Superb Media Player: Kinoma Player 4 EX
The Treo 700p was the first Treo to come with a built-in multimedia player. While Kinoma Player enabled the Treo 700p to stream audio, the true innovation is that for the first time Treo users were able to stream video. These added capabilities created an all new multimedia experience for Treo users. The recently released Kinoma Player 4 EX, is a stand alone application that not only gives all Palm OS devices the same streaming capabilities as the 700p, but with an inexpensive upgrade offers even more to the 700p. The newest player has added some very exciting features and has once again raised the bar for all media players.
The monochromatic interface is simple yet elegant. The minimalistic design uses easily identifiable icons opposed to hard to read menus. As a matter of fact, because EX was so well thought out there are virtually no drop down menus at all. EX supports the Treo’s 5-way navigation pad making one-handed operation simple. Even though EX is available for a wide range of handhelds, it feels as though it was designed specifically for the Treo.
Beneath the uncomplicated interface of EX lies a powerhouse capable of delivering a multimedia experience unparalleled by other media players. EX supports many audio, video and image formats. Some of the more popular supported formats include: MP3, JPEG, MPEG-4, Flash Video, QuickTime, QuickTime VR and Windows Media. EX also supports numerous streaming formats such as RSS, OPML, Windows Media Metafiles (.asx) and Playlists (.pls). Because Ex supports so many different types of files I had expected the application to demand a massive amount of space on my Treo, but Ex boasts an extremely small footprint.
There are 3 ways to add media files to EX: you can use HotSync, copy the files directly to an SD card with a card reader, or you can download files from the internet. When launched, EX automatically scans for new media which it will then automatically incorporate into the Media guide. This provides seamless integration between streaming media and locally stored media. I have found EX to be extremely quick when scanning for new files, and I have not experienced any lag when switching between media files.
While it is critical for a media player to support numerous file formats, it is equally important to allow users to customize their media experience. EX has an array of controls that allow users to accomplish this with options including:
- the ability to download or stream content
- the ability to change the orientation of the screen while viewing photos and video
- numerous audio features including shuffle and continuous play
The Kinoma Media Guide is one of the best features of EX. The Media Guide provides a dynamic list of streaming content. The Media guide is the most extensive listing of online content for the Treo I have found. While the list is too extensive to be listed here, I would like to share some of my favorite content provided by the Media Guide.
As many of you are aware, most radio stations have websites that stream their broadcasts over the internet. These streams allow listeners who are not in the listening area to still tune in. I have often attempted to listen to these broadcasts with my Treo, but have had no success. Thanks to Kinoma, I can now enjoy many of these broadcasts anywhere! The Media Guide offers an extensive list of local and international radio streams organized by region.
Internet Video services have exploded over the past several years with the emergence of YouTube, Google Video, and numerous others arriving on the scene daily. Kinoma Media Guide provides support for customized content from these services such as Top 100, Movie Trailers and much, much more.
In addition, Kinoma also supports premium content from providers such as The Weather Channel and smarTVideo. SmarTVideo provides live streaming TV channels such as ABC Entertainment, Bloomberg, Court TV and various sports channels. This service is similar to MobiTV or Sprint TV, and there is a charge for the premium content. I have tested all of these services and have found them to have serious flaws and not worth the cost. The biggest problem that I found with all of these services is the lack of content. Also all three suffer from poor video quality and buffering problems. These problems occur because none of these services allow the user to control the data speed. For streaming TV, I use Orb. Orb works extremely well with EX. Because Orb allows the user to control the data speed it is easier to get better quality video streams and avoid buffering problems. I love Orb so much that I named it My Favorite Application of the Year for 2006.
The Media Guide is completely customizable with bookmarks and files easily added or deleted at will. Podcasts, RSS feeds, and OPML subscriptions are also easily added to the Media Guide.
Kinoma Player 4 Ex is also a powerful business application. With OPML support, business users can create custom content and stream that content to employees in the field. Because bookmarks are dynamic, once created they automatically update themselves. This allows employees in the field to access team meetings, presentations, customer testimonials or any multimedia content that is updated regularly.
Kinoma Player 4 EX is the best media player for the Treo that I have seen! Compatible with the most common audio, video and image formats. EX pretty much alleviates the need for multiple players. Unfortunately, there is no demo version of this player for you to discover for yourself how great this player is, but I strongly believe that this player is light-years ahead of the competition and is well worth the $24.99 price.
Related Links
Kinoma Player 4 EX is an excellent player for Orb!
Filed under: Software reviews
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if you want to record internet radio or rip sounds from movie or music video check out personal digital recorder in the download section
I never could get TCPMP to display iTunes video for me, and Pocket Tunes would have been $40 for the internet radio feature.
Bit the bullet, and Kinoma player seems to be a good buy so far, both features work.
I can’t get the media guide to open any longer since the last update!
I bought and use it a lot. If it played in the background, I would rate it as the best program hands down.
terry73: For licensing reasons, MP4/AAc support was ripped out of TCPMP. As such, podcasts area a no-go. TCPMP grew up into a commercial product called CorePlayer, which works quite well.
I wasn’t as impressed with the software. though it does seem to me its the best out there its rather limited. It lacks background playback and it lacks ipod, video, mpeg, playback as well as a slew of other file formats that are more common to other free or less expensive media players. Again while i was impressed with it’s presentation and internet stream playback i still felt it was rather limited on it’s potential.
The lack of background playback makes this application almost unusable as an audio player on a busy treo. Playback is interrupted by any treo action (even just accessing menus within the Kinoma player itself). If you receive a phone call (or just check your calendar), you must restart the application (including the annoying scan through all the content on your system) and re-navigate to the content in order to resume playback.
Compared to its competition (e.g. ptunes), this application resembles more a crude proof-of-concept than a finished consumer product.
Hi
sspinner says:
“The lack of background playback makes this application almost unusable as an audio player on a busy treo.”
I have been in constant contact with Kinoma, not only their Product Manager but their head of development about implmenting background play in 4 EX. It’s more complicated to say “put it in” than to put it in, but it’s high on their to-do list.. I’ll give you that Pocket Tunes Deluxe is a better MP3 player, mainly because of its graphic equalizer, skins, and background play, however its latest incarnation with internet radio offers a pathetically tiny offering compared to 4 EX’s enormous Media guide which has over 3000 streaming radio stations and 2000 podcasts and video casts already built in, as soon as you install it, since the Media guide is dynamic and lives on Kinoma’s server and is constantly updated.. if you’re into OTR (Old Time Radio shows).. I gave Kinoma EVERY link in the Media guide’s Entertainment / Old Time Radio section.. endless hundreds of classic radio shows to listen to.. so you can thank me for that if you’re an OTR fan..
“Playback is interrupted by any treo action (even just accessing menus within the Kinoma player itself). If you receive a phone call (or just check your calendar), you must restart the application (including the annoying scan through all the content on your system) and re-navigate to the content in order to resume playback.”
This is true up to the “annoying scan” part.. pull down the “check for updates” menu item and update yourself to the newest version.. which is free.. the card scan now happens just once.. and thereafter, the program loads almost instantaneously..
“Compared to its competition (e.g. ptunes), this application resembles more a crude proof-of-concept than a finished consumer product.”
Nonsense. Pocket Tunes Deluxe is a better music player for reasons I listed above.. but as an overall Internet content access program, Kinoma 4 EX kicks the living crap out of Pocket Tunes Deluxe, if for no other reason, the Media guide.. in my opinion.. besides, there’s room on a Treo for both of them..
No software is perfect.. that’s why programs are in a constant state of flux and constantly upgraded as long as the company behind them cares about its customers.. both Kinoma and Normsoft appear to care about their customers.. their players are not feature-for-feature identical and I own and use both of them for different purposes..
Harv
Does Kinoma play purchased tv shows and movies from the iTunes store? If not could someone tell me what payer will.
Does Kinoma play purchased tv shows and movies from the iTunes store? If not could someone tell me what payer will.
Does Kinoma play purchased tv shows and movies from the iTunes store? If not could someone tell me what payer will.
Does Kinoma play purchased tv shows and movies from the iTunes store? If not could someone tell me what payer will.
Kinoma 4 ex doesn’t seem to be as fast as the core player for playing videos and you can’t change the brightness for videos but it is nice to see a program to play streaming video.
sspinner says:
“The lack of background playback makes this application almost unusable as an audio player on a busy treo.”
I have agree with sspinner. I use the kinoma player but very disappointed in not having the background feature. If I would have know it was implemented in the Kinoma player I would have purchased it. kinoma is supposed to be the best but I can’t use it with anything else.
Doe’s anyone know how to make the pockettunes the default player like it was until Kinoma fixes this feature.
I think you all have good points, so I equated this to the price of just going out to dinner a couple times and bought both apps. Kinoma 4EX and Ptunes. $65 for both. oh Well, I’m a media junkie.