Hey, I am looking for some suggestions for software to play music (mp3) on my Axim (x50v with WM2003SE).

Let me preface this by saying I had been using a combination of WMP10 and TCPMP. And I have not been thrilled with either. I love the look of WMP10 (especially with the stellar Vista skin add-on) but not the sound. Alternatively, I love the sound of TCPMP, but not the display it uses or the gui.

So, I am looking for something new. I've started looking at GSPlayer and Mortplayer. Any opinions on those?? Good, not so good??

Any other suggestions?

Thanks,

doug

    

I love mortplayer... especially with the mypod skin.

 

I'd say your best bet is GSPlayer or MortPlayer.

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Axim x51v (Jan 2008)
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Bluetooth Tutorial
Wifi Tutorial
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Mort Player is not bad, but I my eyes......... check out this one here:

http://www.pocketmind.com/screenshots.htm

I use this player a long time now... and I still think its the best.

Thanks, guys. I have downloaded all three and will test them out tonight to see what works best for me.

Doug

    

Tell us your results, please.
Would be interesting to know.

OK. Ingope, here goes. Let me preface this by saying, I have several priorities that I am looking for (note that this is only for music, not for video or other formats). I want a player that is (in order)

1) going to work well with my BT headphones
2) easy and intuitive to use with a nice looking/skinnable interface, that is able to display album information and graphics
3) a sortable playlist that is easy to input and remove songs/search for songs.

I give you that preface by way of saying, these are the criteria I used to judge these players, and they may be different from what you are looking for. That being said, I tested out five players, some of which I was familiar with , some not. They are (in no order): WM10, TCPMP, Pocket Music, Mortplayer, and GS Player.

WM10, I think we all know, is window dressing. It is all looks and no substance. I love the controls and skins on this one, and it does display album art which I like. The biggest problem is that it does not work well with the BT headphones. It loses the connection after almost every song. That is why I was searching for an alternative

TCPMP. This one works best with my BT headphones, which is a must for me. But I hate the interface, it is really designed more for video than music. It is not skinnable and does not display album art. Also, I could not figure out how to sort the playlist by album or artist.

Pocket Music. I really wanted to like this one. It has a nice interface and was easy to load and search music. Unfortunately, it was also not very stable with my BT headphones, and dropped the connection after almost every song. Also, the free version does not have all of the options. You have to upgrade for that.

Mort Player and GS Player, I could not get to play my WMA music. I understand there is a patch for that. If someone could point me to that patch and give me a few quick installation instructions, then I will load it on and give you my thoughts.

Also, if anyone has some thoughts on any pther players that I did not try, let me know. I'll take a look.

Doug

    

One other thing I wanted to add, I am using the amazing Windows Vista skin on my WM 10. I just wanted to send out that Kudo to Xcilion. And, if he is watching this, to ask for many more skins in this series. They are just amazing.

Also, I tried to install the mypod skin on Mortplayer, but it would not work. Just came up with an all black screen. What did I do wrong? Other skins seem to work fine.

Doug

    

Not sure on myPod. Double check that you are using the latest version of each. Also, you mentioned that you would like album art... the original mypod doesn't display album art. However, I think a revised version has been released called qPod that is basically a rework of the mypod skin to include album art. I'm not sure if qPod was released here on aximsite or over at mort's site... or maybe both... just thought I would point that out.


As for the WMA plugin for Mort/GSPlayer... I'm not sure that there is one. If you are married to the idea of playing WMA, I think Mort and GSPlayer are out. (FYI - Mortplayer is based on the decoding software of GSplayer... so that is why they are lumped in together in many discussions of formats and such).

 

Thanks Forge 42. I'll have to look for the qPod skin.

I am not so much married to playing WMP files, so much as that is what all of my music is stored in, so it would just be a bear to try to convert and reload all of it.

I had also heard that there was a complete rework of TCPMP coming in the future?? Is there anything to that rumor??

Doug

    

I believe there was a thread somewhere on a batch converter for music files, and I think someone was going to be doing something like converting many audio files like you may want to do.
Do a search for it, if you end up wanting a player that does not play WMA.
I tried a converter for ogg vorbis, as I heard the compression and sound quality were great. I did not notice any better compression that MP3 (maybe I didn't select the correct options), and the ogg vorbis files sounded the same as MP3s as far as I could tell.

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Axim x51v (Jan 2008)
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Bluetooth Tutorial
Wifi Tutorial
PictureViewer

   

I certainly understand your problem with WMAs then. The problem with many conversion programs is that you are basically re-compressing an already compressed file... which means that sound quality will suffer further. So simply running WMAs through a converter to spit out mp3s might not be a great idea. There's really only one way to find out: try it on a file or two. If you can detect a loss in quality, then you will have to make a decision about whether or not the features of a particular player are worth paying the price of lower quality. If the coversion seems to go well w/o any noticeable loss in quality, then maybe you could just set up a conversion program to do your whole collection in a batch overnight or something.

As for TCPMP rumors, I'm not really up to date. However, I think there is a forum on the homepage for TCPMP where you could probably get the latest info.

 

Funny you mention that Forge42, I just found that forum There was a post dated today from the developer which said no news yet, but something may be coming soon. I'll keep my fingers crossed because that is a great player.

Doug

    

Thanks for your report.

I only need the MP3 program for my way to work (by train)
So I use the Pocket Player for all kind of music and TCMP for all
Videos (I use PocketDivXEncoder on my PC to reduce the files
for TCMP)

Actually, ingope, I just downloaded the trial version of Pocket Player to check out. I mostly use the music for my train commute as well. I'll let you know what I think of it.

Doug