Stream to your PocketPC/Windows Mobile Device FULL GUIDE

[maever]

Windows mobile device kplaylist streaming guide

Quick Overview:
-Explains how to stream music to your mobile phone through your internet service (gprs) or wireless network.
-Does not require any complex server setup
-Works on almost ANY mobile phone / smart phone / pocketPC
-Totaly free & stable solution, no need to waste money on expensive mobile apps.
-Any feedback/comments welcome! (share your experience!)

Introduction:
Streaming to your mobile, many tried it, many failed, not me!
It wasn't easy finding all the information but i'm more then happy to share it with everyone.
I mean wouldn't it be nice to have your mp3s available anywhere?
Being able to listen to them in the kitchen with your mobile phone through your wifi or when visiting your uncle in the country-side.

Kplaylist doesn't really support mobile phone streaming very well.
Some of you might have ran into asx/m3u format compatibility issues,
while others might keep getting a 'play.php' file when trying to download their playlist.
This ofcourse is understandable, seeing as kplaylist is a php based engine,
which would run into complications trying to support an rtps-like protocol.

Starting out....
When you want to setup a kplaylist stream site you can either do this from your home connection or from a webserver in a datacenter.
In this guide I expect you already have managed to setup a working kplaylist site (possibly with working LAME plugin to support mp3 sampling)


There were 2 options in getting a stream working in general.
1. Setting up some rtsp compatible streamserver protocol
2. Finding a (Free) client which supports kplaylist style streaming.

As 1. can be a lot of hassle and most of you probably won't or can't setup an icecast server or something similar(which would allow streaming using regular windows media player mobile).

So nr 2. would be a better solution, a free player...
Browsing around I ran into a very nice mobile media player (free).
This one supports kplaylists streams with ID3tags and everything,
I was quite amazed to see the gigantic list of supported devices for this free player.
It's called SGPlayer and this will work on almost any pocket pc or smart phone device.
Some of its features are:

• MP3/Ogg/Wav Playback
• HTTP streaming playback (MP3 / Ogg Vorbis)
• SHOUTcast streaming playback (MP3 / Ogg Vorbis)
• ID3 v1/v1.1 support
• M3U playlist support
• Supported OS:
  PocketPC / PocketPC2002 / WM2003 / WM2003SE / WM5/6

(its all free.. no catch, quite stable!)
http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA032810/
[backup mirror] http://maever.excalibur-nw.com/files/GSPlayer/

There's more...
Hold your horses, We are not there yet.
Though this program might support our much needed M3U format and HTTP,
Some of you still have their downloaded playlist-files appearing as "play.php".
The reason it's a .php file is because the mobile device is not properly reading the headers that get sent out by kplaylist and thus refering to the scriptname as filename.
Now the play.php file does actually contain the playlist data (thus renaming the extension could do the trick!).
though in a mobile enviroment its usually not even possible to rename a file extension (or not without its share of hassle).

I offer a solution to this issue:
It seems that the reason your file appears as 'play.php' in most cases is because of the option:
"Playlists inline?" being enabled in your "options" menu of your user account. (it should be disabled)

You can fix this by disabling the 'playlists inline?' option.
(while you're in there verify that you are using m3u playlists and that the "use EXTM3U feature" is enabled!)
other options can be left as default.

(if this did not fix the play.php issue,
As admin, go to Settings and enter 'File handling'.
Select option called 'Send file extension'.)

So now atleast you should be able to properly download your playlist files.
on to the last problem.

[optional]Stream downsampling
Now there still is the problem that most mobile phones will only have gprs,
gprs is rather slow (around 56k speed in general) this would not allow you to stream normal mp3 formats (which are 128kbit stream).
Now for mobile devices (if not used through your wireless home network) I do really encourage downsampling your stream format to something usable.
I am currently using a downsample to 40kbit using LAME on a linux box.
(you can achieve this by forcing the lame kbit speed through admin user settings)

And.... you're done!

Since I have one of those "unlimited gprs internet" subscriptions with my provider (10$ a month) I can stream all my music anywhere I go.

I hope this guide is usefull enough and it works for everyone,
feel free to share your experience or ask any questions.
I will work on improving this (in my opinion) much needed guide.

I'm hoping everyone will share their experience with their mobile device and how/where they use it

Enjoy

[JustusIV]

Nice post.
Just got upgraded to a 6800 from a 6700 and decided to install kplaylist after a long downtime.

I have a few questions though. Your guide is very nice, but leaves me with a few questions. First off i have about 100,000 songs. so when i login it is a few meg download for just the folder list. I allready have my playlist setup that i want to stream so if i could by pass the initial folder listing that would be great. I usually just jump into the first directory i see then it only list 10 items and i can pick my playlist from underneath that. My second issue is directly correlated to my first i guess. What browser should i use? I am just using PIE right now and it blows. I am using a custom rom on my phone built on 6.1 so that might have something to do with it but it is very glitchy.
PS i use TCPMP seems to work fine once the m3u is downloaded.

*EDIT*
If you know what your doing. You could add "Allow unauthorized streams" . So you can save your fav playlist and not have to login every time you want to listen.

*EDIT2*
Currently using opera, and it looks way better no glitches. However i still have a hug list to download every time.

*EDIT3*
Fixed verbage in edit 1

[maever]

Hey JustusIV,

I'm glad my post helped you out,
I myself keep my music categorized in main music genre folder names,
So I always have only 7 folders on my intro page.
("Rock & Hardrock", "pop, dance & trance", "80 & 90's hits","Jazz & Lounge", etc etc)
So simply categorizing your files a bit can already help loads.

Otherwise It would require modifications to the actual code.
( like making a seperate copy of kplaylist and changing the 'GetDirArray' and ' GetDirArrayLight' functions, replacing the contents of these functions with: return false; )
Though I do suggest the categorizing.


PIE (pocket internet explorer) can be sufficient,
all you need to be able to do is download a playlist file.
If your using your mobile phone (gprs internet?) to listen songs You should consider keeping the playlist small, no more then 500 songs i'd suggest.
as its simply not effective to download huge playlists, if you are like me and like to random play through your full music archive you should consider installing icecast, it envolves direct (random) streams, no playlists downloading required.

But for general browsing I've been hearing good things from "mobile firefox". which can be found here: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/minimo/
Offline streaming is possible but you would need to change various settings which i'm not sure is doable on a mobile phone. (as it intends to change IP every once in a while)

I take it you have a blackberry,
list your phone/PDA type here so that other people know it works on that device

Hope this helps you out

[JustusIV]

As for offline streaming i meant "Allow unauthorized streams" so you don't have to login and you can use the same m3u's over and over again. My mistake on verbage.

My setup:
Sprint 6800 with EVDO
Using Opera for the browser portion, Handles it better then PIE
using TCPMP for the actual play of the music. Just have m3u associated to open in TCPMP

Key settings:
Allow unauthorized streams. So you don't have to login every time.
Playlists inline. To make sure you dont get the play.php



*EDIT*
i dont think you mean mobilefirefox, that isnt for windows mobile
if your wanting to go with mozilla then you want minimo
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/minimo/

*EDIT2*
I have been debating on dividing up my music but i was thinking just doing
x:/mp3/A
x:/mp3/B
x:/mp3/C
etc
That way i only get blasted with 26 folders when i login.
I was unsure how kplaylist was going to handle this though

[JustusIV]

The newest thing i have done is to just download a ton of m3u's for albums via my pc, named them correctly to the albums name and transfered them to my phone. Then you have access to the album via a 2k file on you phone.

[JustusIV]

Minor status update. I have switched to the player "Pocketplayer" by Conduits. It is very finger friendly.

[joostjodel]

"SGPLayer" & "Pocketplayer".

These only seem to work with Windows mobile devices. I've put a similar hint online about streaming to a Nokia (Symbian S60 3rd edition) device, using Coreplayer as the player. Unfortunately, although Coreplayer supports a large variety of devices and platforms, it isn't free..

[hothand]

Take a look at Development "2003 Server"forum to find out
how to stream in mms: and rtsp:
IF you use MS server ...

Regards Uwe

[brynnax]

Is it normal for GPRS to have connection flaws at times? I am on Orange UK. I get connection flaws even when I have full signal. It keeps timing out when I try to connect. What causes these GPRS connection flaws?
_____________
market samurai ~ marketsamurai ~ marketsamurai.com

[shawnwilliams]

Hi
Nice post about everything on windows mobile that really helps me lot for how to stream music to your mobile phone through your internet service (GPRS) or wireless network and complex server setup.

[stevejack]

I have read Stream to your Pocket PC Windows Mobile Device and such a interesting article this one is. Newest thing which I getting know after reading this information. If your using your mobile phone gprs internet to listen songs You should consider keeping the play list small, no more then 500 songs id suggest.

[stokes]

doesn't really support mobile phone streaming very well.
Some of you might have ran into asx/m3u format compatibility issues,
while others might keep getting a 'play.php' file when trying to download their playlist.
This ofcourse is understandable, seeing as kplaylist is a php based engine,
which would run into complications trying to support an rtps-like protocol.