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dicussions about Microsoft Smartphone and Pocket PC phone
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msmobiles.com_robot
Joined: 23 Mar 2004
Posts: 16777215
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 Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 3:48 am Post subject: Review : listening to audio in HTC Touch Diamond |
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HTC Touch Diamond has 4 GB of built-in memory and generally can be considered as an MP3 player with a phone in it. Here we are testing audio capabilities of HTC Touch Diamond because nowadays they are vital not only...
Read more at http://www.msmobiles.com/news.php/7436.html |
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alcedes
Joined: 29 Sep 2007
Posts: 273
Location: Phoenix, Arizona, USA
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| Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 5:15 am Post subject: |
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What in the word is the '1' digit notating in the titlebar?
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MCAD .Net , MCTS (Web, Windows) |
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BrianC
Joined: 25 Feb 2007
Posts: 183
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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| Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 5:21 am Post subject: |
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One feature I would like to see is to be able to display lyrics in the media player, like the desktop version of the Windows Media Player.
iRiver, an mp3 player manufacturer has also this feature in their products.
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Proud owner of HTC Touch Diamond and i-mate JASJAM. |
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EJR
Joined: 18 Mar 2004
Posts: 2629
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| Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 5:30 am Post subject: |
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| alcedes wrote: | | What in the word is the '1' digit notating in the titlebar? |
a mobile operator feature - some mobile operators offer ability to have more than one line per SIM card
| BrianC wrote: | One feature I would like to see is to be able to display lyrics in the media player, like the desktop version of the Windows Media Player.
iRiver, an mp3 player manufacturer has also this feature in their products. |
there are such players for Windows Mobile - that can be purchased and downloaded separately. I will research this issue and come back here - thanks for the question! |
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chrisoldroyd
Joined: 18 May 2008
Posts: 27
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| Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 7:13 am Post subject: |
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Edward
I am getting my UK official version next week, it will be interesting to compare our findings, things seem alot more upbeat since the changed rom
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Chris
www.mobiletechaddicts.com |
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gmontem
Joined: 06 Nov 2007
Posts: 4
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| Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 8:48 am Post subject: |
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Can you please try Slide2Play on the Touch Diamond? It also displays album art but is very slow in my O2 Flame due to lack of good video drivers. Would love to know how the HTC Touch Diamond fares. 
Here's the link: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=377627 |
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adamz
Joined: 28 Oct 2005
Posts: 44
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| Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 11:55 am Post subject: |
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If you want album art for music synced through the desktop Windows Media Player, (which also converts to the space-saving WMA format, syncs playlists, videos, and MCE recorded TV shows) here are the instructions for getting the album art embedded back into the audio files so that TouchFLO 3D can read them:
http://discuss.pocketnow.com/showthread.php?threadid=23550
That way album art will show in both Media Player Mobile and TouchFLO 3D. HTC should have made it read both embedded art and synchronized art from WMP. |
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Menneisyys
Joined: 28 Apr 2008
Posts: 179
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Menneisyys
Joined: 28 Apr 2008
Posts: 179
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 9:43 am Post subject: |
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| EJR wrote: | | there are such players for Windows Mobile - that can be purchased and downloaded separately. I will research this issue and come back here - thanks for the question! |
Yup - LGC Jukebox and WinVibe. My review:
In several of my articles (for example, ROUNDUP: Bluetooth remote control (AVRCP) compatible media players), I’ve reviewed several Pocket PC-based audio players. Now, I elaborate on two (with the second, brand) new Pocket PC players, WinVibe and LGC Jukebox.
WinVibe
This free, Korean player is pretty capable – just look at the feature list at the WinVibe homepage (BabelFish translation here).
It supports Surround/Bassboost/Reverb/Echo effects, playback speed change (see the similar capability of VITO Sound Explorer), Support Showing lyrics when playing music (both ID3 Tag lyrics and LRC / TXT file), button reassignment (unlike LGC Jukebox), HTTP streaming playback (MP3/Ogg Vorbis) and SHOUTcast streaming playback (MP3/Ogg Vorbis). Pretty imporessive!
Unfortunately, it doesn’t support AVRCP (Bluetooth remote control).
Availability, compatibility
It’s available for download here (QVGA) and here (VGA) and, as has already been pointed out, is a free download. I haven’t had any problems on any of my WM2003+ devices. (HTC Wizard, Universal, PL720, WM5-upgraded hx4700, x51v.)
The default skin is Portrait-only; it automatically switches to Portrait when started in landscape.
CPU usage
In the related, recommended AximSite thread, many have complained about the CPU usage. With my standard test 112 kbps MP3 file (Värttinä: Oi dai) and with the default QVGA / VGA skins, I haven’t measured problematic CPU usage at all. It only consumes about 12-13% CPU on my x51v; with maximal reverb, about 14-15. With iPlay, the corresponding figures are 10-12 and 16%, respectively, with Pocket Player, 14-16% (about 1% less with no visualizations) and, finally, with WMP, 11.6-14%.
The case is similar on the overclocked (to 240 MHz) HTC Wizard; on it, the CPU usage is 27% (with reverb/echo at default: 34%; reverb at max: 30%). This is slightly lower than the, by default, 30-31% CPU usage of WMP.
All in all, unless you use custom skins (with visualization), you won’t have CPU usage problems – on the contrary, it’s slightly better than WMP.
Sound effects; their quality
It also supports echo and reverb.
The latter is, unfortunately, REALLY inferior to that of 40 iPlay, the best player in this respect (screenshot of enabling reverb is here). (Note that of iPlay, I could only test the October 2006 version of the player, due to the, to put it mildly, funny “protection” banning out most of the world and also discussed in this AximSite thread. This means I don’t know if the developer has come out a brand new version in the meantime.).
I’ve also compared the reverb / echo effect to the Conduits Pocket Player 3.01 Echo Effect DSP. I’ve found the latter much more unnatural-sounding.
This also means the reverb quality is around that of other reverb-capable Pocket PC media players (for example, Conduits’ Pocket Player).
LGC Jukebox 2.10
The developer of this title, Lonely Cat Games is well established in the Symbian world, unlike on the Pocket PC, where, so far, their only product is the (not-really-recommended) ProfiMail (see the Mailer Bible for more info).
The Pocket PC conversion of their well-known Symbian audio player LGC Jukebox is a brand new release; it’s so new the official homepage of the title doesn’t even show it; it must be downloaded from third-party sites like this. Note that the trial version will only work for 120 minutes.
Compatibility
I haven’t had any problems on any of my WM2003+ devices. (HTC Wizard, Universal, PL720, WM5-upgraded hx4700, x51v).
It’s Landscape-compatible (even left-hand one), unlike WinVibes.
Capabilities
While it supports radio streaming (and has a radio station manager) and offers quick positioning inside a track (as with WinVibe but unlike iPlay – he latter only has buttons for quick forwarding/rewinding), playback-wise, it pretty much lacks: it’s only capable of playing back MP3 and OGG files. No WMA, no Flac, no AAC.
Also, it has absolutely no DSP’s and pretty little visualization; all it offers is equalizer, album art display / download and lyrics display / download (more on this later) support. It doesn’t even let for reassigning hardware buttons (here’s the settings menu), which is a BIG minus – even the most basic players (including WinVibes and, of course, the built-in WMP) allow for this! Needless to say, as with WinVibe, it doesn’t support AVRCP either.
Lyrics support
One of the (not many) strengths of this application is lyrics display and download. Some examples: see this on online searching, this and this on the downloaded lyrics. As can be seen, this is pretty useful at quickly finding lyrics.
It’s also capable of auto scrolling the lyrics; or course, as it’s not Karaoke, it’ll only make guesses on what the current position in the song is. That is, in most cases, auto scroll will be useless.
CPU usage
It’s pretty good: definitely lower than that of WMP and most other players; on the reference x51v: 9.0-9.8%; with an activated equalizer (tested most of them), ~12.5-13.2%. The results were pretty similar on the HTC Wizard (27%, while WMP consumed about ~30-31%).
Verdict
Unfortunately, with WinVibes, you get what you pay for and the situation is even worse with the, in my opinion, pretty basic LGC Jukebox. I’m still waiting for a, battery consumption, AVRCP- and reverb-wise, iPlay-killer title.
UPDATE (01/28/2007): AximSite frontpage here and here. I've also thoroughly compared the latest, 5.0 (early January) version of iPlay 5 to iPlay 4 (thanks to a not-to-be-named PPC user); so far, I haven't found much difference, except for the new version's not supporting operating systems prior to WM5 at all. The reverb sounds equally good - you MUST check it out, you will LOVE it.
UPDATE (01/29/2007):: thanks to AximSite forum member Mokubai and Duwenbasden (see the above-linked AximSite frontpage thread), I've noticed I've made a mistake when measuring the CPU usage of WinVibe. With these measurements, I've forgotten to set the CPU speed to fixed (all my past measurements used fixed CPU speeds); this is why I haven't noticed the player indeed runs, in general, the CPU at, in general, two steps higher speed setting (for example, 416 MHz as opposed to 208 MHz) than WMP / Conduits Pocket Player and three times higher CPU speed than iPlay.
The fixed results are as follows:
On the A12 x51v,
at a fixed 208 MHz, CPU usage (at this low speed, the CPU usage difference becomes highly visible):
WMP 10: 24%
WinVibe: 28%
iPlay 4.x: 11%
Pocket Player 3.01: 27%
at auto speed, the player runs the CPU at the following speed (in MHz):
WMP 10: 208
WinVibe: 416
iPlay 4.x (without using the built-in CPU applet to set the CPU speed): 104
Pocket Player 3.01: 208
(The CPU usage introduced by actively monitoring the CPU speed / loads (through Services.exe) is 1.5 (1.8 with enabling the load monitoring) at 208 MHz and is, therefore, negligible, as far as the test results are concerned. That is, it's highly unlikely the additional, at 312 MHz, ~1.3% CPU usage caused by monitoring is causing the CPU to switch to 416 MHz from 312.)
UPDATE (02/12/2007): I’ve thoroughly tested the (offline) lyrics, MP3 tag and album art support of the two players.
WinVibe (as of the latest, 4.9.5 version) has turned out
- not to support files with .lrc at all (you can, however, (mass-)rename these files to TXT files; then, all will work
- to support lyrics .txt files flawlessly
- its MP3 lyrics tag support is flawed as can be seen in here – the starting three “Kuin oisin omilla mailla / Oman pellon pientarilla, / Oi” rows are completely missing from the original lyrics. This means it may not display the start of other embedded lyrics either.
Unfortunately, it has absolutely no support for album art or MP3 tags at all.
LGC Jukebox, on the other hand, only supports .LRC files, not embedded lyrics or .TXT files. (The latter, again, can be very easily converted into .LRC files with a simple (mass) file rename.) I should also point out that, while it doesn’t support directory-level album art, it does show embedded thumbnails as can be seen in here. Unfortunately, it doesn’t display MP3 tags at all. |
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