Related
Anyone into watching YouTube videos knows it has always been pretty problematic to play YouTube videos on Windows Mobile. This has also been explained in my related article Playing Flash Video (FLV) files on the Pocket PC - is it possible?.
The built-in PIE / IEM, because of the very bad JavaScript support, has always been unable to play them back and it was only lately that Opera Mobile (as of the first beta of 8.65) and NetFront (as of TP 3.4 007 released early June, 2007) received YouTube support.
These solutions are really sub-par, particularly that of NetFront, which has a comparatively slow Flash plug-in.
This means, so far, the best way to watch YouTube videos was relying on external, Web-based convertor services listed in my earlier all-in-one article on playing back YouTube videos. These convertor services, unfortunately, need a lot of additional work and, in general, result in files that are (much) larger and/or of (much) lower quality than the original YouTube videos.
TCPMP Plugin for Flash Video on PPC for the rescue! It provides a VERY fast (MUCH faster than even Opera Mobile’s playback, let alone the far inferior YouTube support in the latest NetFront beta) and, what is more, conversion-less (meaning no additional bandwidth / quality loss because of the conversion) solution. What is more, it’s FREE, as is TCPMP itself, and runs on both Pocket PC’s and, with some restrictions, touch screen-less Smartphones.
In the following, I explain how it should be used.
1. download the latest (currently: 0.3) version from HERE and, of course, TCPMP (either the PPC (tcpmp.pocketpc.0.72RC1.cab) or the Smartphone (tcpmp.smartphone.0.72RC1.cab) version).
Extract all the files from the tcpmpflvplugin ZIP file, (currently) tcpmpflvplugin-v0.3.zip, player and, after installing TCPMP, copy the two .plg files in the home of TCPMP (\Storage Card\Program Files\TCPMP when installed on the only storage card under WM5+ etc.).
Copy YouTubeDownload.exe anywhere on your handheld; for example, \Windows\Start Menu\Programs (it’s very small so you can even store it in the main storage)
2. in order to see a video, fire up a Web browser and go to YouTube. When you are on a page you’d like to see the video of, in the address bar, highlight the last part of the URL (the one after the ?v=) as can be seen in HERE. Copy this to the clipboard by tap-and-holding the selection and selecting Copy in the menu:
{
"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"
}
Here, I’ve copied the ‘x4arSJCWwpk’ parameter of the URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4arSJCWwpk .
3. Now, fire up YouTubeDownload.exe, (after selecting the right target directory) tap-and-hold the “Video ID:” field and select Paste in the drop-down context menu. Now, click Start. The video will be downloaded to the target directory:
Note that the downloader utility is incompatible with the MS Smartphone (WM6 Standard) operating system. First, it doesn’t support focus transfer with D-pad / the Tab key (it’s been written for WM2003) – it’s only with a cursor emulator like SPHelper hat you can traverse the focus as can be seen HERE. However, it won’t be of help as the app won’t be able to connect to YouTube as can be seen in HERE (tested this on my HTC Vox / s710 several times). I really hope the author of YouTubeDownload.exe will soon fix this problem so that Smartphone users can also download any YouTube clips. Until then, you’ll need to rely on files downloaded in other ways.
Also note that version 0.2 is the only version to offer a desktop-based (x86) downloader tool (as opposed to what the developer states). It, however, wasn’t able to download anything on my desktop when I’ve tried. That is, you’ll need to download directly onto your Pocket PC.
4. Then, fire up TCPMP and select the given file (File / Open File):
Now, it’ll be played back:
(same on the MS Smartphone operating system)
It’s very important that you can NOT invoke directly video playback from any Windows Mobile Web browsers – you will ALWAYS need to manually download the videos, manually switch to TCPMP and manually load it for playback.
It’s also worth knowing that the plug-in does NOT work with CorePlayer, the commercial descendant of TCPMP.
Related talk
Note that these threads are FULL of misinformation. It’s worth checking them out but don’t necessarily believe what you read in there.
MoDaCo
PPCT
XDA-Dev
HELP
My TCPMP player will not play the downloaded file when i go to open it ,it does not have the tcpmp symbol on the paper what do i do . If does not see flv files, what do i do ?
very nice.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=309428
and have you noticed that youtube player2.swf has changed and all the software we used to download clips refuse to work now?
ben2684 said:
My TCPMP player will not play the downloaded file when i go to open it ,it does not have the tcpmp symbol on the paper what do i do . If does not see flv files, what do i do ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
did you install the two plg files,a dn did you restart TCPMP?
i get failed to contact errors sometimes and sometimes it works....actually rarely it works. any suggestions. all other connections work push, rss, xm, sirius, etc.
donsaxena said:
i get failed to contact errors sometimes and sometimes it works....actually rarely it works. any suggestions. all other connections work push, rss, xm, sirius, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you need to live with that
working nicely for me!!!
thanks for the great tool!
What is your average download time. I am downloading a 10795KB video and it's taking over ten minutes.
pthomson said:
What is your average download time. I am downloading a 10795KB video and it's taking over ten minutes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With me, it's much faster (over a 100 Mbps connection - haven't tested it over phone connections).
donsaxena said:
i get failed to contact errors sometimes and sometimes it works....actually rarely it works. any suggestions. all other connections work push, rss, xm, sirius, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah you need to get off the 3.5 and get elf's rom no problems on my end good work on the thread menneisyys
I don't know about you guys, but included tool for downloading clips from youtube (desktop one) refused to work recently giving me error (invalid returned link). The ppc one works fine. i assume that since a week or so youtube page has been changed. i took a look at how does youtube work and after a while i put together a simple tool for downloading clips myself (desktop windows). i tried it since yesterday and i think it works fine. if any of you wants to share comment on it, please do so...
all you need to do is copy the link to youtube video page in question and paste it into the first edit box in my app
(http://youtube.com/watch?v=EBr0dsfLYcU) for example
then after you press start, it downloads a page, then after the while it finds a direct link to a flv file and starts to download it into a dir from which it was run. you can also copy the link for different use (i don't know, maybye someone needs it)
i hope someone will find it usefull.
nateshuntsvegas said:
yeah you need to get off the 3.5 and get elf's rom no problems on my end good work on the thread menneisyys
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah its not a problem in the rom i put elf on my friends good and stable but after benchmark 3.5 wins.
banannq said:
I don't know about you guys, but included tool for downloading clips from youtube (desktop one) refused to work recently giving me error (invalid returned link). The ppc one works fine. i assume that since a week or so youtube page has been changed. i took a look at how does youtube work and after a while i put together a simple tool for downloading clips myself (desktop windows). i tried it since yesterday and i think it works fine. if any of you wants to share comment on it, please do so...
all you need to do is copy the link to youtube video page in question and paste it into the first edit box in my app
(http://youtube.com/watch?v=EBr0dsfLYcU) for example
then after you press start, it downloads a page, then after the while it finds a direct link to a flv file and starts to download it into a dir from which it was run. you can also copy the link for different use (i don't know, maybye someone needs it)
i hope someone will find it usefull.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great! I'll post an update to my article, linking in your post!
i can hear the audio from the FLV file but i don't get video?
I copied the
flvsplitter.plg
flvffmpeg.plg
to the windows directory where all the other .plg are
What else do i need?
help!
@Menneisyys: great, i love to hear this.
@ekhanh101:
if you've read the first post in this post, at least, you would notice this part:
1. download the latest (currently: 0.3) version from HERE and, of course, TCPMP (either the PPC (tcpmp.pocketpc.0.72RC1.cab) or the Smartphone (tcpmp.smartphone.0.72RC1.cab) version).
Extract all the files from the tcpmpflvplugin ZIP file, (currently) tcpmpflvplugin-v0.3.zip, player and, after installing TCPMP,
===========================================
||<b>copy the two .plg files in the home of TCPMP</b>||
===========================================
(\Storage Card\Program Files\TCPMP when installed on the only storage card under WM5+ etc.).
the "home" of the player is part of the cooked rom.
so the player is in wondows.
putting the .plg in the windows dir make it work for the audio at least,
if i took out the .plgs then it doesn't play at all.
ALL the other .plg files are located in the \windows directory also.
i don't have a TCPMP directory. i tried making one just incase but that doesn't work.
Like i said, you can hear the audio. just no video.
also, here's another way to download flvs from youtube:
http://downthisvideo.com/?url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqTaqVi9J8k
just put the full url after the ?
still haven't figure out how to get the video to show up yet on TCPMP... i have 0.72RC1 it plays AVIs and the audio from the FLV is perfect... sigh...
ekhanh101 said:
also, here's another way to download flvs from youtube:
http://downthisvideo.com/?url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqTaqVi9J8k
just put the full url after the ?
still haven't figure out how to get the video to show up yet on TCPMP... i have 0.72RC1 it plays AVIs and the audio from the FLV is perfect... sigh...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i am sorry then, i should have thought u ment something like this, i just didn't. have no idea, maybe your tcpmp is in wrong version? no clue from me....
about youtube downloaders - there's plenty of this kind of sites online, its enough to google for it (http://www.google.pl/search?source=ig&hl=pl&q=youtube+download&btnG=Szukaj+w+Google&lr=)
there are also at least few firefox plugins (https://addons.mozilla.org/pl/firefox/search?q=youtube+download&status=4)
the problem is i don't like to use another site to do it, and i don't like any of these working plugins (the only one i liked refused to work recently)
thats why i preffered this small utility from tcpmp plugin, and since it doesn't work for me anymore neither, i decided to code my own ;]
smartphone version ?
The 2 FLV plugins (from the latest release 0.3) will not install on TCPMP 0.72 smartphone version.
Could someone confirm if the plugin works for TCPMP 0.72 smartphone and if so, which version of the plugin did you use ?
oops, forgot to mention...WM2003 (SPV C550).
If WM2003 is not supported, why not and will it be soon ?
As has also been announced in my (latest) guide to playing back (non-Mobile) YouTube videos published some weeks ago, the YouTube folks have been working on a really mobile, non-flash-based version of their services and, as promised, have indeed come up with it some days ago. Even when it only contains very few clips (in general, only the most popular ones – for example, none of the not-that-popular but old clips I’ve searched for existed in there as of today), it’s been continuously expanded, which means it might become a real repository of all “real”, Flash-based videos.
As there is a lot of plain wrong or contradicting information and a LOT of hacks out there, all just confusing Windows Mobile users, I’ve decided to publish the one and only REAL guide to this question.
The new Mobile YouTube homepage is accessible at http://m.youtube.com/ from any Web browser, desktop or mobile alike. However, in order for the playback to work, you must use a browser accessible of passing control to external applications (in this case, the HTC Streaming Media player) because, when a Watch Video link is clicked (like the one in THIS screenshot), an external application, “Streaming Media”, will be invoked. This means you won’t be able to use, for example, the otherwise excellent and highly recommended Opera Mini. (Unfortunately, this also applies to the latest version, 4.0 beta.) This restriction, on the other hand, does NOT apply to the best Windows Mobile browser on both (Pocket PC and Smartphone) platforms, Opera Mobile. That is, you aren’t forced to use the built-in, in most respects inferior Internet Explorer Mobile.
First, some bad news (in addition to the fact that, currently, the mobile version of YouTube only has few converted videos).
You’ll need the HTC Streaming Media player, which only comes with WM6 Pocket PC Professional) devices, but NOT Smartphones – that is, WM Standard devices. On the latter phones, clicking Mobile YouTube links result in Windows Media Player’s being invoked – but in vain, because, after trying to connect, it displays an error (screenshot HERE and HERE).
Fortunately, this problem can be VERY easily fixed on both WM5 Pocket PC’s and Smartphones and WM6 Smartphones.
Streaming Media is a full application, which also means it has its own icon and is directly runnable. However, you will want to prefer starting it from your Windows Mobile Web browsers by simply clicking streaming links like those of Mobile YouTube.
You will need DIRECT Internet connection, as was the case with the well-known RealOne Player for Pocket PC. If you’ve ever tried to make the latter to play back streams (or, you’ve read my related article “How Can I Listen to/Watch RealOne Streamed Content (RealAudio/RealVideo) on my Pocket PC?”), you know well enough you can only do this if you have a direct connection to the Internet: that is, in most cases, over mobile phone-based (GPRS / EDGE / UMTS / HSDPA etc.) connections. Should you have a non-direct connection, you will see the “Failed to find network.” error message upon trying to play back streams (screenshot HERE). Unfortunately, most Wi-Fi connections (unless they put you in a DMZ (demilitarized zone), which is pretty rare) are unlikely to work and ActiveSync connections will NEVER work.
A quick note: I’ve thoroughly tested the latter by configuring Windows XP’s Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) to forward UDP ports 1024...1044 as can be seen in HERE (20 ports were the smallest amount the client allows for as can also be seen in HERE; note that, when tested, I’ve ticked in all these checkboxes) and HERE. In vain: it just didn’t work.
If you DO have direct internet connections or would still want to give the client a try, do the following.
If you don’t have Streaming Media on your Windows Mobile handheld (because it’s WM5 only or a WM6 Smartphone and not a Pocket PC), get and install THIS file. Note that if it doesn’t exist, you can get it from HERE (make sure you unRAR the latter to get the CAB file). Also note that you can safely install the CAB file to a storage card.
Don’t listen to people that tell you to use other files – with them, you may end up having to, for example, import Registry scripts to create the necessary file / type associations so that Streaming Media can be invoked.
If you do have Streaming Media (or, have just installed it), just navigate to http://m.youtube.com/ and enjoy the videos.
Some example screenshots of showing all this in action (all taken by me on my QVGA and VGA WM5/ WM6 Pocket PC Phone Edition models and a WM5 176*220 HTC s310 (Oxygen) and a WM6 QVGA HTC s710 (Vox) Smartphones):
{
"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"
}
(WM6 VGA Pocket PC, officially shipped with Streaming Media, over GPRS – as can be seen, GPRS is just too slow to produce a decent image)
Now, three screenshots of models with the additionally installed Streaming Media:
(WM5 QVGA Pocket PC over EDGE – decent playback)
(WM5 176*220 Smartphone over EDGE – decent playback)
(WM6 QVGA Smartphone over EDGE – decent playback)
Cool, eh? Nice to know even low-end Smartphones are able to play back these kinds of stuff, isn’t it?
Note that, in order to install the player on application locked MS Smartphones, you will need to unlock them. See my other, related articles on doing this – for example, THIS.
What should you do if you get the "Failed to find network." error message?
Unfortunately, not much, but this also depends on your particular network settings.
If you're on a Wi-Fi network and you do have administrator rights to reconfigure the router(s), you can configure them to allow your mobile device to be in the DMZ - or, at least, configure UDP port forwarding (note that the latter didn't work in my tests as has also been mentioned above - this means DMZ may be the ONLY solution). Otherwise, if you use public Wi-Fi networks, you can't do anything.
If you're using a wireless (for example GSM) network, which doesn't support direct access, you can't do anything either. Your only choice is switching to another mobile phone network, which does. (About half of them do.)
Finally, don't forget that, even if you can't play Mobile YouTube videos, nothing is lost, except for the advantages of the 3GP streaming compared to the alternative methods:
Direct Flash video playback (with Opera Mobile) takes a LOT of CPU time and may have stuttering playback even on the fastest, 624 MHz Windows Mobile devices, let alone slower ones
Indirect video playback has an additional step requiring manual work including, at least, copying and pasting the URL of the given video clip. If they also employ transcoding (all solutions EXCEPT for the TCPMP-based playback, but the latter can't be used on MS Smartphones), the resulting video will be, in general, of lower quality and higher size than the original Flash video, which you don't necessarily want.
That is, you can still play regular YouTube videos. Either, as has just been explained, directly (with Opera Mobile 8.65- forget all the other browsers, particularly the latest, Flash-enabled, Technical Preview released in June of Netfront 3.4 - see my review of the browser for the why's), half-directly via (direct download, unfortunately, only works on PPC's and not Smartphones) or indirectly, using an online conversion service. I've elaborated on all these three alternatives in my past articles - make sure you check them out, should you need to rely on the "traditional" way of playback.
Additional info (you will NOT need to read them; the above tutorial should suffice. I only give you these URL’s so that you can see how much easier my tutorial is than trying to find out what to do when following community threads with millions of contradicting and/or misleading and/or outdated posts and hacks):
Probably the best, related XDA-Dev thread
youtube mobile problem
A PPCT thread on the problem
So here's where I am. I've got the HTC Streaming Media thing it launches when I click watch video. Im on T-Mobile USA over my edge connection and it says failed to find network, then closes. Any ideas? my rom is xda mobile 6
jaychym said:
So here's where I am. I've got the HTC Streaming Media thing it launches when I click watch video. Im on T-Mobile USA over my edge connection and it says failed to find network, then closes. Any ideas? my rom is xda mobile 6
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This means you don't have a direct IP. Nothing can be done - you'll need to use the alternate methods of playback.
I stream YouTube with Wifi all the time... not sure if you are saying it doesnt work with Wifi.. cuz it does.
Madcap180 said:
I stream YouTube with Wifi all the time... not sure if you are saying it doesnt work with Wifi.. cuz it does.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your particular Wii-Fi networks put your devide into a demilitarized zone and/or do UDP port forwarding; this is why it works. In usual Wi-Fi networks not using any of these tricks, it doesn't necessarily work.
Menneisyys said:
Your particular Wii-Fi networks put your devide into a demilitarized zone and/or do UDP port forwarding; this is why it works. In usual Wi-Fi networks not using any of these tricks, it doesn't necessarily work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My wifi works just fine as the above poster, im wondering is the device using uPnP since this is supported on the three wifi access points i have tested??
ahhh.. I see... Soon enough I will stop being cheap and actually utilize the 3g capability of my Hermes.. lol
Does anybody know, if it works with O2 Germany? Does O2 Germany give a direvt IP to the Phone (HTC P3600)? I have always Network connecting error.
PS.: Direct streams via mms:// an with WMP works!
didn't work with my blackjack wm5 cell
Tried this and all I got was it can't run the program, can't find the exe file.. so I don't think it works with my cellphone.
Just installed the StreamingPlayer to my PPC-6700. Upon executing the program, I get the error...
"The file 'StreamingPlayer' cannot be opened. Either it is not signed with a trusted certificate, or one of its components cannot be found. You might need to reinstall or restore this file"
Tried reinstalling it a few times, and even changing from 'device' to 'storage card' and get the same results.. any suggestions?
Not working on 8525 with WM5
I downloaded and installed the HTC Streaming Media Player (RvBCrS_HTC_Streaming_Media.cab) just fine on my 8525 with WM5. But when I tried to watch a video from m.youtube.com it connects and buffers until it gets to about 97% then hangs a bit then goes back to the previous screen. I haven't seen anyone else with this problem. I've tried removing and reinstalling the Streaming Media Player and installing it to main memory and the storage card but am stuck here no matter what. Any ideas?
mdifilm said:
Tried this and all I got was it can't run the program, can't find the exe file.. so I don't think it works with my cellphone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What phone model do you have? Is it a Windows Mobile one?
leevick said:
I downloaded and installed the HTC Streaming Media Player (RvBCrS_HTC_Streaming_Media.cab) just fine on my 8525 with WM5. But when I tried to watch a video from m.youtube.com it connects and buffers until it gets to about 97% then hangs a bit then goes back to the previous screen. I haven't seen anyone else with this problem. I've tried removing and reinstalling the Streaming Media Player and installing it to main memory and the storage card but am stuck here no matter what. Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you try playing with the buffering params - for example, lowering them from 7s to, say, 3s?
moooo said:
Does anybody know, if it works with O2 Germany? Does O2 Germany give a direvt IP to the Phone (HTC P3600)? I have always Network connecting error.
PS.: Direct streams via mms:// an with WMP works!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately, this kind of RTSP connections need a directly visible IP (or, port forwarding), which isn't supportred by many GSM operators. This is why RealOne Player refuses to work too.
Krayziepop said:
Just installed the StreamingPlayer to my PPC-6700. Upon executing the program, I get the error...
"The file 'StreamingPlayer' cannot be opened. Either it is not signed with a trusted certificate, or one of its components cannot be found. You might need to reinstall or restore this file"
Tried reinstalling it a few times, and even changing from 'device' to 'storage card' and get the same results.. any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm getting the same problem on my 8125 with WM5. Any answers to this one?
mrchicken said:
I'm getting the same problem on my 8125 with WM5. Any answers to this one?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hm, I'm starting to think this just doesn't work on all WM5 devices. I've double checked that the cab file installed the aforementioned files and registry additions, and it seems like it has. So there is still some missing component.
Is there any good method that can be used to identify if we are not directly connected to the internet?
Menneisyys said:
Did you try playing with the buffering params - for example, lowering them from 7s to, say, 3s?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup, tried that too. All it did was buffer up to the high 90% faster, then the same delay and return to the previous screen. It's so weird that I seem to be the only one having this problem. FWIW I have upgraded the ROM on this HTC to the latest version (but not to WM6 since that's not out yet. Grrr.)
leevick said:
Yup, tried that too. All it did was buffer up to the high 90% faster, then the same delay and return to the previous screen. It's so weird that I seem to be the only one having this problem. FWIW I have upgraded the ROM on this HTC to the latest version (but not to WM6 since that's not out yet. Grrr.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not only you - see http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=1187991
Menneisyys said:
Not only you - see http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=1187991
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. I had looked there but not seen anyone with the same problem when I posted. Now I feel better and worse at the same time - better, because it's not just me, but worse because there's not yet a known solution. Bummer! I hate to fail after coming so far!
I suppose I could use an unofficial WM6 ROM for this phone, but I'd rather not. Guess I'll have to wait. Patience is a virtue. Good things come to those who wait. A stitch in time saves nine... <sigh>
Now that I’ve published the Radio Stream Transcoding Bible (which has, in the meantime, been frontpaged by MoDaCo and All About Symbian!), I’ve received several questions and a lot of help requests on listening to Sirius streams on all mobile platforms (Windows Mobile, Symbian etc.) This article will surely help them a lot. (Note that I’ll also publish a similar article on XM Radio very soon).
Sirius Satellite Radio is one of two satellite radio services operating in the United States and Canada, along with XM Satellite Radio. It also has Internet streaming, which needs specialized clients because of the need for authorization. (Sirius’ streams aren’t free.)
1. If you have a Windows Mobile device...
... then, all you’ll need (unless you have VERY specific needs – more on them later) is SiriusWM5 downloadable HERE for free, for both Pocket PC’s (Windows Mobile 6 Professional / Classic) and MS Smartphones (Windows Mobile 6 Standard).
This app, which is just a front-end for either the built-in (Pocket) Windows Media Player, is really easy to use – you just fill in your official, Sirius login / password credentials in File / Settings (Guest accounts are disabled – don’t tick in “Guest”):
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/SiriusWM5Credentials.png
and, after saving this info, select the channel you’d like to listen to, enter the captcha text (alternatively, you’ll can also click Play (right softkey) and enter the number it says) and the playback will begin, with the song metadata (artist / title) displayed at the bottom of the screen, while the channel image in the top left corner.
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/SiriusInsideAChannel.png
Note that the metadata is only displayed in the GUI of the app, not inside the player:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/SiriusWM5TCPMPBackgrounPlayback.png
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/SiriusWM5NosoundMetadataInWMP.jpg
Also note that, while you can use TCPMP to play back the stream, you may have a little less power consumption and a little quicker handset if you just stick with the default WMP. The reason for this is that TCPMP consumes about 4% more CPU cycles at 624 MHz than WMP when playing back WMA. Note that, fortunately, SiriusWM5 itself doesn’t contain about anything: when run in the background, about 0.1% CPU cycles and, in the foreground, with activated song metadata, about ~1%. (Again, on a 624 MHz Xscale PXA-270).
1.1 Additional goodies
In last September, the developers of SiriusWM5 started working on a vastly enhanced (and also XM Radio-compliant) version of the app. See for example THIS for more info. THIS thread may be also of interest: it elaborates on what the developers plan: transcoders running on the clients’ PPC’s etc:
1.2 When NOT to use?
If you have a Windows Mobile device, in most cases, SiriusWM5 will just suit you great. In some cases, however, you’ll want to use a transcoder to be able to listen to high-quality (!) Sirius streams over a slow GPRS connection. This is what SiriusWM5 can't provide - after all, WMA itself is useless when it comes to delivering quality sound at GPRS (read: 32 kbps bitrate at most) speeds. Then, you'll need to turn to a HE-AAC v2-capable solution.
2. uSirius-based transcoding
To be able to transcode Sirius on your desktop computer, you’ll need uSirius, which is a free download and is, in some respects (except for preserving the song metadata / other textual broadcast info), better than SiriusWM5. It’s available HERE; the latest, tested version is 1.0 Release Candidate 5.
Note that, in order to be able to access the high-quality, 128 kbps original streams, you need to subscribe to the CD-quality additional pack - currently for $2.99 a month. If you aren’t a subscriber, I don’t see much point in trying to running a local transcoder for you as that of SiriusWM5 doesn’t degrade the sound quality much – using a 32 kbps stereo WMA as can be seen in HERE, its sound quality is acceptable. As it’s transcoding a stream of already-degraded sound quality, you won’t get far better sound quality with a transcoder running on your device either.
However, Palm, iPhone, Blackberry and Symbian users, who don’t have a native front-end for Sirius, MUST rely on local transcoding. For them, the following three sections will be essential. As you’ll see, I provide you with an in all cases (even over NAT’ed connections!) working and fully remote controllable (you can listen to any of the original Sirius channels) solution.
2.1 Using uSirius
After you install and start uSirius, click the Settings button and fill in your username / password pair:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/UsiriusProvideLoginPwd.png
Press OK and click the now-activated Start (the mouse is hovering over it in the next screenshot):
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/UsiriusStart.png
Now, click the XBMC button (the fifth from the top) and select a target directory to export the local URL’s the streams of uSirius can be accessed at by the external transcoder tools:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/xbmcURLExport.png
and rename them to *.m3u:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/RenameStrmToM3U.png
(a Total Commander screenshot of doing this)
Now, you’ll need to change all occurrences of http:// to mms:// in all these files. You can do this by hand; however, if you prefer automatizing this task, download Replace in Files from HERE. Install it and let it start; quickly fill in the fields as in the following screenshot:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/repliaceInFilesInAction.png
and press Replace All. You’ll be shown a success report:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/repliaceInFilesInAction2.png
You’ll need to import these m3u playlist files in the different transcoders – either Orb or Winamp. In the following section, I elaborate on both.
2.2 Transcoding with Orb
Importing the playlists prepared in the above way is pretty easy: as has already been explained in the Radio Transcoding Bible, right-click the Orb icon in the system tray, select Configure, go to Media and click Add in the Music folders group. Select the directory you’ve stored your M3U’s:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/adduSiriusExportToOrb.png
and you’re set – they should, sooner or later, turn up under Audio / Playlists / Imported Playlists on your handset.
2.2.1 If mass m3u playlist importing doesn’t work...
Note that the current beta version of Orb may refuse importing the M3U files for no apparent reason. If you in no way can make your files visible, you’ll need to manually add your favorite stations to Orb. This, unfortunately, involves a lot of work if you have many favorites.
To do this, go to the configuration Web page of Orb (by, for example, double-clicking the Orb icon in the system tray) and select Open Application / Audio:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/POrbOpenAppAudio.png
In there, click “Internet Audio” and, when the new (top) context-dependent toolbar is displayed, click Add custom at the top (in the following screenshot, the mouse is hovering above it):
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/POrbOpenAppAudio2.png
A new pop-up window, Add a custom channel, comes up; in there, you’ll need to fill in the station name you’d like to listen to and the local URL (to path). You can enter anything in the former field; to fill in the latter, you’ll need to do the following: in the uSirius client, click URLs (the third button from the top), select your favorite channel from the Channels drop-down list. Now, highlight the entire contents of the non-editable URL text area and right-click to access the context menu. In there, select Copy:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/POrbOpenAppAudio4.png
Note that you shouldn’t ever tick in the “Sonos / MPlayer Compatible URLs” checkbox. Then, you’ll be shown two external (as opposed to local; in these screenshots, 169.254.2.2) URLs; one of them, the MMS one, working only, but only resulting in a runtime, client-side error message like THIS. The local addresses (again, addresses starting with 169 like 169.254.2.2) will work just fine.
Note that you can do the same with the exported M3U files - just copy their contents to the clipboard. Then, you can entirely avoid having to copy all the URL's from inside uSirius.
Switching back to the browser instance running Orb configuration / maintenance, fill this info into the Path field of the Orb custom URL dialog (also fill in the “Name” field!):
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/POrbOpenAppAudio5.png
Click Submit. After a quick test, it’ll be added to your Orb internet stream favorites.
Now, you can go on adding your favorites in the same manner; for example, the following screenshot shows the state after also adding Sirius 0 – The Bridge (in the foreground, I also show the uSirius URLs screen, ready for copying the next URL to the clipboard for a later import to Orb; in the background, you see the IE browser instance with the Orb configuration dialog):
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/POrbOpenAppAudio6.png
Now you’re done (of course, you can still add additional Sirius stations); when you fire up your Orb client on your handset, you’ll already see the just-added streams under Audio / Internet Radio Favorites:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/OrbClientListing.png
(VGA WM5 PPC)
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/OrbClientListingSym.png
(a Symbian screenshot of the same, with an additional station)
… and can start listening to it; a Symbian screenshot of this:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/OrbSymListen.png
(Again, on Symbian, you can only use non-NAT’ed connections to access Orb.)
Unfortunately, as can be seen, the song metadata (the title / artist of the current song) isn’t displayed in either Windows Mobile or Symbian – unlike with the native WM client, SiriusWM5.
3. Non-Orb-based transcoding (Winamp)
Should you want to avoid using Orb for the reasons I’ve explained in the Radio Stream Transcoding Bible (no support for Symbian-compliant SHOUTcast; no support for the GPRS-friendly HE-AAC v2), your best choice is Winamp + the Oddcast plug-in. Then, you can dynamically switch between the stations (assuming you’ve added the local uSirius-generated URL’s to Winamp manually) with a Winamp remote controller (of which, again, there’re several – also for Symbian and Palm, if you use a Web-based controller) and can enjoy the advantages of Winamp + Icecast2-based transcoding as opposed to that of ORB, particularly if your handset is able to play back HE-AACv2 (currently, Windows Mobile handsets with TCPMP).
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/WinAmpIceSiriusTranscodeSM2.jpg
(click the thumbnail for the full-size image; it shows all components of the Winamp-based transcoding, including uSirius as the source, Winamp as the player, Oggcast as the transcoder, Icecast2 as the streaming server and a mobile client, CorePlayer, running in SOTi Pocket Controller, the, in my opinion, best, highly recommended remote controller for Windows Mobile)
Note that you can’t use VLC because uSirius just refuses to accept its incoming requests as can be seen in the following screenshot:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/usirisNonVLCCompl.png
Unfortunately, in VLC, it’s not possible to modify the MMS user agent (unlike that of HTTP(S) – screenshot HERE and HERE of this, respectively).
You can’t use StreamTranscoderV3 either because it doesn’t accept MMS (WM) input, only that of SHOUTcast / Icecast.
3.1 Importing M3U files into Winamp
Importing the M3U files exported from uSirius into Winamp is, fortunately, much easier than with Orb – with guaranteed results. In the Media Library view, right-click Playlists and select Import playlist from folder:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/WinampImpPlaylist.png
Select the directory and all your stations become promptly available:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/WinampImpPlaylist2.png
waiting for playing back / transcoding via, for example, the OddcastV3 plug-in.
Again and again, please DO read Radio Stream Transcoding Bible for more information on the secrets of transcoding and Winamp remote control so that you can have the same freedom of switching channels any time as with the Orb client or with SiriusWM5. You’ll find an answer to all your questions in there. Just keep trying to digest the vast amount of info I’ve presented in these Bibles – you’ll, finally, succeed, I’m absolutely sure
I think an easier solution would be to download SiriusWM5...
It was yesterday that I’ve explained how you can listen to Sirius, North America’s one of the two most widely listened-to radio network.
Listening to XM Radio, the other major US-based radio broadcasting company is equally easy on all mobile platforms (Windows Mobile, Symbian, Blackberry, iPhone etc.) Let’s take a look at what we have at our disposal.
1. If you have WMA playback support (currently, Windows Mobile only)
... then, just fire up your mobile browser (any browser capable of invoking external applications: Netfront, Internet Explorer or Opera Mobile; Opera Mini or Thunderhawk will NOT work!) and navigate to http://www.xstreamxm.com/mobile/. There, just fill in your login data, select the channel you’d like to listen to, the bitrate and click Go at the bottom:
{
"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"
}
after this, you’ll be shown the currently playing song title (the Web page is automatically refreshed every 5 second so the artist / title / album metadata is always kept up-to-date) and the default WMA player (by default, on Windows Mobile, the built-in Windows Media Player) is invoked in the background:
(as with SiriusWM5, the WMA player isn’t passed the metadata info as can be seen in THIS WMP screenshot)
2. Desktop-based transcoding
As XM Radio, unlike Sirius, defaults to high quality streams (and doesn’t require you to pay extra for high-quality streams), if you have a GPRS connection OR want to reduce your data fees, you will want to go for a desktop-based transcoding solution – even if you have a WMA streaming-capable platform (for example, Windows Mobile). The sole reason for this is as follows:
The high-quality WMA stream is broadcast at 64 kbps; the low-quality one at 32 kbps. The latter has really bad sound quality – much worse than that of Sirius. If you need to stream the radio at 32 kbps to your handset (because you’re on GPRS or you MUST reduce your data usage), a transcoder run on your desktop computer can easily transcode the original high-quality 64 kbps stream into a 24 or 32 kbps HE-AAC v2 stream, while keeping the same sound quality (YES, even at 24 kbps!). Similarly, should you want to have access to all your favorite channels in orb only (without having to navigate to another homepage), you might also want to consider “migrating” these channels to Orb. Then, however, you won’t be able to use HE-AAC v2; that is, you can’t reduce the bitrate without a major hit on sound quality.
And, of course, if you have a Symbian or iPhone device (and even the latest Blackberry ones!) currently* not being compatible with streaming WMA, your only choice is desktop-based transcoding – as is the case with listening to Sirius on these platforms.
*: as of 01/06/2008; on Symbian, CorePlayer is supposed to be compatible with WMA but is VERY buggy. The OS itself, while it supports playing back individual WMA files, doesn’t support streaming WMA. Hope the Nokia developers implement both HE-AAC v2 and WMA support in their forthcoming Nokia Internet Radio.
For transcoding, you will need / can to use exactly the same tools as with Sirius, with the only exception that, instead of uSirius, you’ll need to use uXM (current, tested version: 1.0RC2) as the source to either Orb or Winamp running on your desktop.
Configuring uXM, exporting / copying URL’s is done in EXACTLY the same way as with Sirius. The same stands for importing the channel list into Orb and Winamp – you need to exactly the same tricks to make them available for local transcoding. Therefore, please read the Sirius tutorial on all these questions.
Questions, of course, are welcome. Feel free to tell me if you still need a step-by-step tutorial on XM Radio. Again, as everything is done in EXACTLY the same way as with Sirius, I don’t think you’ll need any help.
UPDATE (01/06/2008): MoDaCo frontpage
UPDATE (01/08/2008): There is another, GREAT way of directly importing the full XM Radio playing back WMA streams (it will NOT work if your platform cannot play back WMA streams – that is, currently, anything else than Windows Mobile!). To do this, first, download THIS ASX file (right click and Save As). Open it with, say, Notepad and press Ctrl-H so that the search / replace dialog is activated.
In the “Find what” textfield, enter “XM_USERNAME”; in the “Replace with”, your e-mail address:
Then, click the Replace All button.
Do the same mass-change to your password; then, you’ll need to enter “XM_PASSWORD” in the “Find what” textfield (and, of course, your password in the “Replace with”).
Note that you can also change all occurrences of “speed=high” to “speed=low” if you prefer listening to the low-quality stream. (But, again, it’s in no way recommended; if you do want to preserve bandwidth costs / want a GPRS-compliant stream, strongly consider running a transcoder on your desktop PC and using the vastly superior HE-AAC v2 format).
Now, just transfer the saved and modified ASX file to your handset and click it so that your WMA-capable player (WMP by default) imports it:
Now, you can change any channel from inside the player. Pretty cool, isn’t it?
(Thanks for HowardForums forum member volwrath for the original tip!)
Thanks for the great tutorial. I am having a problem, though. I am running Alex's 1.62 ROM and whenever I try to listen to XM, I log in without problem, Windows Media loads, the name of the station apears and it says buffering. It will buffer for 10-15 seconds. Then it will say connecting. But next is will say paused and nothing wil play. Happens everytime. Didn't have this problem in earlier ROMs.
Do you have any ideas on what is going on or what is wrong? This ROM is otherwise perfect but it's frustrating that I can't log into my XM account with my Tilt. any suggestions would be apreciated.
In my searching I have seen a number of people with this issue but no solutuons.
I have not tried your other sugestion in the update post and will do so. but in the meantime any ideas would be welcome. even if it to say sorry or get a new ROM.
Thanks again.
Menneisyys, great tip. Never mind my prior post. The template works GREAT!!! I am now a VERY happy camper. Thanks for posting this. I searched for weeks for a solution and just today found this via a search on my Tilt via Google. Thanks again!
Can this work with mortplayer?
This works great, but I cannot get it to stream over mortplayer. Is it just me?
Good work Werner! Been using uXM for several months with great results. Works very well as a service too using the old NT tools Instrsrv.exe and Srvany.exe (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/137890).
Cheers!
Sorry for the double post...
ppclover said:
This works great, but I cannot get it to stream over mortplayer. Is it just me?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
as is explained in my related Bible ( http://www.pocketpcmag.com/old_blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=2350&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1#more2350 ), MortPlayer doesn't support WMA streaming.
i decided to use the method in post 2 and everything works great, thanks menneisyys.
EDIT: sorry i just saw it in post 1 /just one little question is there a way to get the song info to display on wmp thanks/
one more question, does anyone know a way around getting the xm error "we're sorry the channel is not available please logout and try again" i am assuming that this is because every channel i click on logs me in, so is there some way i can log in then change the stations with out keep logging in. i have tried to removed the username and password from all the channels except 1 and see if it will let me switch channels but it does not let me. thanks in advance
irus said:
one more question, does anyone know a way around getting the xm error "we're sorry the channel is not available please logout and try again" i am assuming that this is because every channel i click on logs me in, so is there some way i can log in then change the stations with out keep logging in. i have tried to removed the username and password from all the channels except 1 and see if it will let me switch channels but it does not let me. thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ya... having problems with that as well.. I don't think that's going to be a viable option..
I've had uXm setup as a service on my server before I found this thread but I can't seem to find any app that will stream it... I would have thought wmplayer would but it doesn't seem to like the format?
EDIT:
nevermind.. gotta check the box to make the http urls... yay working now
EDITEDIT:
strange I'm still getting that dumb "we're sorry..." message when I use uxm direct url's too! It only seems to happen when going forward in the list tho never happens when going backward... it it opens up a mms:// url to play the msg I don't understand how/why it's happening with uXM links.
Zenoran said:
ya... having problems with that as well.. I don't think that's going to be a viable option..
I've had uXm setup as a service on my server before I found this thread but I can't seem to find any app that will stream it... I would have thought wmplayer would but it doesn't seem to like the format?
EDIT:
nevermind.. gotta check the box to make the http urls... yay working now
EDITEDIT:
strange I'm still getting that dumb "we're sorry..." message when I use uxm direct url's too! It only seems to happen when going forward in the list tho never happens when going backward... it it opens up a mms:// url to play the msg I don't understand how/why it's happening with uXM links.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
its still not working for me and not i don't even get the "we're sorry..." error it just goes to the next link and then the next link etc. has anyone figured this out yet?
Perhaps a fix to xm radio?
Hey guys, I was a huge fan of xstreamxm, but it seems to have stopped working....
I built my own version and it's working for time being, all be it way too flakey
check it out, let me know if it does or doesn't work for you, and let me know what needs to be done. I know the station names are super out of date, but i'm working to get those parsed from xm asap...
let me know anything else that comes up...
*you may have to try the process several times, sometimes a blank page comes up after login, and i can't seem to see why...*
I think it's only working for mobile platforms right now as well. and btw, i'm not a coder, just a bored college student so don't bash too hard
http://bdawg.org/xm
I tried the second method. However I could only do it on the school's computer, which doesn't have notepad. Microsoft Word won't let me save as a .asx file (I'm assuming that's how we want it saved). So how do I save it in such a way that my phone will recognize it as a streaming file?
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.
Of the three mobile platforms I currently support (Windows Mobile, BlackBerry and Symbian), two (WM and Symbian) have players that are able to display lyrics; BlackBerry, currently, doesn't. Note that the, in most respects, best player on the supported (currently, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Palm and, at least in the near future, iPhone) platforms, CorePlayer, will only receive support for lyrics in the far future (at least a year or even more) - around version 1.6.
On Windows Mobile, in addition to the excellent, albeit a bit outdated TCPMP, four, otherwise not really top-of-the-line players can show lyrics while playing. One of them, LCG Jukebox, also exists on Symbian - with exactly the same features. On the latter operating system, it's only this program that is capable of displaying lyrics. (Again, this will change when CorePlayer receives lyrics support - but that's still waaaay off.)
1.1 Lyrics formats
First, you need to know what lyrics formats there are. They are as follows:
separate (!) TXT and LRC files using the same filename as the original song file. That is, for example, if the song is named Madonna - Material Girl.mp3, then, the accompanying LRC / TXT file - in the same directory - must have the name Madonna - Material Girl and the extension LRC / TXT, respectively. (For example, Madonna - Material Girl.lrc should be the full name of the song.)
Of the two formats, LRC is the far more advanced and widely supported, mostly because of the metadata (among other things, timestamps for correct time synchronization). You can find a decent tutorial on the features LRC files offer for example HERE.
Note that LRC isn't THE solution for everything newer, even more sophisticated lyrics containers support; for example, it lacks built-in bi/multilingual support.
built-in, inline (non-separate) tag-based lyrics. There are three kinds of them. For techies, the best source explaining the three major in-song (tag-based) lyrics format is ID3.org. The links to the respective documents (along with a quick summary): ID3v2 (not only a lyrics storage format, but also stores all kinds of other info: the traditional artist / genre etc. fields coming from the two pre-v2 versions of the ID3 standard), Lyrics3 (a heavily outdated format not recommended because of its severe restrictions) and Lyrics3v2 (this is the, along with the - independent - ID3 v2 standard, is the currently used best approach.) In my compatibility chart, I also provide explicit info on the compliance with all these three formats. These can be both synchronized (with timestamps; also see the LRC files) and non-synchronized.
Of the former group, LRC is compatible with all the lyrics-capable players and allows for time synchronization, which may be pretty important for several users. The latter, which is superior in practice (you can't easily lose your lyrics if you forget to transfer the separate LRC file along with your main song file) is only compatible with one: MiniLyrics, only on Windows Mobile. Fortunately, the, if you can live with the very infrequent nagging screens, free (!) MiniLyrics, which also has a plug-in compatible with almost all the desktop players (the most important exception being Videolan VLC), offers conversion capabilities between LRC and inline tags.
1.2 Creating lyrics
You can easily create a TXT or LRC file (of the latter, even a synchronized one) without any external, specialized editor or tool - just a plain Notepad (or any other basic file editor) will suffice. This, of course, won't work with the tag-based (built-in) lyrics format because you'll need an application including your lyrics in the file. Fortunately, most common desktop multimedia players allow for doing this. For example, the way it's done in the stock Windows Media Player (WMP) 10+ is explained in the Add Lyrics to Music Files tutorial. (As this tutorial is pretty well written and easy-to-follow, I won't elaborate on doing this in WMP at all.) The already-mentioned free/"nagware" MiniLyrics is also highly recommended.
As with most WMP library-related functions, lyrics editing is pretty restricted even in the latest, version 11 of WMP. Sure, you can edit even synchronized text and save in an inline format MiniLyrics (on Windows Mobile) is compatible with, but it's roughly all you can do. On the desktop, there are several add-ons or plug-ins (like MiniLyrics) that heavily enhances this functionality like adding lyrics search capabilities. (Note that all the reviewed mobile players also allow for online searches - with varying degree of success, though. More on this later.)
1.3 Available players
Note that I've published a review of two of the four Windows Mobile apps HERE. In the meantime, however, new versions have been released of both apps and, therefore, I found it necessary to re-do all my tests to find out whether there are any notable changes or enhancements (unfortunately, not much).
1.3.1 Lyrics Magic
(current, tested version: 2.1)
{
"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"
}
This, it seems, discontinued (for example, the lyrics searching database doesn't seem to be any more maintained) player is not recommended because of the high price (while clearly the best two players, TCPMP and MiniLyrics, are free; so is the rather simple WinVibe), the incompatibility with inline tags and, of course, the non-working search engine.
Note that "Open File" uses the default file selector dialog; if you dislike this, you can safely use a third-party tool like my favorite, FileDialogChanger by Mad Programmer. If you dislike both approaches, use "Open Folder" instead.
1.3.2 WinVibe
(current, tested version: 4.9.6)
(The text window can be made bigger by further clicking it but still individual lines will be shown, meaning you won't see almost anything of the context)
The lister screen for non-synched LRC files (and to see / scroll the entire text at once):
This is a free player. It has a bit high CPU usage (in which LCG Jukebox is clearly the best - at least in the lyrics player group; still, it's a far cry away from the best titles in this respect; for example, CorePlayer) and rather rudimentary, textual-only lyrics display (as opposed to the smooth, much more spectacular, small-character scrolling of the other titles). It, most of the time, also failed at online searching - as opposed to the two best titles in this respect, LCG Jukebox and MiniLyrics. (This, of course, will only be an issue if you do want to search for the lyrics of a given song on your handset and not on your desktop. In most cases, you'll want to do the latter while maintaining your song library; that is, bad support for online searching isn't that big an issue.)
1.3.3 LCG Jukebox
(current, tested version: 2.30)
(VGA, Windows Mobile)
(QVGA, Symbian, also showing the current manual offset in the upper left corner)
If you're ready to actually pay for your stuff (or, you're on Symbian, where there aren't other solutions), you can put up with the GUI that really shows its Symbian roots and, for some reason, you don't want to go with the, in general, superior MiniLyrics or TCPMP, this should be the player to check out. Again and again, give a try to MiniLyrics or TCPMP first – they’re better in most respects (except for the CPU usage, as far as MiniLyrics is concerned or the online searching capabilities, which is missing from TCPMP) if you're on Windows Mobile. (If on Symbian, LCG Jukebox is, again, your only choice.)
1.3.4 MiniLyrics
(current, tested version: 5.1.2725)
(WinMo download at the bottom of the page HERE)
A desktop shot of its finding several Finnish Eppu Normaali titles using the built-in search engine:
While on the desktop it's a plug-in, on Windows Mobile, it's a standalone multimedia player compatible with all major compressed formats WMA, MP3, AAC-LC and OGG formats and full (!!) inline (and, by importing and converting to inline tags, LRC / TXT / SRT) files.
I really recommend playing with the desktop version a bit, checking how downloading, tag updating etc. works. After this, switch to the Windows Mobile version (note that, unlike on the desktop, it's a standalone app and NOT a plug-in to Windows Media Player Mobile!). You'll already be familiar with the way the mobile version works: yes, it has exactly the same features as the desktop version. This is certainly very good news!
This player, along with TCPMP, is the best, most recommended one.
1.3.5 TCPMP
The slightly outdated but, in many respects, still one of the best, free (!) multimedia player, TCPMP, also has (unofficial) lyrics support.
(VGA, default skin)
To install the additional lyrics support on top of the recommended TCPMP version, 0.72RC1, you’ll need to get the SP 176*220 or QVGA downloads in the first post HERE or the VGA one HERE, in the 2nd post.
Installing them is very easy: just copy the contents of these compressed files (after decompressing them, of course) to the home of your TCPMP installation; for example, \Program Files\TCPMP.
If you want to see the entire QVGA dialog, in Options / View, unclick at least two items (Titlebar, Taskbar, Timeslider – I recommend the first two). This may also be necessary with some non-default VGA skins on VGA devices (the default one doesn’t make this necessary). Also note that the QVGA version (as opposed to the 176*220 MS Smartphone and the VGA ones) comes with only one skin; the other two come with several.
The settings dialog is under Options / Settings / Select Page / Lyric. It’s also in here that you can disable sliding (that is, fine scrolling), which will considerably reduce CPU usage (from around 38 to 30% on a 624 MHz Intel XScale PXA-270/310). Doing this is pretty easy: just uncheck the Slide checkbox:
2. Comparison charts
Now follows the most important & informative part of my Bible: the two charts. The first elaborates on the more common issues like price, compatibility with the current lyrics formats, how an in-app search for Madonna's Material Girl fared etc.; the second compares the CPU usage and media format compliance. I've paid special attention to benchmarking the CPU usage (which, on several mobile platforms, has a direct impact on the battery life.)
2.1 Generic features & lyrics tests
Note that I haven't listed stuff none of the players promise (and, equally, not deliver); for example, ID3 tag-based full (!) library support. (None of the players support it, unlike, in non-lyrics-specific respects, much more advanced players like CorePlayer, the just-ported Pocket Tunes or Pocket Player.) None of them support AVRCP (Bluetooth remote control) either - not even LCG Jukebox on Symbian. (On Windows Mobile, I've tested this with both the MS and the Widcomm BT stacks to be absolutely sure.) TCPMP over Widcomm IS AVRCP-capable under WM2003SE – but who uses WM2003SE anymore?
(original HTML chart HERE)
2.2 CPU usage and format compliance
(original HTML chart HERE)
I haven’t devoted a separate row to TCPMP because I’ve already benchmarked its media playback CPU usage HERE. MP3 playback with lyrics results in a whopping 38% CPU usage with finescroll (more than three times more than the default ~11%!). Fortunately, you can disable fine scrolling if battery life is of extreme importance to you and you can put up with the less spectacular row-based scrolling; then, the CPU usage decreases to 30% “only”.
3. Verdict
If you're a Windows Mobile user, give a try to the (mostly) free MiniLyrics or (if you don’t need for example downloading capabilities) TCPMP first. The also-free WinVibe may also be a good choice if you can put up with the not-so-spectacular lyrics display (of course, TCPMP is vastly superior to this player in most respects). If you're ready to pay, LCG Jukebox might also be of interest if you like the interface (I, personally, don't). Lyrics Magic should be forgotten altogether - it's not only commercial, but also buggy and no longer supported.
If you're a Symbian user, LCG Jukebox is your only choice.
Again, note that CorePlayer will only later receive lyrics support. Until then, you can forget advanced functionality like library or Bluetooth AVRCP support altogether, unfortunately - along with the very low CPU usage and compatibility with most audio formats (except for, of course, HE-AACv2 a.k.a. aacPlus - as of the current, 1.2.5 CorePlayer version).
4. What next?
In the near future (1-2 days), I publish another article on multimedia apps, further elaborating on other, ID3 tag-based issues like album art, finding , mass-entering and changing artist / title / etc. info. I also thoroughly compare the advanced library handling capabilities of Windows Mobile, BlackBerry and Symbian multimedia players.
I've decided to stick my latest Bibles & tutorials in the General forum for some days in a round-robin fashion. That is, I stick some 2-3 articles at a time and, after some days, I stick another set. This way hopefully everyone will notice them without even searching and they get the exposure they deserve.
All in all, don't be afraid: it's only some days that a given article remains sticky - after that, I stick another one.
UPDATE (09/07/2008) (Windows Mobile only!): The recently-released, 3.7 version of Conduits Pocket Player has some support for (only) embedded, unsynchronized (!!) lyrics.
A screenshot of it displaying the (again, static, non-timestamp-based) lyrics:
To see this window, you need to go to Menu > Current Track > Lyrics:
Note that this menu item will only be displayed with embedded ID3v2 unsynchronized lyrics and nothing else - no LyricsV3, no synchronized, no external LRC files.
Note that synchronized, embedded lyrics (and external LRC files) is NOT displayed at all. With ID3v2 embedded lyrics, it notices it being there (but still doesn't show it):
With LyricsV3 embedded lyrics, PP doesn't even notice the lyrics in there (unlike with ID3v2), let alone displaying it.
Hope (some of) the next version(s) add support for synchronized lyrics as well. For the time being, if you do need synchronized lyrics (and not just plain synchronized) and/or external LRC support, go for the above-reviewed alternative solutions; for example, TCPMP. Note that the "what's new" list doesn't speak of (or show example screenshots of) synchronization support either - that is, I'm pretty sure I'm right in stating it doesn't support synchronization.
After such a long time...is there any decent music player these days that support synchronise lrc files? So sad....
Any new info on those players ?