Microsoft's Portable Media Center Devices: Exposed
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 27, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
The PC-Link: Windows Media Player 10
As we mentioned before, PMC devices don't have any syncing application of their own; instead, they use Windows Media Player 10. This requirement is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it promotes the adoption of Windows Media Player as the preferred media manager for all of your content; on the other, if you aren't a fan of WMP, then you're fresh out of luck. We also mentioned earlier that these PMC devices don't actually work any better with Windows Media Center Edition. That point is further reiterated by the fact that there's no built-in syncing from within MCE's 10-ft UI. You have to still open up Windows Media Player in order to download your recorded TV shows to the device. This is hopefully something that will be addressed in MCE 2005, due out within the next month or so.
The way you get your media onto a PMC is by first adding the media that you want to sync to your WMP library, which you do using the File > Add to Library menu. The process is fairly painless and you should only need to do it once, as you can tell WMP10 to add merely everything in a given folder to your library. Want to add your music to the Library? Just select your MP3 folder. Want to sync all of your recorded TV shows? If you're using an MCE box, then just add C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Shared Documents\Recorded TV\ and it'll add all of your recorded shows. Now, you can either sync all of the media in your library to your device or you can be a little more selective. Given that today's PMCs only have 20GB of storage space on them, you'll most likely do the latter.
DRM compliance is optional.
You can also have WMP monitor certain folders and automatically add any new additions to their folders to your Library.
Selecting individual items to sync isn't a problem, once the media is actually added to your library. Just scroll through what you want to sync and using the Add to menu (right click > Add to), you can add it to your Sync List, which as you can guess, is a list of things to be synchronized to your Portable Media Center.
It's not brain surgery, nor was it meant to be.
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val - Monday, September 27, 2004 - link
Pjotr: no you cannot use it as VCR, because you must anyway have it on computer available (TV, video out, not counting the quality,...)val - Monday, September 27, 2004 - link
this is again some discovering of the wheel. Can anybody explain me what this single purpose device can offer me when i have e800 PDA (USB + VGA output)? Wouldnt be better to work on making PDAs yet more cheaper? I can play DivX, WMA, WMV, MP3, XviD and i have usefull computer and gaming console with screen ten times better than this one. HDD i have 1 GB (more than 5 movies in XVID) and i can connect USB HDD to it too. Maybe if price will compete with MD player or MP3 player and not be compareable to notebooks or top line PDAsPjotr - Monday, September 27, 2004 - link
Well, you can basically replace your VCR with one of these. It has scheduled recordings and you can view them on your TV instantly. Also, you don't need to manage cassettes, DVDs etc, only files on a HD. It is also a lot smaller than your typical VCR/DVD-recorder.icarus4586 - Monday, September 27, 2004 - link
Portable video players seem to me to be of limited usefulness. Definitely would be handy for long trips, but otherwise it seems like the only function you'd use would be the audio player. And there are smaller, less expensive, more battery efficient music players.Pjotr - Monday, September 27, 2004 - link
Oh, forgot, the AV400 also acts like a regular USB 2.0 hard disk, no special software needed to transfer files.Pjotr - Monday, September 27, 2004 - link
Sorry, Anand, but you make it sound like Microsoft invented a new type of product. There is no mention at all of non-Windows portable media centers. Archos ( http://www.archos.com/ ) have had this kind of device available for almost a year now. Their second generation model (AV400) seems a lot more attractive than the Creative device: Video input for recording, longer battery life, remote control, docking cradle for easy hookup to your TV, online scheduling of recordings via Yahoo, support for various codecs including DivX. (BTW, why wouldn't you want support for varying codecs on a portable device?)Reflex - Monday, September 27, 2004 - link
Windows Media Player 10 was not a 'choice' Microsoft made to get data to the devices. These devices, and virtually all future MP3 players, digital cameras, and other 'media' peripherals are now using a protocol known as 'MTP' which stands for Media Transport Protocol. It is an attempt to standardize the method of transmitting and recieving data to media devices of all types, so that you do not need to have a custom driver for every little doodad you plug into your PC.Furthermore, down the line it could allow devices to communicate with each other, and it makes it so that any MTP aware application should be able to sync and send/recieve data from any MTP compatible device, ending the days when you are stuck with a custom app that a company wrote for their particiliar device.
Right now the only application that is MTP aware is WMP10, however that is to be expected since the protocol is brand new and was developed by Microsoft. However there is an API and any other application can become MTP aware and sync with such devices, and I am certain that Real, MusicMatch, and virtually everyone else is working on it right now.
So my point is that while currently WMP10 is the only way to sync with such devices, this is not by design, its merely a byproduct of the introduction of MTP as the new standardized interface for portable devices. It won't be the case for long and is not a true drawback. Its also not exclusive to PMC's, as MP3 players and other devices are all going to soon be using this standard.
Novaoblivion - Monday, September 27, 2004 - link
Very interesting read as I was looking at this earlier. I might get one since I do have plenty of video content to take with me on vacation. However does anyone know if it has problems displaying languages other then english? A lot of things seem to display other languages as squares which I find really annoyying. Thanks!