jgoldschmidt

I'm quite a novice when it comes to playing audio and video on computers or pocket pcs. I just want to listen to audio and maybe watch videos once in a while. Do I need to get another media player beside the Windows Media Player that is already installed? What do all of these other media players do that that Windows Media Player doesn't do (PocketTV, PocketMVP, RealPlayer, Divx, etc...)? Thanks in advance.

fibrizo

Basic breakdown

Windows media player
.wmv, .wma, .mp3

PocketTV
mpeg files

PocketMVP
Mp3, Ogg, DivX Avis...

Real...
Realmedia...

Each player may do more, but these are thier strong points..

jgoldschmidt

Thank you fibrizo. I have a few more questions. What are the differences between all of these files? Why would someone use one type vs. the other when creating their audio/video files? Also, when I download these different types of files, how do I know which types they are? Do they all have a different ending? Sorry for such basic questions. I just want to make sure I understand all of this stuff. Thanks again.

NMkiD

Well .mp3 is your basic compressed music file, this is the most common form you'll find and it can be played in the default windows media player, which also plays .wma files which are just like mp3s but with smaller file sizes so some people perfer them, its easy to tell which is which one woudl be named something like TobyKieth-AngryAmreican.mp3 and the other, TobyKieth-AngryAmreican.wma the file xetension is the only way to tell them apart.

I've noticed that the majority of movie clips for the pocket pc, and that play the best on the pocket pc are .mpg or .mpeg files, you can downlaod some at Pocket Movies and you can use PocketTV to view those. If your a novice user those are proably the only things you'll need.

If you want to mess around with a cool music player thats more like Winamp I suggest PocketMusic which you can use different winamp skins with and in future versions will support audio streaming from the web .mp3 .wma and .ogg files

good luck

fibrizo

I tend to disagree and I say the divx avis are much better in terms of file size and quality to mpegs.... that's why most videos on computers now adays are divx mpegs...

WMA is nice and small but you get into issues with liscensing and stuff...

OGG is an open source music compression thats comparable to WMA...

MP3 is the good oldie... not too small files, but much better than wav..