..........
I've been wanting to get a subscription service that will stream to mobile devices (I mainly use Rhapsody on my pc, and it too will NOT work with mobile devices even though you have the option to use it through a browser-based interface) so I read your post and signed up for the 30 days trial, and sure enough it works over 3G as well.
The only problem I have is when I go to the main page through PIE on my Tytn, it automatically goes to a mobile version of the site, and I can only select certain artists that have been pre-selected based on my genre settings. There is a search line at the top where you can enter artist or album, but there is no Enter or Go button, and pressing Enter on the keyboard does nothing. In other words, I can't navigate to any specific artist, I can only listen to the pre-selected ones. Do you know how to get that search bar to work? If I go to the page on my desktop pc, the interface is totally different and getting to a specific artist is no problem.
I'm not sure what to tell you on the WMP thing... I have no issues with WMP thus far...
Neither of you have tried orb? I can't say enough about it...all of your mp3's on your PC at home are available to you on your phone 24/7. The only drawback is getting the mp3's and always leaving your PC on. It works the same way- you choose your song and it streams to WMP. This will also work for Videos and TV (with the proper setup, slinbox is far better though).
I haven't had any problems with this using wmp.
Patman,
Yes I do have Orb and use it quite a bit, and I do love it!! I stream my music and my recorded TV from my media center pc at home. BUT, the reason I wanted a subscription-based service on my phone is because you can stream any song, any artist any time. I own about 6,000 mp3's that are on my harddrive on my pc at home that I can stream on Orb, but with a subscription-based music service like AOL or Rhapsody, I have the choice of about 2.5 million songs, on-demand, at my fingertips.
stpete111 said:
Patman,
Yes I do have Orb and use it quite a bit, and I do love it!! I stream my music and my recorded TV from my media center pc at home. BUT, the reason I wanted a subscription-based service on my phone is because you can stream any song, any artist any time. I own about 6,000 mp3's that are on my harddrive on my pc at home that I can stream on Orb, but with a subscription-based music service like AOL or Rhapsody, I have the choice of about 2.5 million songs, on-demand, at my fingertips.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I figured there was a reason.
Does it cost anything per song, or is it a time-based ($xx.00/month) service?
I'm glad others are interested. Subscription music means you pay a flat fee per month (usually around $10) and you can listen to any artist, any album, any song in their entire library whenever and (hopefully soon) wherever you want. It's the holy grail IMO as far as portable music. Especially when you don't want an iPod/MP3 Player, but rather a convergence device like this. The problem is that the flash memory is very slow, and very space limited. Streaming music from a subscription service is the way to go. Orb is a great idea, but you still have to download the songs first. Me personally, I'm fed up with downloading organizing and managing music files. It's just become tedious. I'd rather have a jukebox available at all times with every artist in existence. In other words, I'm sick of collecting music. The new technology has made me look past that.
As I mentioned, AOL Music Now is the only web based service, thus the only one that can work on Windows Mobile (Rhapsody has a web browser plugin but it only works on certain desktop browsers).
Good news though. I just discovered (or is it brand new?) that Music Now supports RSS feeds. This could really be the answer to a having a solid experience using the streaming from a subscription music service on a PPC.
You can save an RSS feed of just about anything. All the artists in your library, your playlists, all the albums, all the songs, top 20 lists, etc.
I'm about to try and find an RSS reader for WM5 that might make this a reality. Even if one doesn't exist that works well, the RSS provides an open source for others to make a music browser type interface. Who knows what will happen. One could potentially make a program for WM that reads the RSS feeds and lets you browse, select, and play music much like the interface on an iPod or something. The difference being you have up to 2 million songs to choose from at any given time.
..........
...........
Requirements:
1) Has the ability to use the "Album Artist" tag to organize its library and not just the "Artist" tag. For those many who do not understand the importance of this let me say it makes a huge difference with CD's such as movie soundtracks, classical music CD's and other compilations that have one or more guest artists contributing on a particular track.
For example, take the soundtrack for "O Brother, Where Art Thou". There are 19 tracks and nearly every one by a different artist. If that one CD was the only CD on your TP2 and you opened the library of one of the current mobile media players and selected the "Artist" view you would see 19 different artists listed each owning the CD "O Brother, Where Art Thou". If instead the media player was able to organize its library by the "Album Artist" tag there would only be a single entry for "Various Artists" or "Original Soundtrack".
On a 16 GB SD card with several hundred ripped CD's this can be the difference between a managable artist list 200 long versus one that is 1000+ long and totally unmanagable.
2) Proper alphabetization; Ignores the words "A" and "The" if they begin an artist name. For example, "The Black Crowes" should be in the B's not the T's. It's OK that "Bob Dylan" be listed in the B's since there is no way to distinguish first and last names. I don't know of any media player on any platform that does this.
3) Uses a library Db created from tags and not just a folder/file structure. Can open a detailed properties view that gives extended info culled from tags and file data. (Genre, Audio format, etc.)
4) Has a "Finger-friendly" GUI and ideally can replace the HTC media player on the TF3D music tab.
Apps tested (so far)
1) HTC Media Player:
It's big plus is that it has a tab in TF3D so it is well integrated and easy to get to. It is also finger friendly. Unfortunately it does not utilize the "Album Artist" tag for organizing it's library (even though it does read the tag and display it when you view a music files properties). It also does not ignore "A" and "The" and places "The Black Crowes" under the T's. In addition I have found a bug that causes it to play tracks out of order. On most of the albums I've put on my SD card tracks 1 and 6 are switched (i.e. it shows and plays the tracks in the following order 6,2,3,4,5,1,7,8,9. On some albums the track order is even more random.
2) Windows Mobile Media Player:
"The Black Crowes" is properly listed in the B's but it also does not organize its library by the "Album Artist" tag (even though the full PC version of WMP does). Its default GUI is not very finger friendly, the buttons are a bit small and the library text is too small to be selected accurately with fingers. It is skinnable so I'm looking for one that fits the TP2's TF3D style and better suited to fingers versus a stylus. I'm also trying to put it on the TF3D music tab instead of the HTC media player.
3) Nitrogen:
Does not seem to utilize tags at all and instead relies on the folder structure and file names to organize music. It does have nice big buttons and is very finger friendly and the skin fits well in TF3D even though it is black text/buttons on a white background instead of TF3D's white on a black background.
4) S2P (Slide to Play):
Like Nitrogen it does not utilize tags at all and relies on the folder structure and file names to organize music. It is designed to be finger friendly and has an interesting GUI that makes good use of finger swipes and sliding panels.
5) ? Suggestions:
Most important is the album artist tag issue followed by the proper alphabetization. So far I prefer to use Windows Media Player but am still looking.
I've heard that Microsoft will be incorporating its Zune interface for the Windows mobile media player. I've never seen the Zune interface up close but I'm hoping it addresses the above shortcomings and, if so, bacomes avaiable to the TP2 soon.
S
Reserved for future media player reviews.
S
+1 !!!!
I have exactly the same problem !
I past 3 hours to manage my music PC library of WMP to finaly have a very poor result on my phone :'(
The Music Player integrate on the touchflow looks pretty, but it miss a lot of utilities, WMP looks more complet, but uggly and too small :'(
Both of theme have the problem of the "listing tag"
I'm also seeking for a complet music player with a good listin and if it's possible a "cover flow".
(Sorry for my poor english).
You have tested the core player 1.3.5 or 1.3.6?
I have a nice skin for this player...
mike2nl said:
You have tested the core player 1.3.5 or 1.3.6?
I have a nice skin for this player...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have not but I want to. Unfortunately, it does not look like it has a trial edition so it will cost me $30 to find out if it has what I need. Can you tell me if it can make use of the "Album Artist" tag for library organization and/or if it properly alphabetizes "The Band" under the B's not the T's?
S
I'm currently using S2P.
It's the most feature complete of all the players I've tried. It's almost perfect.
I'd recommend giving S2P a try.
http://s2p.ac-s2.com/
Maverick777 said:
I'm currently using S2P.
It's the most feature complete of all the players I've tried. It's almost perfect.
I'd recommend giving S2P a try.
http://s2p.ac-s2.com/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I updated my OP with S2P info.
After using both Nitrogen and S2P I had 2nd thoughts on the tag vs. file/folder structure to organize a music library. As long as the artist folders are named correctly both the "Album Artist" and the alphabetization issues are solved.
Unfortunately that requires a lot of manual labor and also means there is no extended info available. I have put an enormous amount of work into properly tagging my music library on my media server at home and I would like to benefit from that work on my TP2 as well as any other playback devices I might use.
S
I asked CorePlayer support about the "Album Artist" tag and alpha issue last Saturday. Today I got an email saying that I haven't responded in 72 hrs and could they close the case. They never even tried to answer me. Simply ignored me for nearly a week and then asked if the issue was resolved and could they close the case!
I still don't know if CP will meet my needs but their support sure looks like crap.
S
I might as well chime in here, I'm looking for other media players like tcpmp that resume where you left off even after you close it fully. I listen to a lot of audio books and it's a pain to find your place again. Tcpmp is the only one I've seen but it's a bit unwieldy to use with fingers.
CorePlayer's support is TERRIBLE, they also promise frequent updates an seldom provide. A huge thumbs down to the company and product in general. They banned my office IP without explanation from their forums after I asked why no one had responded to my emails, support tickets, and phone calls, about a bug I found in their forum software that makes it unable to e-mail me at the .ws domain, preventing me from being unable to activate my account on their forum. Unfortunately it is also one of the better players out there in general. Though it is very UN finger friendly.
oldpueblo said:
I might as well chime in here, I'm looking for other media players like tcpmp that resume where you left off even after you close it fully. I listen to a lot of audio books and it's a pain to find your place again. Tcpmp is the only one I've seen but it's a bit unwieldy to use with fingers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try S2P links in posts above. It will do exactally what you need, I listen to alot of Podcasts in small portions and it does the trick. Its finger friendly too
It's a shame that S2P doesn't support gapless playback (I listen to primarily DJ compilations (mostly that I've ripped myself... kinda a stickler for quality)
Conduit's Pocket Player is also good, it supports streaming podcasts album art and gapless playback/cross-fading (you gotta set the cross-fade to "0" for gapless). It cost about $20 but if you can't afford that it can be obtained via other means as well.
Forgot to mention that sometimes pocket player will disable my hardware buttons >_<, this has only happened on my TP2 though, sucks none-the-less.
sleonard said:
I asked CorePlayer support about the "Album Artist" tag and alpha issue last Saturday. Today I got an email saying that I haven't responded in 72 hrs and could they close the case. They never even tried to answer me. Simply ignored me for nearly a week and then asked if the issue was resolved and could they close the case!
I still don't know if CP will meet my needs but their support sure looks like crap.
S
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Protonus said:
CorePlayer's support is TERRIBLE, they also promise frequent updates an seldom provide. A huge thumbs down to the company and product in general. They banned my office IP without explanation from their forums after I asked why no one had responded to my emails, support tickets, and phone calls, about a bug I found in their forum software that makes it unable to e-mail me at the .ws domain, preventing me from being unable to activate my account on their forum. Unfortunately it is also one of the better players out there in general. Though it is very UN finger friendly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow. Their support is so bad it's almost comical. Almost.
After going a few rounds of them ignoring my questions and closing the ticket because there was no response and me re-opening the ticket in an apparently vain attempt to get my questions answered I joined their user forum and asked if I could get some help because official support was ignoring me. The next morning I had been permanently banned.
Absolutely amazing.
Needless to say I will not become a paying customer and I cannot review the product here as a result.
S
sleonard said:
Needless to say I will not become a paying customer and I cannot review the product here as a result.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can get the player through a less legal way:X Read this info and try it, it will stick with you
I'm having the same problems, I'm looking for the exact same things. Here my reviews:
Touch Flow 3D Player:
Pro's:
- Finger friendly
- Looks good
Con's:
- Ordering of songs FAIL ( when no track number is set, the whole list goes crazy )
- Slow ( It will need 2 secs to start-up a song )
- When you go back to the list you selected your current playing song from, it will go back to the top. Which is extremely enoying when your browsing 80+ albums or 2000+ songs, anyway, you get my point
Media Player:
con's
- Not finger friendly + Looks suck => Dropped it right away
S2P:
Pro's
- Best looking of all players
- Finger Friendly
con's
- SLOW
- No library => Dropped it right away
CorePlayer:
pro's:
- Best Library of all players
- Has an Alphabetic Vertical Scroll, when you press the 'B' it will go to all songs / albums ( depending on what your browsing ) that start with B. Extremely handy
- Browsing works well with fingers.
- After picking a good theme, the whole thing becomes more finger friendly and will look better ( for example my own theme: http://reb3lzrr.com/forum/viewthread.php?forum_id=9&thread_id=27&pid=122#post_122 )
- BEST when it comes down to options / custimization
con's:
- Default theme is NOT finger friendly and looks terrible, but that can be fixed
when your looking for a player that;
- orders your music in a way you want it,
- has a lot of tweaks / customizations
- handles like a charm
go for CorePlayer!
Gz reb3lzrr
?
reb3lzrr, Is your skin for Pocket player or Core player? If it is able to work in Core player, how do you change the skin in core player
have you tried kinoma media player? Finger friend and very intuitive interface.
I just installed a 30-day trial of Pocket Media Player and reb3lzrr's skin.
Good news is that it understands the "Album Artist" tag as well as the "Contributing Artist" tag and many others as well. Very good sign.
Bad news is that it sorts "The Beatles" incorrectly under T instead of B I did see a setting in the options that might help with that. /crosses fingers
There is a ton of options that will take me some time to sort thru so it will be a good week or so playing around with it.
After this I'll take a look at Kinoma.
S
sleonard said:
I updated my OP with S2P info.
After using both Nitrogen and S2P I had 2nd thoughts on the tag vs. file/folder structure to organize a music library. As long as the artist folders are named correctly both the "Album Artist" and the alphabetization issues are solved.
Unfortunately that requires a lot of manual labor and also means there is no extended info available. I have put an enormous amount of work into properly tagging my music library on my media server at home and I would like to benefit from that work on my TP2 as well as any other playback devices I might use.
S
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you sync your music to your phone via windows media player it automatically creates the mp3 files in an artist and album folder structure (completely based off of the info from the mp3s).
Does anyone know how to remove the 499 song limit from your WinMo/Touch Flo player library? I am dying here with my Rhapsody subscription... All the songs are transfered, but only 499 tracks show up in the library...
I have tried S2P: great but doesn't handle compliation albums (soundtracks) well... Pocket Player: same story on compliations... and a few other free ware ones, but seriously, I actually like the WMP with the Skins I have found.
Any ideas on removing it?
japper88 said:
If you sync your music to your phone via windows media player it automatically creates the mp3 files in an artist and album folder structure (completely based off of the info from the mp3s).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do use WMP to sync music to my phone and you're right it does create the proper folder structure and this is why I briefly reconsidered my position on having a library with support for the Album Artist tag but since it doesn't support any tags at all you lose access to all of the metadata.
zcarman said:
Does anyone know how to remove the 499 song limit from your WinMo/Touch Flo player library? I am dying here with my Rhapsody subscription... All the songs are transfered, but only 499 tracks show up in the library...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have not noticed this limit. I have over 2000 songs synced to my phone and they all seem to show up. (I haven't counted but I can't find any missing)
zcarman said:
I have tried S2P: great but doesn't handle compliation albums (soundtracks) well... Pocket Player: same story on compliations... and a few other free ware ones, but seriously, I actually like the WMP with the Skins I have found.
Any ideas on removing it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have found Pocket Player to be the only one to properly handle compilations because it is the only one to support the Album Artist tag. Use WMP on the PC to set the Album Artist to "Various Artists" or "Soundtrack" and Pocket Player will work perfectly. Their support has told me that in the next version they will also support proper alphbetization so the "The Beatles" will be listed in the library under B not T.
I also like WMP a lot and have found a skin that makes it more finger friendly. Now I am thinking about learning how to make my own skins for it.
Currently I am back to using the Music tab of TF3D. Despite it's very annoying bugs and design flaws having a TF3D tab is a BIG advantage. I just wish there was a way to create a tab for a 3rd party player such as Pocket Player.
S
I always used to synchronize my music with WMP and now that I've got a Hero (my previous one was HTC S730), it doesn't work anymore. WMP Says:
Your device requires that this file be converted in order to play on the device. However, the device either does not support playing audio, or Windows Media Player cannot convert the file to an audio format that is supported by the device.
Any thoughts?
My entire music collection has two things which don't work on the hero:
1. Album art is WMP format (separate .jpg files for each album)
2. Artist: Artist/Featured artist/Featured artist 2 Album Artist: Artist
Every artist/featured artist combination is handled as a separate artist, while WMP mobile did a good job!
I'll have to bump..
I forgot to mention that it handles genres wrong way too. Some songs have a few genres assigned to them, example:
Pop; Pop Rock
WMP assigns that song to both genres, "Pop" and "Pop Eock", while Android player just makes a genre called "Pop; Rock".
Maybe there are some good 3rd party players on the Market (so far I couldn't find one).
Okay, I have got a solution y'all!
You don't have to ruine your library just to make it compatible with Android..
Search for a program called "MediaMonkey". Free edition DOES NOT do the job, but you can easily find a free-ed version (it's called "Gold"). I'm using version 3.1.1 Gold, which at the moment latest.
I still prefer using WMP for listening to music and I only use MediaMonkey for all the dirty job!
Just take a peek at this screenshot! It cures bad Android player, though you loose some of the data on the device - additional genres and featured artists.
http://www.failai.in/P/1256077992_Capture.JPG
This is a pretty frustrating question but I just can't seem to find the answer anywhere else.
When using the default music player, I like to listen to music in categories. Naturally this would be a great application of the Genre View. The problem here is that even though I manually tag the files with either winamp, windows or any other program, the application just ignores them and decides to group them into whatever genre it feels like.
I subsequently tried Mixzing but it seems to do the exact same thing.
I can't help but wonder if they share the same sort of media engine, samsung designed and somehow failing me at this point.
Anyone have any input?
Bumping myself after 3 days, sorry this is just too annoying to let go so easily.
So nobody else's vibrant ignores MP3 tags data at will? It's just me?
I heard this was a fix in Froyo, but this is pretty annoying. It essentially makes the payer useless for large volumes of music.
Same S D D
Albums show up as Genre's on My Vibrant
Yes, the stock music player and most other players on the market including Mixzing use the underlying Android music database. This is why the tags will be identical between players. The use of the Genre tag in the database sucks. It should be Genre -> Artists -> Albums -> Titles like all ipods do.
As for tags, always use ID3 v2.3 tags if at all possible. 2.4 has less compatibility. MP3Tag is very good.
Call me old school but i got several midi files i enjoy. On my old touch pro2, they play fine but on the S4 default music player they don't sound anywhere as good. First the sound is clipped and a lot of time distorted. Also the instrument sounds are off compared to the media player that comes with WM6.5. Anyone got a solution/suggestion? thanks
I don't know of many players on mobile or desktop that bother to properly support midi anymore. At this point I just listen to them through WMP. They're mostly old NES/PS1 theme songs that I won't let go of. Figured one of these days I should try to find the midis recorded as mp3's to save myself the headache.
Converting them to mp3 is a solution I guess. At least that will keep the sound consistent instead of depending on the particular device/player to interpret the midi. Take more space but I guess will b ok w a 64 gb microsdxc.. just wish midi support better