What's New In The Palm OS World Of Entertainment?
Jan 23 '05
The Bottom Line All-in-all, for the latest in PALM OS entertainment, see it here. DVD players, mp3, mpeg, AVI players and so on. Now you can make something outta that $500 toy.
I's just passing throught some Palm OS reviews here on Ep and found this topic listed and figured I see what others were thinking. Turns out no one had submitted anything, so I'm going to fill in the blank.
So, Why Am I Eligible To Fulfill This Topic?
.....When it comes to Palm OS, I 've been around the block a time or two. If there is a popular entertainment program, I either bought it, have it, or have tried it. So I know the highest quality software when it comes to each category of media. In this review, I run across multimedia programs from mp3 players, movie players, TV remotes, to the high-end calculators out there.
.....I currently use my Palm Tungsten T, if you didn't know by know. All of these programs work well on it, so you can get an idea of where yours stands. I have a 125MHz DB OMAP TI processor. It performs at the bare bones of success. If yours is slower, some of these may not work for you. If you have a 416Mhz Intel Xscale, these'll be a breeze.
.....Below is a list of the best-of-the-best in each area of entertainment. Some areas have more than one best option. Here goes:
Aeroplayer:
.....If you are a music fan that doesn't want to blow a few hundred on an iPod or other mp3 player, then Aeroplayer may just be what you want. The program plays audio files stored on a removeable SD/MMC card. Currently, Aeroplayer supports the mp3 and OGG formats.
.....Aeroplayer is skinnable, allowing you to download or create skins. Skins can take up a lot of space on a small device, so keep few around at a time. A free skin maker is available online at their site [aerodrome.us].
.....Aeroplayer gives you top-of-the-line options for fine tuning your music on the Palm OS platform. With the graphic equalizer, you can adjust five bars to meet your music needs. You can disable equalizer, use an adjustable bass bar, or use the 5-bar tuning. Play music in the background while you make use of other programs. Make playlists, override volumn, play with screen off, and so much more. Just plug in your favorite headphones and enjoy your music. I use a 1GB SD card that stores hundreds of songs that I download from winmx [winmx.com] for free. If you want to put music on an SD/MMC card, I suggest using a USB Card reader/writer over the slow hotsync method.
.....Anything else in Aeroplayer is the same in Pocket Tunes, as discussed next.
PRICE: $14.95 USD
Pocket Tunes:
.....PTunes is about the same as Aeroplayer, both deserving the #1 spot in mp3 players. The deluxe version of Pocket Tunes offers a few more options than Aeroplayer. For one, you can use the CROSSFADE option that fades a song into the next. You can create bookmarks within songs, gret for storing certain points that are relevant, such as the chapters in an mp3 story or play.
.....Another major difference from Aeroplayer is the ability to play WAV and WMA formats as well as mp3 and OGG. This adds greater flexibility to your PALM. You still have the same skinning ability.
.....You get a more advanced equalizer setting. Still only five bars, but you can save settings (up to 8) and rename them to go back to later.
PRICE: $14.95 USD
MMplayer:
.....MMplayer, or Mobile Media Player, is a Palm OS 5 program that is capable of playing audio and video files. With it, you can play mp3, MIDI, and OGG audio, and AVI, mpeg 1-4, and DivX vidoe formats. If you have miniDV camcorder that records mpeg, you ca take it out of that and watch it on your PDA.
.....Unlike the mp3 players above, MMplayer takes up a lot of CPU power. So much CPU that, in fact, unless you have a newer PDA with a 400MHz processor, you are going to have a choppy video. RAM and CPU are in great need to view most raw video. Luckily, for us slow PDA users, Pocket-DVD studio has created a program to encode DVDs into smaller AVI files with the proper resolutions and other factors to run smoothly on most palms.
.....MMplayer is the only single-handed Palm OS all-in-one player. Therefore, you can be sure to run into some technical difficulties. They are constantly updating with bug fixes, but you can be sure to suffer from some bugs. If you have had it long enough, then you will probably have several crashes. Loading times can be slow sometimes. But in the end, after hours of tinkering and learning, you will hopefully get to enjoy a full-length film with no problems.
.....Videos can be stored on an SD/MMC card. Mine is 1GB and holds a couple good quality full-length movies. You can browse your folders for available files in the newer versions, instead of just one folder.
PRICE: $14.95 USD
Pocket-DVD Studio:
.....Pocket DVD is a desktop software that creates AVI files for your Palm or PPC to play. It works in conjunction with mmplayer. As the name states, it basically crams a DVD on to your Pocket-sized computer. While the two programs can draw you towards $50, they are well worth it.
.....First off, you open the program. Insert your favorite DVD into your DVD-ROM (needed) and click OPEN DVD on your screen. Then, depending on the performance capabilities of your Palm device, you can encode the movie to be just right. Once you first start off, you will have to do much trial and error, creating several quick samples with different settings, to get it just right. And no two devices are the same.
.....The first option, not necessarily orderly stepped, is to select from six cropping choices. This comes in handy, especially since most DVDs are widescreen. The options include: (1)all picture (no cropping done), (2)hack top black line (rids top line while keeping subtitles at bottom), (3) Hack both black lines (best for landscape devices), (4) Keep both lines, chop part of sides (useless), (5) Chop part of sides and black lines (Good for most 320x320 pdas). There are different resolutions at each of the six settings to choose from.
.....After you pick the screen crop choice, you need to select a resolution from a drop-down box at the top. It's best to do this after the first one because your options change. If your device is 320x320 or smaller, chose an option that is smaller than that, or the same. Landscape, or widescreen, handhelds let you use the entire screen for viewing.
.....Along the top, you can chose options for audio - 2 Channel or 6 channel audio output. Under that, you have an option to add subtitles, and select from available languages. You can only have one language of subs put in the file. To the right of that, a drop-down box lets you chose the program file to encode (which is the longest one - the default one it selects).
.....Along the right, there is an output status area that tells you the total Kbps for both audio and video. This helps you to determine if it can play well on your given device. Above it, there is a slider bar that lets you choose the output movie quality.
.....In the advanced options screen, you can select the audio details - frequency, quality, volume boost, stereo or mono, encoding codecs (Divx, Xvid are preferred), chose from de-interlacing filters, output file size maximum (then cuts movie into pieces). If you have a 128MB or 126MB card, you may have to cut the movies into pieces. I have a 1GB card that can hold a couple movies.
.....When you are happy with all of your options, just click the START button and go enjoy a nice dinner. I can't really say how long it would take for your computer to encode a DVD, but mine takes 3x the length of the movie. But my old computer is too slow to even play DVD's straight out anyway, so de/re-encoding can take time on it. I can fit a high quality, 3hr 20min movie onto my 1,000MB card.
.....Though it can set you back $32.00, and $15 more for the mmplayer program, it is well worth it. And anyway, the DEMO on lets you make 10 minute clips.
PRICE: $32.00 USD
The NoviiWares:
.....The Novii company (novii.com) specializes in the creation of Palm-based TV remotes. All of their remote versions are able to create a new database to control your infrared-controlled appliance, built from an existing remote. Their three curent versions are Noviiremote, NR Blaster, and NR Deluxe. If you need to get rid of all those bulky remotes with thousands of useless buttons, you can put them all into one Palm PDA.
NOVIIREMOTE:
.....Noviiremote is the original remote they made. It is a set, non-customizable remote system. It is available for black and white devices (40% cheaper), 160x160 devices (Lo-Res), and 320x320 (Hi-Res, Double Density). The BW version only takes about 300kb plus 200kb for codes. The color versions, especially Hi-Res, will run you out of 1.2 -> 2 MB of space. This is a heavy price to pay, but the reward is worth it.
.....The screen is layed out in sections. Along the right are the categories - (Setup at top), TV, CAD/SAT, VCR, DVD/CD, AUDIO, and PVR. Then along the top is the drop-down device brand selection. Then the rest of the screen is the remote interface. It is a very intuitive setup and simple to boot. Each remote is separated into two separate screens, which can be toggled by tapping the triangle at the lower left-hand corner of the screen.
.....The program comes with some preinstalled codebases, or codes that are used to control a specific brand of device. Not every button will have a function on every brand. Some buttons are left gray, specifying no code. The buttons are also color-coded logically. Channel-related buttons are green, volume is yellow, and so on. Each category has a different button layout with a new variety of functions.
.....The program does come with 100 optional codebases for select brand devices, but you may not have the code for yours. If you have the original remote to the appliance, you can teach your Palm by creating a new codebase, selecting category, and shooting the signal from the remote to the IR port of the PDA, about 5 inches from one another.
.....Once you purchase the remote, you are entitled to free updates by email. So you have to remember the email in which you purchased it. Some upgrades are worth getting, like when they released the first Hi-Res version. Others, like upgrades that work with new palms, are unecessary to get.
PRICE: $14.95 USD (B W version)
PRICE: $24.95 USD (Color and/or Hi-Res)
NOVIIREMOTE BLASTER:
.....After a several months of constantly post-poning the release date, Novii Inc. finally put the first version of Noviiblaster on the shelf at their site. Basically, it is the original noviiremote program, but their is a hardware add-on to go with it. The Blaster is an SD card with a 3/4" head the contains two oblique-positioned IR transmitters. With it, you can use your PDA as a remote in any normal position and from a great distance. This is great considering that some PDAs have weak IR signals.
.....The chip comes with 7,000 (supposedly) codebases for almost any brand on the market. You get a CD with the package that contains the software and codebases to sort on your desktop. And the blaster has a desktop port to transfer codes to it.
.....I am going to purchase one for myself sometime next week or so. Get it off of their site now for a $7.00 discount. Once you set up the hard buttons on your PDA to use for TV functions, you can lay in bed or on the couch in the middle of the night, in total darkness, without the PDA backlite, and flick through the channels.
PRICE: $52.00 USD (novii.com)
NOVIIREMOTE DELUXE:
.....One thing that most users have always avoided Noviiremote for was that it wasn't customizeable at all. That's why people preffered Omniremote instead. But recently, Novii released the first version of Noviiremote Deluxe, or NR 3.0 DX. From it's sheer complexity, I know that they have spent more than a year on developement and design. So for all you computer literate techno geeks out there looking for the most sophisticated digital remote, this is it. I, myself, am still trying to figure out how to use it to the full extent. And I'm the computer genious here.
.....When I say customizeable, that should say it all. You can add buttons, delete them, move 'em, colors them, and so on. To make a button, you can select from a hundred or so different styles and sizes from really small, to ones that go across the whole screen. Write in the text that will be displayed on the button, and the text color. Choose whether it is an IR function, a label, or a shortcut to another page.
.....Since each creation can be so random, I can't explain the layout so wholeheartedly. Just try out the trial version for 10 days. You will probably be stumped for a while, but it will come to you in time.
.....Unlike the other Novii programs, NR DX 3.0 gives you a separate 1kb key file, determined by your device hotsync name, to install to your palm. The good news is you can download future versions of Handango or their site an be able to use it without emailing them. The bad news is, if you have to hard reset and it wasn't backed up, you need to dig up that key to use it again.
Check out this version of NR DX 3.0 at:
http://www.novii.tv/nrdeluxe
PRICE: $35.00
PRICE: $10.00 (for previous 1/2.x version owners)
So What Should Be Considered When Purchasing
Entertainment Software?
.....There are many factors to look upon about selecting the entertainment software that's right for you. Some points to look at are:
-->How fast is your processor?
Many high-end entertainment programs require a heavy mass of CPU power to function 100%.
-->How long does my battery last on heavy loads?
Running entertainment, or anything other than the organizer-oriented software, uses the processor to the max, inturn using more battery. Videos obviously require a color, backlit, continuously running screen which add to the battery drain.
-->What am I willing to pay for?
Many of these programs comes with a price. You need to decide whether any given program is right for you, if you'll use it enough to be worth it, and such.
-->What do I want?
You should decide whether you's want an mp3 player, given you have a large-capacity SD card, movie player, remote, etc, or possibly all.
.....All of these programs offer a full, or close to it, DEMO trial for you to see if it is worthy of purchase or not. I thought they all were, so I have them all.
More To Come:
.....If you have any of these few programs, or plan to try them, let me know if you have time.
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