PDAs have come a long way
from the days of monochrome screens and tiny beeps and whistles. Today’s
top-of-the-line units give users the ability to enjoy multimedia sound and
graphics without the need to tote around a laptop. But in order to enjoy
multimedia video, you still have to have the right application for the
job.
Media Player
Doesn’t Cut It. The newer Pocket PCs come bundled with Windows
Media Player, a solid program for playing audio clips. Unfortunately,
Microsoft has chosen not to support the MPEG (Moving Pictures Experts
Group) format in its initial releases of Media Player for the Pocket PC.
In its current version, the program only plays video in the Windows Media
format.
In a nutshell, MPEG is a group of nonencrypted,
nonproprietary video (and audio) formats. Some have called MPEG the video
equivalent of MP3. It provides high-quality audio or visual information in
a compressed digital format. Uncompressed video can be huge and would be
prohibitive to use on a memory-limited device like a Pocket PC. The
International Standards Organization (ISO) defines all of the MPEG
formats.
MPEG-1, the format that PocketTV plays, represents the
most basic format in the MPEG family. ( NOTE: In this article, MPEG-1
is referred to as MPEG.)
While you can convert MPEG video
clips into Windows Media format, this can be time-consuming and annoying.
Not to worry though; other programs besides Media Player provide full
support for MPEG files.
PocketTV from MpegTV is one of the best of
these available for the Pocket PC. PocketTV is offered free for personal,
noncommercial use. Be aware though that it does ultimately require
registration for continued use after seven days.
PocketTV fully
supports MPEG-1 files. It does not support MPEG-2 files at this time,
which isn’t a problem since most, if not all, of the MPEG video you’ll
find geared to Pocket PCs is MPEG-1. MPEG-2 files are also considerably
larger than MPEG-1 files. Use of MPEG-2 is geared mostly to DBS (Direct
Broadcast Satellite), CATV (Cable Television), and HDTV (high-definition
television).
System
Requirements. PocketTV works with all color-display Pocket PC
devices (including the iPAQ, Jornada, and Cassiopeia). You may have
trouble running PocketTV on some legacy Windows CE devices. The PocketTV
site mentions that you use the program at your own risk with these older
Windows CE devices: SH3 HPC Windows CE 2.0 systems, Sharp Mobilon
HC-4500G/HC-4600 (Windows CE 2.0), Compaq 2010c/2015c (Windows CE 2.0),
Jornada 820 (Windows CE 2.11).
You should have at least 16 gray
levels to run the program, but a top-of-the-line, 65,536 color display is
recommended to get the most out of the device. If you’re using an iPAQ,
you’ll still get good image quality even though the iPAQ only produces
4,096 colors. For the best sound, PocketTV’s manufacturer recommends
stereo support.
Download PocketTV.
You’ll find downloading and installing PocketTV to be
straightforward. Before downloading the program, make sure that you have
enough space on your Pocket PC for installation. For most Pocket PCs, go
to your Settings folder in the Start menu, tap the System tab, and tap the
Memory icon to pull up information about how much storage space you have.
At least 500KB of storage space is needed for installation and at least
2MB of memory is needed to run the program. If you don’t have enough
memory available, only the audio portion of your file will play. If you’re
completely out of memory, PocketTV won’t work at all or will hang.
You can obtain PocketTV from the PocketTV site at http://www.mpegtv.com/wince/pockettv/index.html#download.
The page contains links to two download sites. It doesn’t matter which one
you pick in terms of getting the file. If the one you initially choose is
slow or unresponsive, try the other one. Chances are one of them will work
fine. Download the file to a folder on your desktop PC.
To install
PocketTV, connect your Pocket PC to your desktop PC. Open the folder where
PocketTV is stored and double-click the PocketTV installation file. Follow
the on-screen prompts once the setup program begins.
You can download PocketTV free from the PocketTV site. You’ll also find FAQs, video clips, and links to additional MPEG resources.
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After
installation, open the program on your Pocket PC. A splash screen asking
for a registration key appears. Don’t worry—you can still use the program
for a limited time without registering. But since registration is free
you’ll want to do it sooner rather than later. To get your registration
key, visit http://www.pockettv.com/register.
Be sure that you have the code listed on the splash screen. You’ll need it
to get your free registration key to keep using PocketTV after the initial
trial period.
Use PocketTV To
Play MPEGs. For organizational purposes, create a folder called
MPEG Video Files on your Pocket PC. To place an MPEG file on your Pocket
PC, download a file to your desktop PC. Open ActiveSync. Click the Explore
button on the ActiveSync application. Drag and drop the MPEG file you
downloaded to your desktop PC into the folder you created for your Pocket
PC called MPEG Video Files.
Start the PocketTV application on your
Pocket PC. Tap Tools in the command bar and tap Open. Select the MPEG
Video Files folder. When you select your folder, all of its MPEGs will be
listed. Tap the video you want to view, and it will begin to play. You can
control the video using the on-screen buttons to start, stop, pause, or
play it. You can also adjust the sound level or view the video full
screen.
Viewing streaming video with PocketTV. In
order to use PocketTV to view streaming video, you have to have a Pocket
PC with Internet access (with a transfer speed greater than or equal to
500KB per second). Visit the PocketTV streaming video page at http://www.mpegtv.com/wince/pockettv/stream.
Tap one of the videos on the page to start viewing streaming video on your
Pocket PC. On that page, you’ll find a number of different videos to test
your connection, including a Star Wars trailer, the South Park Christmas
episode, Killer Bean, and a video of Bill Clinton’s final days as
president.
Find MPEG Files.
The first thing you’ll probably want to do after you get the software installed is to start looking for MPEG files to play on your Pocket PC:
PocketRocketFX.com - http://www.PocketRocketFX.com - contains movie trailers and television commercials. You
can also download skins, themes, flash files, and ebooks.
