Hi,
On longer trips I want to use my Xoom as a movieplayer in the car for the kids. I'm looking for a kidfriendly-way to display the movies (large icons or something like that) so they can easily navigate and start a movie. My oldest is 6 years.
Any suggestions ?
Thanks in advance !
Moboplayer
I'm a big fan of mobo player. You can set it to check certain directories as default and it displays thumbnails to choose from. My just turned four year old can navigate it no problem. The other cool thing is that while a movie is playing you can hit the menu button and it will lock the screen until you hit menu again.
Best of all its free. Load up the app in the market and the first time you start it it will prompt you to download device specific files.
One more thing - if for some reason the hardware decoding isn't playing a file just hold down the file and it will give you a prompt to play it with software decoding. If it becomes a constant problem you can set software decoding as the default.
I use MovieBrowser HD as the front end, and Mobo player with its codecs (that it will download when you first launch it) to play the movies back. I have a 32gig uSD card loaded up with movies convered via DVD Catalyst 4.
My 3 year old can turn on my Xoom, unlock it, connect my Logitech BT stereo head set, find MovieBrowser HD app (no matter if I have an icon on the home screen, or he has to go to the app drawer), and launch whatever movie he's in the mood for. He even goes up to my room to grab it when he wants to watch a movie.
When I hang it over a "seat back protector/organizer" in the car it becomes my "rear seat entertainment center" for him. Glad I didn't spend the money on the rear seat DVD system option in my car (would have been an added $3000). He just reaches out and does what he needs to, and he's happy.
Unfortunately, I rarely get to use my Xoom now
I found it easier to use the stock video player. Spent $30 on any DVD converter for android it converts the files and optimizes for Xoom. Then I did not need to worry about codecs and why it won't play an MKV file today. Also found it kid friendly with big pictures from the beginning of the movie so most of the time they can identify what it is without having to read the title.
Mizuu?
/10 char
MX Player !!!
Just yesterday I installed the newest MX Player again to see what kind of feature set it has. And I don't even know how new it is but it actually has two separate "Kid Lock" modes.
So, in the Settings->Player->Touch Controls->Lock Mode
There are two options:
1) Kids Lock - locks out the screen and buttons (except for power and volume at least on my Galaxy Nexus)
2) Kids Lock (+ Touch Effects) - Same as kids lock, except it adds ToddlerLock style screen effects.
I hope this helps!
piotrusc said:
Hi,
On longer trips I want to use my Xoom as a movieplayer in the car for the kids. I'm looking for a kidfriendly-way to display the movies (large icons or something like that) so they can easily navigate and start a movie. My oldest is 6 years.
Any suggestions ?
Thanks in advance !
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Go to the screen where you want to place the movie shortcut.
2. Find your ES File Explorer App. And open it.
3. Find your folder that has your digital movies and open it.
4. Find the movie you want to create a shortcut with and long press it.
5. Next you will see different options, chose the one that says “Shortcut” it will automatically place it on the screen.
6. Now back all the way out of ES File Explorer until you get to the desktop.
7. Long press the shortcut you just made, and choose edit.
8. You will see a box pop up along with the keyboard. Type the name you want to call it or just delete the file extension example (mp4, etc)
9. Next tap the big icon to change it and choose select picture, then Gallery, then you should see the movie Icon you have downloaded select it then hit OK.
To find the movie icons just do a Google search for the movie (Example: Fast and the Furious 2 icons)
http://www.fanpop.com/spots/the-fast-and-the-furious-movies/images
I always use Fanpop.com and once you get on the movie page there is usually a movie banner at the top of the page and to the left of the banner there is a picture of the movie. Just long press and chose view image, it will open up to a small picture in the upper left hand corner. Long press and choose “Save Image”. It should place it your gallery folder. You should probably do this first before you create shortcuts for your movies.
Related
Does anyone know of any today plugins for windows media player so that track information and controlling play/pause, next track etc can be done from the today screen.
I often find i start WMP, then while doing other things suddenly want to stop a tune playing etc, and have to go back into media player.
I know there's other programs like mort player that allow this, but is there any plugins for WMP.
I've tried PHM's pocket plus - http://www.phm.lu/Products/PocketPC/Plus/#PHMtWMP, but that doesn't seem to work with WMP10.
interested in this also... let me know if you find anything. thanks
been on a business trip and it's only now that i saw this post. here you go then; nice little app / today plugin that allows you to use your media player and control it from the today screen. it also gives you an extra option of displaying both battery and memory bars/indicators. the website is:
http://www.mobiletechreview.com/software/PPC_MP3_players.htm
scroll down and you'll "today player". clicking on it will give you this site:
http://www.todayplayer.com/
just copy the cab file and execute it through your unit. from there; go to today settings and click on the box to allow the plug in to appear on your screen. it gives you a play button, stop, previous and next songs, etc. the note icon on the left gives you a bunch of options; best of all it gives you an option of "lights off" meaning the media player will continue to play even if the screen is off. the 3-bar icon on the right gives you the options of loading playlists which you make through your media player. it also allows you to load folders for songs and such. it also shows you the song currently being played.
the only drawback i see is that it's limited to playing mp3 and ogg only. i have a bunch of wma files somewhere and i had to convert them to mp3. but other than that; i like it.
cheers
This is a stand alone player and it's very nice (had it on my iPAQ) tried this on my i-mate JAM before and had some display issues were in the player would not refresh properly... I don't think it has been fixed as dev't on this application has been stopped.
Robson said:
been on a business trip and it's only now that i saw this post. here you go then; nice little app / today plugin that allows you to use your media player and control it from the today screen. it also gives you an extra option of displaying both battery and memory bars/indicators. the website is:
http://www.mobiletechreview.com/software/PPC_MP3_players.htm
scroll down and you'll "today player". clicking on it will give you this site:
http://www.todayplayer.com/
just copy the cab file and execute it through your unit. from there; go to today settings and click on the box to allow the plug in to appear on your screen. it gives you a play button, stop, previous and next songs, etc. the note icon on the left gives you a bunch of options; best of all it gives you an option of "lights off" meaning the media player will continue to play even if the screen is off. the 3-bar icon on the right gives you the options of loading playlists which you make through your media player. it also allows you to load folders for songs and such. it also shows you the song currently being played.
the only drawback i see is that it's limited to playing mp3 and ogg only. i have a bunch of wma files somewhere and i had to convert them to mp3. but other than that; i like it.
cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I did take a look at this, but was hoping for one that was actually integrated into WMP and not standalone.
SPB pocket free plug in
Go there :
http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/products/pocketplus/plugins.html?en
SPB today player alllow through SPB pocket plus to control WM10 !
Have fun!
Media Player Quick Launch
If you are looking for a free Quick Launcher for your Today screen for WMP - then you might want to check out this one - lots of free stuff but the top one seems to be what you are looking for. Haven't tried it myself - but looks to hit the mark - let me know how you get on...
http://www.modaco.com/Freeware-t205413.html
:wink: [/url][/quote]
Can someone please explain to me how Android uses the various types of media the SD card? From what I can see it just grabs every single picture on the card and displays it in the pictures app. Same for music, it will just grab any mp3 regardless of it's location.
How do I set it up so that pictures only shows the pics from one dir and it's sub-dir's and same for the music app with mp3s?
Edit: The reason I ask is that I have all my MP3s in sub-dir under a music parent dir on the SD card. These sub-dirs have album art pics and stuff in them. When I open up the pictures app it says I have dozens of folders with pics in them because it is saying that all the cover artwork in the music folder are pics. I just want the pics app to show pics from a certain directory and not show every single jpg on the SD card.
I totally agree with you. Showing every damn photo on the SD card makes the Baby Jesus cry.
I have to wait for hundreds of thumbnails to generate because it feels the need to include every image in every directory on the card --- including the caches for several apps... it's totally retarded.
Expect 3rd party apps to handle this (I think there might already be a few). Google stuck with the policy of keeping the base OS simple, yet expandable. Odds are the 3rd party apps won't be free, but that's the price of having a simple OS to start with. Perhaps an update someday may address this but I highly doubt it.
I understand this, and I don't mind paying for a few core apps that IMHO are sorely needed for the G1... better photo management, better media player and a better contact manager. Of those three, the contact manager is definitely the best of the bunch, but it's still missing a few features that I'd like to see, such as photos on the scrool list and better group management --- but the media player and photo browser blow. It's so hard to navigate either of them. For instance, if I want to change pause the song I'm listening to while in another program - I have to go to the home page, wait for page to display, find and open the music app, figure out where I am, find the "playback" menu option (which is in a different place in different areas of the app) and then hit pause. It really shuould just be "open music player, press pause."
I almost like tunewiki, but they really push the lyrics and the streaming menu options..
I recently found ambient player on sourceforge - it's a port of amarok. It's OK, but the buttons are WAY too small for the phone... I cant even tell what I'm pressing. It's only on version 0.3.1 but hopefully it's still progressing.
nolageek said:
I understand this, and I don't mind paying for a few core apps that IMHO are sorely needed for the G1... better photo management, better media player and a better contact manager. Of those three, the contact manager is definitely the best of the bunch, but it's still missing a few features that I'd like to see, such as photos on the scrool list and better group management --- but the media player and photo browser blow. It's so hard to navigate either of them. For instance, if I want to change pause the song I'm listening to while in another program - I have to go to the home page, wait for page to display, find and open the music app, figure out where I am, find the "playback" menu option (which is in a different place in different areas of the app) and then hit pause. It really shuould just be "open music player, press pause."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For me it's the dialer the worst thing, im used to use de numeric keypad for contact search, and it just doesn't work in the g1.
howewer, about your audio question, i use the standart player and when i'm listening music there's an entry in the notification bar that goes directly to the player, also with the standar speakers you could use the button to stop the music, and to go to the next song with a double clik.
jcuadrado, you're looking for SpellDial, it should do what you want and it's free. Start entering the the contacts name and it searches by each letter you enter. Biggest downside is the lack of wildcard search.
PhotoSlide may be good for image browsing it's $.99 but it's predecessor was nice, android gallery. I haven't tried the paid version but 'folder select' is one of it's options.
aPlayer, another free app. May suit you in the music player department. It allows you to choose which folder on the SD to play music from.
Anyway these are the cheap/free ones. there'll probably be more advanced apps in the weeks to come but hey, it's a start
After all these new applications coming up these days, i had a thought of something really important to me as an application and maybe nice for the rest of you who like watching movies from your pc using your big tv.
Well i always love to watch a movie at night after a working day, i have a couple of discs full of them. in order to choose a movie or something, i need to have a mouse near me, or a remote control in order to find a movie away from my pc.
i know there are some applications out there that control media center, but to my taste they suck because media center's video management sucks too.
so i thought of having a new application on our pda, that will allow us to check our movie folders, like the picture i made below.
I would love to develop this on my own, but i have no idea how to create nice flow animations. so if anyone has time and wants to develop something like this i would be grateful
How it should work.....
1) it needs to connect to a server side (since it is a client-server side app), using wifi, maybe bluetooth too
2) i should be able to choose which application will open as default the chosen movie. i like to use Neuview player for my videos, but someone else would like powerdvd or vlc, etc
3) i should be able to choose from which folders i want the application to show movies
4) the pda should definately display the picture of the movie (it will read from the pc the picture from the movie's folder which is called "folder.jpg"
5) from the pda i should change the volume up , volume down, and skip forward or backward.
6) maybe some other features that u might think, like shutting down the pc from the pda too.
here is the picture of how i imagine this (it doesn't need to be a manilla plugin , i just used the people tab, because i like the way it displays things. This is how i imagine the application would look like too.)
hope i see people getting interested on this. GRemote doesn't help because you can't choose a movie from there. and i hate using Media center.
thank u for ur time. and sorry for any text mistakes... i am very tired
This seems legit! And if you made it into a very good today plugin, i could use it with MTP on tf3d2
no idea how to make it as a today plugin i need someone's knownledge on this thing and for the animation. propably .net is not the language for this, and i don't know something else that i can develop this.
I'm working on something similar (though not as a today plugin).
TeDeV said:
How it should work.....
1) it needs to connect to a server side (since it is a client-server side app), using wifi, maybe bluetooth too
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It connects via Wifi
TeDeV said:
2) i should be able to choose which application will open as default the chosen movie. i like to use Neuview player for my videos, but someone else would like powerdvd or vlc, etc
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It doesn't do this Windows Media Center only...
TeDeV said:
3) i should be able to choose from which folders i want the application to show movies
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is categorised and created via metadata stored on the server pc with a local cache on the phone containing virtual directories.
TeDeV said:
4) the pda should definately display the picture of the movie (it will read from the pc the picture from the movie's folder which is called "folder.jpg"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It shows the picture, along with the synopsis of the film.
TeDeV said:
5) from the pda i should change the volume up , volume down, and skip forward or backward.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can do all of the above, along with show current progress of the currently playing media, and move around to various screens within Media Center.
TeDeV said:
6) maybe some other features that u might think, like shutting down the pc from the pda too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can't do this one as yet...
Have a look, it's called TouchRC. I'm currently writing the browsing of the metadata at the moment, so this will be in the next release of the app.
~evorgevol
can u plz mind to inlcude, no mcp video play?
it sucks. seriously. i have a lot of episodes with seasons etc. the stupid media center creates a virtual folder in the movie list for each episode, and it drives me crazy!
i will check your application, but since u tell me that it only works with mcp, it's out.
+1
I'd be willing to donate to the cause if it was omnia(240x400) compatible.
i had a little time yesterday, and i kinda worked a bit with the graphics and so on.
as you can see i have added a "mirror" effect under my movies, but i don't know how i can make a transparent - gradient image in vb. can someone help me with this?
here is a pic of how it looks like
I have 1 minute audio clips that i've organized into a folder using dates
For example
04-12-10 Audio.mp3
05-04-10 Audio2.mp3
Having them named like that, puts them all in order when i sort from name because then the lower number is the oldest.. and the highest number is the newest since the first number is the month
Anyways -- i want to go into a folder... select the first file and let it play in order one after another
I haven't been able to think of a way to do that... stock music player doesn't really let you do much, you can only manually add scanned tracks into a playlist (and going through these files would take a really long time)
I got pretty close using a combination of Astro + Music Player (not the stock one, the app)
In astro, i went into the folder, i selected all and used the music option and hit add to playlist... but in Music Player when i choose the playlist, it won't let me see the files within the playlist.. it just plays on its own... which sucks
Any other methods of doing what i want?
The files are podcasts and i'm going for a really long drive, so i want it to play them after another while i drive
Hi,
First, not sure this is the right place to post this, if not sorry !
I just got my LG G Watch R (and I love it !), but something is bothering me, I've seen some apps to control the music player, but nothing really great.
For example the stock app, when screen is "off" (not actually off, you know what I mean), you have to wake the screen, slide to the left and then you have the buttons to change the volume. Same thing to skip a song.
I'd like something more customizable, because I took a face for the watch where the time is displayed on the top of the scree so I have space not used, I could have a next song button, etc.
One other thing is the lack of possibility to browse through artists or albums, why ? I mean I get there's not much space, but with some thinking we could have a way to scroll through everything. In the end I have to use my phone everytime I want to listen to another artist.
So If anyone knows an android wear apps that at least browse through artist that would be nice,
and if they're none, I guess I'll just develop it myself !
Thanks.
Edit : After some digging on stack, it seems like this music card can't be removed, so I guess what I wanted to do is impossible.
If you're willing to use a totally separate app, stelio music player has the option to not trigger the default notification and it's own notification can be hidden like any other. You can also select music from the library with it, though when you select an artist it shows all songs by artist instead of artist > album > song. I've made the suggestion to add that and the dev has said he's working on it so hopefully that gets added soon. For some reason the app is not currently on the play store but the website is stellio.ru if you want to check it out.
Oh and I almost forgot but there is a plugin for poweramp that allows for browsing the library on the watch called Poweramp Remote that will allow you to browse but it does not get rid of the stock card. I know you're looking for a watch face but those two at least allow you to browse the library.