplayer test sample archive. In the following compatibility chart, I list my compatibility test results with the plug-in run on two (!) devices (the Dell Axim x51v running the official A12 WM5 AKU2.3 ROM and the HTC Universal running WM6). In addition, I’ve also tested the original RealOne player running on the x51v, the RealOne player coming with the Nokia N95 and, finally, RealAlternative running on desktop Windows. As it has turned out, the latter is pretty much compatible with everything I’ve thrown it at – this means you will want to stick to it, should you want to avoid installing RealOne’s bloatware on your desktop Windows computer.
(If you want to follow the clickable links, see THIS).
i need help
when play rmvb
the windows media player auto close,
my xda's os is wm6
i need help too
i download the rmvb file in my phone that i bt download from internet, after it load 70% buffer in memory, it auto closed out, is anything i did wrong? i just install the Q8_real.cab only
The Spb folks have just released their online portal, Spb Online. Three other reviews have already been published (some hours ago) on it. Therefore, I've paid special attention to elaborating on issues not discussed in the other reviews, particularly when it comes to comparing Spb Online to the competing alternatives – after all, I've published several articles on several areas Spb Online implemented: radio and TV streaming, podcasting and multiplayer games.
That is, first, read the linked reviews (links below); then, you can safely read on to see what additional, comparative (!!) information I have for you. You will NOT want to read further without reading the other review first as I have only concentrated on the areas they didn't discuss (for example, multiplayer games, streaming compatibility, CPU usage, adding non-implemented functionality via Registry hacking etc.)
Let's start with the multiplayer games.
Multiplayer games
Spb Online (SO for short) uses a central server-based approach, which means you must have a constant Internet connection to play opponents. You aren't allowed to select your opponent; that is, you will be assigned an opponent (or, if there aren't any, just the CPU) in a completely random fashion as soon as you start the game. Unfortunately, there aren't other goodies like in-game messaging / chatting either.
An in-game screenshot of checkers played against a human opponent and showing his data:
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
In the game options, in addition to the sound volume, you can set your level (what opponents the game should look for upon startin a new game):
In addition to the (few) built-in board games, SO also offers the possibility to purchase applications and games from their online store, right from the program, without ever having to fire up a Web browser.
The built-in support for directly browsing and purchasing software is very nice and easy-to-use. However, currently, it only offers very few titles. For example, as far as games are concerned, it only offers - in addition to Spb's games – titles by Concerte Software, SimbSoft and, in general, the not very good OmniG Software:
Fortunately, it also allows for over-the-air downloads of trial versions whenever available. See the Download Trial link in the following screenshot:
Unfortunately, there's no way of changing the download / saving path from inside the app; this may cause problems if you, by mistake, provide it with a volume not even having 4-5 Mbyte free space:
Fortunately, this can be fixed by simply deleting HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Spb Software House\Spb Online Shell\DownloadFolder in the Registry and restarting the app (this hack has been found out by me). Then, you'll be asked again for the target path:
It, of course, has a built-in dialog for entering credit card info; that is, you in no way need to depend on an external Web browser:
Unfortunately, there's no PayPal support at all.
Note that the non-gaming part of the online shop contains some other third-party apps; for example, those of Conduits in the Multimedia category:
and that of SBSH in the Business category:
News (RSS) Reader
This module is almost the same as Spb Insight, Spb's RSS reader. It's a solid reader but in no way as powerful as, say, Newsbreak. For example, it has absolutely no podcatching capabilities (see THIS for more info).
TV
The TV module has the best features when it comes to picture-in-picture, TV guide and quick preview. However, the lack of the ability of adding new TV channels certainly decrease the usability of this module. Sure, I know accessing the guide needed to be "wired in" to SO; however, the Spb folks may want to either provide an API (via, say, XML or plain text config files) to be able to configure the program to add new streams.
You can disable any of the (few) wired-in TV stations:
Remember that you can still watch other TV streams – in other apps like CorePlayer or the built-in WMP. Please see my dedicated articles on this.
As a quick summary, the pros of the TV module:
Moderate CPU usage (in no way worse than the alternatives). For example, I've very thoroughly benchmarked the WMV-based Sky News mms://live1.wm.skynews.servecast.net/skynews_wmlz_live300k stream. I got the following results: Spb Online: ~36% (vertically stretched to full screen); WMP: ~40%; CP: ~41% (both 320*180). That is, the results are excellent.
PIP (excellent!)
Quick preview (excellent!)
Advanced TV guide functionality (excellent!)
And the cons:
There's absolutely no way of adding new channel URL's. This is quite big a problem as there are very few streams in the app. Just look at the sheer number of available channels at WWITV - about half of them are WMV and, therefore, can be directly streamed on Windows Mobile, using the built-in WMP! Hope this bug will be fixed in the next version. Adding URL's will only work with the Radio program.
Radio
It also has support for radio streaming, using the same finger-friendly interface. Unlike with the TV module, this support adding URL's:
Stream compliance-wise, it's not compatible with SHOUTcast HE-AACv2 and MP3 streams (THIS, THIS) (aac+) and THIS (MP3): the player either stalls at Opening or displays Invalid header information. That is, it's only compatible with WMA streams like THIS - you won't be able to listen to for example SHOUTcast stations at all. (Links HERE and HERE for more info & links)
The built-in station directory is pretty nice and has about the same number of well-structured stations as the competing, (in this regard) comparable products; most importantly, Resco Pocket Radio and LCG Jukebox (see THIS for more info; as you can see, the third product in this category, Mundu Radio, as far fewer pre-defined stations).
The recently-released Kinoma Play, the (current, at least before the release of CorePlayer 1.3 with the new channel support) king of connected streaming players is, of course, much better. Kinoma's built-in station list just can't be compared to that of SO: in addition to WMA stations, Kinoma also lists SHOUTcast stations, covering both MP3 and AAC+ (but, being not compatible with the format, not OGG) – and, of course, a LOT of TV stations. Opposed to this, SO only lists WMA radio stations (it being completely unable to stream SHOUTcast stations) and the pre-defined, very few TV streams. Add the non-existing compatibility with the widely used SHOUTcast formats: you'll still want to keep other radio streamer clients (Kinoma Play, GSPlayer etc.) on your handset if you're a radio fan – there will be a lot of stations you won't be able to listen to using SO.
Other stuff
There's also a weather and a ringtone purchasing module in SO.
Verdict
I agree with the other reviews: this title is a bit expensive if you already have an RSS reader, a weather or a radio app. Otherwise, you may want to give it a try, particularly if you love playing multiplayer games or want to use the advanced capabilities of the TV module.
Other reviews
Spb Online Review - Verdict: Too Expensive for What You Get (pocketnow; very terse)
Software Review: SPB Online (mobiletechaddicts)
Review: SPB Online (wmexperts)
I have to say, I've been waiting for them to release this publicly so I could try it. But, I was very dissapointed in it personally. The TV part of the app looked like a great MobiTV replacement, until I saw the channel lineup.
I guess it's not half bad, considering it has the same great UI as Mobile Shell, but I think it's a bit too much packed in to one app, considering I've already purchased Insight.
If the Catalog & Themes features weren't included, I'd consider the purchase.