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Must-Have Downloads July 2001 • Vol.7 Issue 7 Page(s) 92-93 in print issue	Add To My Personal Library
The Active Eye PocketTV Turns Your Windows CE Device Into A Multimedia Machine

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.

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.

PocketMovies:
The PocketMovies site contains movie trailers, advertisements, and other video clips designed to work on your Pocket PC.
http://www.pocketmovies.net

PocketMatrix:
The PocketMatrix site contains ads, video clips, and movie trailers. The site also contains downloads, news, and other Pocket PC information.
http://www.pocketmatrix.com

SelfMobile:
SelfMobile is a mobile portal that includes videos, e-books, wireless information, and lots of other stuff for your Pocket PC.
http://www.selfmobile.com

PocketRocketFX:
PocketRocketFX contains movie trailers, commercials, trailers, and television clips. You can also download skins, wallpapers, and e-books.
http://www.pocketrocketfx.com

iMesh:
iMesh is similar to the popular Napster file-sharing program except that you can share more than just MP3 files. You can share video files, software, and documents. iMesh is also easy to use, even if you've never used a file sharing application before.
http://www.imesh.com

BearShare:
BearShare is a client program for the popular Gnutella file sharing service. Unlike some other Gnutella based programs, BearShare is easy to use and configure.
http://www.bearshare.com

Always be sure that you're running the latest version of your antivirus program before downloading any files using iMesh or BearShare. Scan files immediately for viruses after downloading them. Don't assume that the person sharing the file has already scanned it for viruses. In some cases, they may spread a virus inadvertently and, in other cases, maliciously. Regardless, you owe it to yourself to proceed cautiously when downloading files from an unknown or unfamiliar source.

Fun MPEG Files To Try. If you're dying to try out PocketTV and you don't want to be bothered looking around for files, check out some of these.

Star Wars trailer (1.7MB)
Top Gun clip (1MB)
http://www.mpegtv.com/wince/pockettv/index.html#try-it

Star Wras (5MB)
This clip is a spoof on Star Wars.
http://www.pocketmovies.net/detail.php3?id=117

The Matrix trailer
http://www.pocketmovies.net/detail.php3?id=28

Additional Resources. If you're having problems installing or using PocketTV, check out some of these discussion groups. You can read previously posted messages and post questions of your own.

PocketTV Software Forum:
Use this forum to post questions or make general comments about PocketTV. The PocketTV developers sometimes monitor it to provide answers.
http://pocketmovies.net/phpBB/viewforum.php3?forum=3

PocketTV Encoding Forum:
If you're interested in making MPEG files for PocketTV, stop by this forum.
You can find a list of newsgroups at http://www.microsoft.com/mobile/pocketpc/club/newsgroups.asp. You don't need to have a newsreader to view the newsgroups since Microsoft also includes a browser-based news version on its site.

For more information about MPEG try visiting the MPEG home page at http://www.cselt.it/mpeg or MPEG.org (which is published by MpegTV) at http://www.mpeg.org/MPEG/index.html.
http://pocketmovies.net/phpBB/viewforum.php3?forum=4&33

by Jim Lynch

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