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Super Video Converter

SUPER © Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer.
A GUI to ffmpeg, mencoder, mplayer, x264, ffmpeg2theora & the theora/vorbis RealProducer plugIn.

If you need a simple, yet very efficient tool to convert (encode) or play any Multimedia file,
without reading manuals or spending long hours training, then SUPER © is all you need.
It is a Multimedia Encoder and a Multimedia Player, easy-to-use with 1 simple click.

SUPER © is totally FREE to download and to use. (Available here: http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html)
It plays & converts very fast full length movies to any other format with NO time limitation.

Please read the changelog and the following details to see how:
SUPER © does for FREE what other encoders CAN’T do for money.

SUPER © IS UNIVERSAL as it supports a wide variety of input/source file format to play
or encode (to & from) without any additional third party software.
Supported input source file formats are:
– Video format: 3gp/3g2(Nokia,Siemens,Sony,Ericsson) asf, avi (DivX,H263,H263+,H264,XviD,MPEG4,MSmpeg4 etc..), dat,
fli, flc, flv (used in Flash), mkv, mpg (Mpeg I,Mpeg II), mov(H263,H263+,H264,MPEG4 etc..), mp4(H263,H263+,H264,MPEG4), ogg,
qt, rm, ram, rmvb, str (Play Station), swf (Flash), ts (HDTV), viv, vob, wmv
– Audio format: ac3, amr, mp2, mp3, mp4, ogg, ra, wav, wma
– AviSynth Script Files: avs. Let you specify advanced encoding commands using AviSynth scripts!
SUPER © supports the conversion (encoding both ways, to & from ) of ALL the listed formats.
To list few examples:
drag & drop any Audio file or even any VIDEO file and EXTRACT the AUDIO part by converting it to
mp2, mp3, wav, ac3, aac, amr_nb or amr_wb format. (the last 3 are playable on Nokia)
Mobile phone 3GP converter Convert any input video format to 3GP. Convert a 3GP file to any other video format.
Mobile phone 3G2 converter Convert any input video format to 3G2. Convert a 3G2 file to any other video format.
PocketPC converter Convert any input video format to a PocketPC file. Convert a PocketPC file to any other video format.
iPod converter Convert any input video format to an iPod file. Convert an iPod file to any other video format.
The rendered iPod files are created using the most advanced video codecs H.264/AVC and MPEG-4 format.
To copy a DVD (that you legally purchased) into a valid iPod format, we recommend that you also use the best
available DVDDecrypter to decrypt the entire DVD and copy the VOB files to your HardDisk in order to encode
them with SUPER ©. Note that DVDDecrypter is also a Freeware.
PSP converter Convert any input video format to a PSP file. Convert a PSP file to any other video format.
The rendered PSP files are created using the most advanced video codecs H.264/AVC and MPEG-4 format.
To copy a DVD (that you legally purchased) into a valid PSP format, we recommend that you also use the best
available DVDDecrypter to decrypt the entire DVD and copy the VOB files to your HardDisk in order to encode
them with SUPER ©. Note that DVDDecrypter is also a Freeware.
VCD converter Convert any input video format to MPG-VCD. Convert an MPG-VCD file to any other video format.
The rendered MPG files are VCD-standard strictly compliant and “NERO burning” compatible. They are seamlessly
accepted by NERO to burn without any additional process and produce a CD playable on most stand alone players.

SVCD converter Convert any input video format to MPG-SVCD. Convert an MPG-SVCD file to any other video format.
The rendered MPG files are SVCD-standard strictly compliant and “NERO burning” compatible. They are seamlessly
accepted by NERO to burn without any additional process and produce a CD playable on most stand alone players.

DVD converter Convert any input video format to VOB-DVD. Convert a VOB-DVD file to any other video format.
The rendered VOB files are DVD-standard strictly compliant and “TMPGEnc DVD Author” compatible. They are
seamleassly accepted by the “TMPGEnc DVD Author” which will add the necessary Menu, create the
additional .bup and .ifo files, rename/split the rendered VOB file to Vts_xx_x.vob before burning to DVD.

AVI converter Convert any input video format to AVI. Convert an AVI file to any other video format.
The rendered AVI files are created using a wide variety of codecs H.264/MPEG-4/DivX/XviD/H.263… together
with ac3, mp3, mp2 or wav audio.

MP4 converter Convert any input video format to MP4. Convert an MP4 file to any other video format.
The rendered MP4 files are created using a wide variety of codecs H.264/MPEG-4/DivX/XviD/H.263… together
with AAC, AMR, wav audio. They are fully playable on QuickTime7.
MOV converter Convert any input video format to MOV. Convert a MOV file to any other video format.
The rendered MOV files are created using a wide variety of codecs H.264/MPEG-4/DivX/XviD/H.263… together
with AAC, AMR, wav audio. They are fully playable on QuickTime7.
ASF converter Convert any input video format to ASF. Convert an ASF file to any other video format.
MPG converter Convert any input video format to MPG. Convert an MPG file to any other video format.
OGG converter Convert any input video format to OGG. Convert an OGG file to any other video format.
WMV converter Convert any input video format to WMV. Convert a WMV file to any other video format.
convert AviSynth script files (.AVS) to any other video format.
convert VCD (.DAT) files to any other format. (Also with Lossless Direct Conversion to MPG VCD-Compliant )
convert Matroska (.MKV) files to any other format.
convert QuickTime (.QT) files to any other format.
convert RealMedia (.RM .RAM .RMVB .RA) files to any other format.
convert Old.Play.Station (.STR) files to any other format.
convert Flash (.SWF) files containing FLV video codec to any other format.
convert HDTV (.TS) files to any other format. (Also with Lossless Direct Conversion To VOB)
convert Vivo (.VIV) files to any other format.
AutoMode to convert any type of video to VCD, SVCD, DVD.
Play all of the above file formats with SUPER ©

SUPER © provides a variety of video codec selection with every file format conversion (encoding).
SUPER © provides a variety of audio codec selection with every file format conversion (encoding).
Easy configuration of the essential output video parameters (size, fps and video bitrate) during file conversion,
simplifying the user’s encoding process while parsing internally optimized video commands for best encoding results.
Easy configuration of the essential output audio parameters (sampling rate, number of channels and audio bitrate)
during file conversion, simplifying the user’s encoding process while parsing internally optimized audio commands
for best encoding results.
Unique Advanced H.264 profile & level selection. Not available in any other software.

Multiple batch file processing by simple file drag and drop.
A built-in Multimedia File Analyzing engine (Portions by MediaInfo) to show tags and internal structure of ALL source
files with a double click.
As SUPER © is a simple GUI, the quality of the rendered files or the played files DOES NOT depend on SUPER ©
The speed, rendered quality or the variety of the codec selection are the result of the great work achieved
by the respective authors of ffmpeg , mencoder , mplayer , x264 , ffmpeg2theora , libavcodec library & the
theora/vorbis RealProducer’s plugIn.
The whole credit SHOULD go to these authors for their great ongoing projects.

SUPER © is compatible with most Windows® platforms.

Leaked: WM 5.0 ROM For Samsung SCH-I730

"Thanks to an anonymous beta tester at pdaphonehome.com, the incredible work of legendary programmer SuperDave and pdaphonehome moderator mrailing, we’ve gotten our hands on the unofficial WM 5.0 AKU2 Rom for the Samsung SCH-I730. It needs not be said (but I’ll say it anyway) that this is an unsupported ROM and we take no responsibility for damage to your device. This is not for the faint of heart. If you’re in doubt, wait for the official release. Still with me? Good. Fortune favors the brave."

[Via Windows Mobile Underground]

Remember… do this at your own risk! But if it works…. let us know!

Can MS Push-Mail really Challenge R.I.M.?

 

“Microsoft Corp. may one day challenge Research In Motion Ltd. for dominance of the mobile email market, but, despite the launch of the first “direct push” email devices, the Windows Mobile operating system isn’t up to the task yet, according to analysts. They point to several constraints. For starters, there aren’t many push-capable Windows Mobile devices out on the market yet, the upgrade path from older devices isn’t at all clear, and enterprises haven’t yet had time to test the server and device software fully to ensure that it works well. “The press seems to be giving Microsoft the benefit of the doubt that their release 1.0 of wireless email software will be competitive with the Blackberry in terms of security, manageability, and battery life,” says Gartner Inc. analyst Todd Kort. “But I have strong doubts about this.” He predicts Microsoft’s wireless email problems will be resolved with the next software revision, expected sometime next year, as well as more and better hardware that exploit it more fully.”

RIM licenses or Microsoft Direct Push? There is much speculation going around about the future for both, with this piece coming to the consensus that RIM need not fear a license drop-off in sales for quite some time. But as new WM 5 devices role out (And non-converged devices seemingly drop off the map), might RIM not be able to rest as long as some predict? How quickly, if ever, will the MS solution become dominant?

The press seems to be giving Microsoft the benefit of the doubt that their release 1.0 of wireless email software will be competitive with the Blackberry in terms of security, manageability, and battery life,” says Gartner Inc. analyst Todd Kort. “But I have strong doubts about this.” He predicts Microsoft’s wireless email problems will be resolved with the next software revision, expected sometime next year, as well as more and better hardware that exploit it more fully.

Kort cites three key weaknesses in the software as it stands:

• Mobile Outlook is still too hard to navigate on a mobile device.
• Windows devices still use too much battery power compared to the Blackberry.
• The security and manageability features in the 1.0 release are inferior to those on the Blackberry.

“Smart companies using Windows Mobile devices will choose GoodLink rather than the Microsoft push email offering, at least until the next Microsoft rev,” comments Kort.

Of course, if users have already installed the RIM email servers it will be difficult for Microsoft to persuade them to swap them out. They tend to be a fiercely loyal bunch. (See RIM’s Unified Theory.)

“We’re a Blackberry shop… We’ve made our investment in their backend, so we’ll be sticking with Blackberry, especially now that the attorneys have made their decision,” says Stephen Taylor, IS manager at Denver-based law firm Rothgerber, Johnson & Lyons.

Companies that do want to implement Microsoft push email for their mobile employees, however, will need to install Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2), which was first made available late in 2005. Then they will also need to upgrade Microsoft Mobile devices with the the Messaging and Security Feature Pack (MSFP) for Windows Mobile 5.0.

Microsoft users, however, will have to get the device upgrade from the hardware manufacturer. And at least right now, it doesn’t look as if many vendors are going to be offering upgrades for anything other than devices with the 5.0 version of the mobile OS.

For instance, Palm Inc. will offer a downloadable upgrade for its new Windows Mobile device, and Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ – message board) will be bringing out a new smartphone using the push software, but vendors aren’t talking about upgrades for older devices.

“You’re better off asking the manufacturers,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Unstrung recently, when we asked about upgrade cycles.

“The OS update process for mobile devices is very device- and manufacturer-specific,” comments David Via of Ferris Research. “I am seeing fewer and fewer device manufacturers even offer major OS updates, like from Windows Mobile 2003 to Windows Mobile 5.”

Many users will just go ahead and buy new devices, as they’re known to do every two to three years, Via added.

This lag between market hype and enterprise reality may not be all bad for Microsoft, however — as Gartner’s Kort points out — there will come a time when users want to do more with their devices than just mobile email.

“About the time Microsoft improves its email offering and fixes mobile Outlook, enterprises will begin entertaining the idea of mobilizing additional applications beyond email, such as CRM, SFA, and field services. This is when Microsoft will become a threat to RIM,” Kort opines.

— Source: Unstrung

Can’t download that video? Now you can – KeepVid lite launched!

 

KeepVid has simplified its web tool, allowing you to save video files from over 45 sites to your computer with a single click of the mouse. Downloading video’s has never been easier

Check it out here!

Whista Theme

This theme is for Wisbar Advance2 and WM5. Available here!

 

TCPMP (CorePlayer) major announcement is eminent!

As reported here!

“Let me tell you what is going on and what you all should prepare for as we get ready for our 1.0 releases. But before that… let me break down each version of our player.

– TCPMP will be renamed back to BetaPlayer™ and will be our Open Source playground for testing new technologies for third party licensing.
– Giving birth will be the long awaited CorePlayer™ , it will be our Closed Source version with alot of features not available in BetaPlayer.

I’m not going to go through alot of the details of in each version at this time. But I will let you know that codecs for our Open Source version of BetaPlayer will be available to purchase in a bundle (CoreASP, CoreAVC™, CoreMP3, CoreAAC v2.0). So no more confusion on proper playback.

CorePlayer will also feature: an entirely new GUI interface, Skin, Advanced Streaming, UPNP support, Integrated webserver, Client Database…

What OS’s?: CE, Windows Mobile, Windows, .NET, Palm, Symbian, Brew, OS X, MacTel, Java, Linux GTK, Linux QT, Linux Qtopia, Linux Freescale. …”

 

 

Review Conduits Pocket Player

PocketNow just issued another good review! 

INTRODUCTION
    I originally bought my Pocket PC with the intention of using it as my portablejukebox. Five minutes after I got it, I discovered that WMP was completely inept at doing anything but crashing (ok, maybe a slight exaggeration). I quickly sought out a replacement, preferably free, and installed the Core Media player. It was adequate, but nothing spectacular. Features included an ugly interface, a basic equalizer, and a general lack of features. Then Pocket Player 2.72 by Conduit came along. Touted to be a “rockin’ way to enjoy music on your Pocket PC or Smartphone,” is this the audio playing software you’ve been searching for? We’ve got the answer ahead!

WHAT’S HOT
   Many Windows Mobile users complain about the instability of Windows Media Player. Apparently, it had something to do with the flux capacitor. Pocket Player is a better alternative with a good bit of control granted to the user. The equalizer actually works well (compared to the buggy Core Media Player equalizer) and the DSP settings can put the bump in your Beethoven and the treble in your Hip Hop. Here’s a list of some of the features:

• Full MP3, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, and WAV support
• 10-band Equalizer and Preamp, with presets
• Visualizations and Album Art1 support
• Track metadata tag support, with browsing
• Windows Mobile 5.0 support
• Skinnable
• HTTP, Windows Network, Shoutcast, Icecast streaming
• ID3 v1/v1.1/v2 reading; scans playlist in background
• Playlist manager keeps track of all playlists on device
• Pocket PC Notification Icon playback controls
• DSP Plugin support, including Bass Boost
• User-managed Bookmarks support; jump to a file and time
• Hardware button mapping, button locking
• Bluetooth Remote control and headphones support
• Optional sleep timer
• Automatic screen shutoff

PRODUCT FEATURES

   The interface is completely skinnable. Each skin can have individual saturation and hue adjustments (see below). One thing to check out on here for you music aficionados is the equalizer. The equalizer contains many presets to match most styles of music, as well as a 10 band manual tuning mode for the tweakers out there. To easily change equalizer settings you can just tap the word next to “EQ” in the bottom right corner of the main screen. If you keep tapping it, you can turn it off.

   Besides the main interface, you have the option to pull up a set of simple controls from the today menu. I have yet to see this feature in another player and I have to say it is VERY convenient for us multi-taskers. Check it out. Just click the notification message in the bottom left of your screen.

You are granted controls from the Today Screen.

Pocket Player can actually load an additional plugin that shows what’s playing. Pretty neat!

   And for all you playlist junkies out there (you know who you are), you have a great interface to create, modify, and listen to various playlists. On top of the program automatically pulling in all your songs, it also pulls in playlists and organizes everything for you.

   Lets check out some of the options that make Pocket Player 2.72 really shine. Tapping “menu” on the main screen, then “options” will bring you to the “Pocket Player Settings” tabs. The first one that comes up is the general tab, lets take a look at this.

   This brings up one of my favorite features of this program that I haven’t seen anywhere else. It may seem simple, but “turn screen off after xx seconds” is awesome. Neither Core or Windows Media Player would do this, forcing you to “dim” the screen by holding down the power button to save any battery life while just using the handheld as a music player. You can set the interval with this first pull down box to whatever you desire. Don’t worry though, if any screen from any program besides the main screen from Pocket Player is up, it won’t turn off the screen! I’ll spare you the “screen turned off with music still playing” screen cap, but take my word for it.

   The next tab is “playback.” I highly suggest using the crossfader on this screen. Anybody familiar with iTunes will love this feature. A crossfader is a tool used by DJs to blend the end of one song into the beginning of the next one. You can turn the crossfader on or off using the tick box next to “Crossfade.” Also, you can change how long of an interval at the end of the song is crossfaded. Too short an interval will not be noticed, and too long of an interval will cut off the end of your song. 4 seconds (the default) is a nice happy medium.

Next up we have the “Skins” tab. Nothing too fancy here that comes with the player. However, you can download more skins from Conduits’ website. This is where you would select which skin you want to use. You can also adjust the hue and saturation of the skin.

     Although the equalizer is nice, I highly suggest tweaking the DSP settings in the options menu under DSP. This feature can really add a new aspect to your audio files and you can listen to them like they were meant to be heard. It also can compensate for those two-dollar headphones you use with your five-hundred dollar Pocket PC.

   You can set your DSP settings in this menu and even adjust individual frequency bands for which the DSP will affect the sound. Try fooling around with these settings, they are highly dependent on what type of music you listen to, and how you like your music to sound so they will be different for everyone.

   Anybody with some Winamp experience probably knows, loves, and fears the plugin. I took a look at the installed plugins, as well as the ones available on the website. Currently there are only a handful of additional plugins to download, but the a developer pack is offered for free on the website which means there may be a surge of third-party plugins available for download at some point.

   The visualizations are accessible under the “Vis” tab. Included in the download is a pretty cool set of visualization plugins.

  You can change the visualization settings using the “Vis” tab. Check out the options available.

   We have a few options here. The speed you may want to leave alone because any higher and you will experience some serious slowdown. I do suggest changing “cycle colors” to on at the interval of your choice. What this does is every X seconds the visualization will fade into a new color. Way cool! You can experiment with the different visualization plugins available, as well as change the small visualization you see in the corner of the main screen by the equalizer. Regarding framerates – while the visualization wasn’t super smooth, it was plenty adequate to be enjoyable.

Next up lets take a look at the “Buttons” tab. Here is what it will look like when you pull it up.

   The default setup works fine for me, and is very easy to use especially when you don’t feel like taking out your stylus everytime you want to make a quick change to your volume, current song, etc… If you want to customize the hardware buttons, you can do it here very easily. Just follow the instructions on screen, select the function, then press a button. Also one cool thing you might want to consider is un-checking “Un-map buttons during background play.” If you don’t normally use the buttons, or there is a button you don’t use a lot, you can easily change songs, change volume or anything you want with just a button press while you are hard at work playing solitaire.

The associations tab is fairly self explanatory.

Here’s a shot of the advanced tab, which lets you gain a lot of control over how the program behaves.

HELP SUPPORT
    Everything was self explanatory. I had no problems figuring out the basic playback features and quickly picked up on the more advanced options. A full user guide is available online here.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
    Pocket Player 2.72 should run on all recent versions of Windows Mobile, including Smartphone. It will use up 1MB of your storage RAM and 4MB of your program RAM. It ran well on my Axim x51v on full power mode, and a little sluggish on normal and power save modes, so the more processor speed you have the better, especially if you want to use the visualizations.

BUGS AND WISHES
    The only bug I found was that the playlist will refresh on top of itself while scrolling. You have probably seen this in a lot of music players for your PC such as Winamp. This tends to happen when you have a large playlist, and is not a large issue. The three wishes I have for this program include native M4A support, network file support, and video playback. For some reason people create these M4A files that nothing will play. The network support is something I haven’t seen yet in a mobile player natively, but hey, it’s just a wish right? As far as the video playback goes, this program does music so well, I would trust them to handle my videos too.

PURCHASING
    Pocket Player is available for a reasonable $19.95 here. If you want to try it out, they have a 30 day demo available.

Earthcomber gets enhanced with DiscoverOurTown!

DiscoverOurTown, an Internet city guide for 2,000 USA cities, is now available in a mobile GPS-enabled format for Palm OS and Windows Mobile PDAs and smartphones. The new travel guides are powered by Earthcomber, a free mobile service that matches users favorite interests to spots around them.

“For those who aren’t rushing to get to a destination and would much rather discover the hidden treasures along the roadways, now they have an easy way to find out whether a side-trip off the main road is worthwhile,” said Howell Jones, vice president of DiscoverOurTown.

Earthcomber just got bigger and better with the addition of DiscoverOurTown listings, which is now available with a FREE download of Earthcomber. So go ahead and say good-bye to those huge guide books and hassling with annoying maps! Let Earthcomber do the searching and finding for you. With the help of alerts and DiscoverOurTown listings, you can plan your travels better or enjoy a spontaneous side adventure…take your pick!

Take a tour here!

Via:PPCAddict

 

SlingPlayer Mobile Review

INTRODUCTION
    So you bought your digital super HD 60 inch plasma screen TV with digital cable, but you work 80 hours a week to pay for it so you never get to watch it. I have got the solution for you, as well as your companies productivity department’s worst nightmare. Introducing SlingPlayer mobile. That’s right, SlingPlayer mobile. As in, you can watch your television on your Pocket PC if you’ve got a SlingBox. This is the ultimate toy, and attracts a crowd wherever you bring it, trust me.

For those of you not familiar with the SlingBox by Sling Media, let me give you a brief introduction. You hook up this pretty looking box up to your coaxial cable line if you have regular cable, or the outputs from your cable box if you have digital cable. Then you hook the SlingBox up to your router, do a little configuration, and voila! It broadcasts your television over the internet so you can watch it anywhere you have an internet connection. One setback is that it is limited to one connection per SlingBox, which is obviously a piracy protection rather than a hardware limitation, but it is still pretty cool. Freshly released, SlingPlayer Mobile brings the SlingBox broadcast to any Windows Mobile Pocket PC (Smartphone client not yet available) with an internet connection.

WHAT’S HOT
    This is the first release of the mobile version, and has been anticipated by many in the Pocket PC community. I’ll tell you what is hot: it works. It is not perfect, but it does what it says.

SETUP
    First thing, you have to make sure you have Microsoft ActiveSync 4.1 installed. The installation guide calls for this, so make sure you perform an update or verify that you already have it installed. After you perform the update, installation is straightforward. Run the exe, let it install on your Pocket PC while it’s in the cradle, and you are set. Warning: the install does take a very long time, and requires a soft reset which it will do automatically for you. One note I would like to point out is that if you have vBar installed (a popular alternative program to the switcher bar) you might want to uninstall it prior to installing SlingPlayer as I encountered some problems with the system locking up which went away after removal of vBar.

PRODUCT FEATURES

When you start up SlingPlayer Mobile, this is what you get after a quick little splash screen. First off you are going to need to add your SlingBox so you can watch it. When you first start a window will come up and ask you if you want to update your SlingBox directory. Click ok to this. You still will need to setup your SlingBox so you need to click Player -> Slingbox Directory -> Add SlingBox.

Adding a SlingBox is very easy. All you have to do is get your Slingbox Finder ID from the SlingBox setup screen (do this on your regular computer) and then enter your password, hit ok, and you are ready to go. I love it when things are simple and go smoothly. Lets get down to business here.

To start watching, click Player -> (your SlingBox) -> Watch. Give it a few seconds to connect and…wow! It’s your television!

    My first reaction to the picture quality was disgust… However, if you wait a few seconds for the stream to buffer and optimize, it will clear up as much as your internet connection allows for. After this, I was impressed with the video quality. The audio is fine and sounds as good as anything coming out of the puny speakers on my Axim. The fact remains that I am watching my television over my Axim which is just plain incredible.

    Time to change the channel! To bring up the task bar, simply click on the screen where you see it in the picture above and it will pop up. What do we have here to play with? First we see the player menu which has a number of options which we will discuss later. Next to that we have the stop button. This simply stops video playback and will bring you back to the main screen with the black box. Then we have the remote control popup button, followed by mute, a volume control slider, toggle control mode (more on this later), and toggle full screen.

    The remote control is a little strange, and takes up a silly amount of the screen compared to the size of the tiny buttons, which are hard to push in my opinion because of their size. The manual channel changer is too small as well. Good thing we have that gray text “SlingRemote” on the side, or else we wouldn’t know what to do. Changing the channel is very straightforward: to go up or down one consecutive channel, hit the down or up channel button on the left. To go to a particular channel, enter the number and either wait a second or hit enter. After a short delay you will hear an audible “pop” sound and the channel will change. Hopefully the next version will contain a much better remote control, although believe it or not, this is a large improvement over the previous beta version I tested several days ago.

    If you are having trouble getting a good picture over your connection (especially those on EDGE or GPRS), there is hope! Seen in the screenshot above (to access click Player -> Player Modes) are two extra modes that will help. Audio only mode is fairly self explanatory and although you should be able to receive this fine on low bandwidth networks, I don’t find this acceptable unless you actually want to only listen to the broadcast. A much better option is Slide Show mode. This player mode drops the frame rate down to about 1 fps and keeps the audio intact. Over my WiFi connection, the picture quality was terrific. It is fairly easy to keep track of what is going on, but the frame rates still make for some choppy video.

    Editor-in-Chief Brandon Miniman got a chance to test out SlingPlayer Mobile on his Cingular 8125 with an EDGE connection and confirmed that the video is choppy for the first few minutes, and becomes adequate (but still not smooth) after several minutes, probably as a result of the streaming optimization that the software is using.

    Also on the main menu, there is an option to select your desired input from the SlingBox. This is great if you have multiple sources such as a Coaxial connection as well as your satellite dish. I only have extra basic cable, so I was not able to experiment with this.

    Time to check out the options! Going to player -> Player Options will bring you to the screen above. Let me warn you: this is PAINFULLY slow. The video feed really destroys your system resources. The first tab which comes up is “Player.” Under buffer settings you can change between automatic and manual. Although I left it on automatic, some player issues can be resolved by changing the buffer and optimization settings. Mine works fine, so if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

    The next tab is “Encoding.” If you want to yank as much quality as you can from your SlingBox, you can disable the SlingStream optimization settings and adjust the settings to your liking. In my opinion, SlingStream optimization does a great job of keeping things moving while giving you the best possible quality. Once again these are mainly options you want to change if you are having any sort of problem with your video feed.

    Then we come to the “Audio” tab. To tell you the truth I can’t change the sole option in this tab, but maybe you can! Possibly this may have something to do with my coaxial input or else it may just not be supported in this beta release.

    Finally, we have the advanced options tab. The first two options do not seem to do anything I can figure out. No statistics are shown on the screen whether that option is checked off or not. However, the “Reconnect…” option is nice if you want your video to come up automatically when you start the player. This avoids the black background that comes up after the original splash screen.

HELP SUPPORT
   The program itself is fairly straightforward, however there is a great deal of support offered from Sling Media as well as the included SlingPlayer Mobile installation guide.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
    You need to be running either Windows 2000 or XP on your desktop computer, and have Active Synch 4.1 installed. Make sure you check this as even my fairly new Dell Axim x51v didn’t ship with Active Synch 4.1. Also make sure you upgrade to the latest firmware for your SlingBox and install the latest version of SlingPlayer on your computer. The upgrade is available on Sling Media’s home page. Finally, your Pocket PC needs to be running Windows Mobile 5.0 or Pocket PC 2003.

BUGS AND WISHES
    This is a beta version, so it is not perfect. My first install caused a critical error, but this seems to have been fixed in the latest beta. One thing that bothers me is that when I pull up the controls menu it will frequently be partially blacked out and not let you use all the buttons. This is easy to get around, and usually just requires you to close the menu by tapping the video portion of the the screen, and tapping the bottom again to bring up the controls. Even with nothing running in the background, the menus within the program take forever to pop up, and occasionally will freeze up and not show, or show up partially. You also want to avoid inserting or removing your Pocket PC from the cradle while SlingPlayer is running as it tends to freeze up. Stability is definitely an issue with this beta release, and hopefully will be taken care of in subsequent releases. Currently, there is no Smartphone version available, but one will be issued within the next month of this review.

PURCHASING
    According to the company: “SlingPlayer Mobile will be offered as a free download to all customers starting on March 23rd and the product will feature a 30+ day trial. If you are a registered Slingbox owner or if you purchase a Slingbox between March 23rd and April 26th and register it, you will receive a registration key for the final version of SlingPlayer Mobile. After April 26th SlingPlayer Mobile will be available for purchase for a one-time charge of $29.99 and of course, that does not include the cost of a Slingbox, which is a required component in order for SlingPlayer Mobile to work on a Windows Mobile Pocket PC or Pocket PC Phone.” The beta can be downloaded here.

PROS

• You can watch live TV on your Pocket PC…very cool!
• Simple, easy to use
• Slideshow mode is great when your bandwidth is limited
• Picture quality varies but can be very nice
• Audio is flawless (never skipped on me)

CONS

• Even over WiFi, video can become choppy and pixilated
• A big resource hog, don’t even bother running another program concurrently
• Menus can take an inordinate amount of time to open
• No Smartphone client (yet)

Source: Pocketnow