CorePlayer v1.0 Released

CorePlayer, the new and improved commercial successor to TCPMP, has been released for Windows Mobile devices. CorePlayer is a advanced multimedia player that handles a wide variety of video formats.

The Palm OS version is expected to be released within the next few days according to a company spokesperson.

CorePlayer for Windows Mobile Pocket PCCorePlayer v1.0 supports Windows Moble/Pocket PC devices including the Treo 700w, 700wx and 750v. It is based on the work of the same development team behind the popular TCPMP mobile video player.

Features include:

  • Advanced Skinning Interface
  • Codecs: AAC/MP3/WMA/WMV9/DIVX/XVID/MP4/MKV/MIDI
  • Streaming Support
  • Hardware acceleration on supported devices.

CorePlayer For Windows Mobile/Pocket PC is available now for $24.99. There is no trial version at this time.

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Pricey

legodude522 @ 10/17/2006 4:42:20 PM # Q
This is way too expensive. No wonder handheld software piracy occurs so much by people who wouldn't normally do such things. I would never pay more than $15 for a handheld only software.

I'll stick with the free TCPMP. Even mmplayer is $17.95 and thats robbing people blind.

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RE: Pricey
VampireLestat @ 10/17/2006 4:49:03 PM # Q
That is why you have to use, support and contribute in various ways to open source software.

There are 2 kinds of incentives to make free software:

a) $ profit
b) People who already have day jobs who contribute collectively to open source for the sole purpose of bettering mankind.



RE: Pricey
VampireLestat @ 10/17/2006 4:55:51 PM # Q
Correction: "... to make software..."

RE: Pricey
DJS_TX @ 10/17/2006 5:13:44 PM # Q
Why in the world do you think handheld software should be cheaper? If anything it should be more expensive. It is usually harder to develop for (cross platform tools) and it is usually more difficult to accomodate the dozen different resolutions / keyboard layouts / OEM tweaks.

My guess is they are engaging in the time honored tradition of fleecing the early adopters. If you lower your prices, you get free press in the blogs. It is hard to justify raising prices for software that is already shipping.

David

RE: Pricey
maceyr @ 10/17/2006 6:17:45 PM # Q
Wow. Yes, pricey is a word that does come to mind, considering that they used to offer it for free.

Without a trial, I doubt many (including myself) will fork out the money for it. This is turning out to be a major disappointment, considering we've been waiting so long for this release only to find that it's $25 and no trial versions available.

Drop it to $15 and it seems a bit reasonable.

http://palmdiscovery.net

RE: Pricey
joad @ 10/17/2006 6:29:44 PM # Q
$25 is pricey?!? I sorta agree, but then again...

I just swung over to pocket-tunes.com and that player (which *ONLY* does audio) is $35.00, with no guarantees of free upgrades beyond the current version.

My experience with TCPMP has been very positive, and if by paying for this version means I'll also get all the CODECs that haven't been able to be included in the open source version - then I'll bite the bullet and pay $25 (or wait for a sale).

Hopefully they'll include streaming audio (and video?) too, and I can kill off the RAM footprint of Pocket Tunes. That's worth $25 right there!

Only a dumba$$ would call TCPMP pricy
The_Voice_of_Reason @ 10/17/2006 6:38:07 PM # Q

You MUST be kidding saying that $25 measly bucks is "too much" to ask for a program that revolutionized multimedia on the PalmOS platform. You people have been spoiled by ultra cheap software and freeware for so long you have absolutely no understanding about what constitites a fair price. Do you realize how much time has gone into coding + testing TCPMP? Picard will probably end up making less than $1/hour for all his efforts. To begrude him a couple bucks is truly pathetic. And to imply that pricing is justification for STEALING software is truly sleazy.

Hopefully now that TCPMP has gone commercial we won't have to play games to avoid codec licensing "issues".

By the way, if you're so cheap then just keep using the beta versions indefinitely. And S T F U.

TVoR

RE: Pricey
freakout @ 10/17/2006 6:47:48 PM # Q
$25 isn't that much to ask for a well-done piece of software. No trial sucks though. Hurry up with the PalmOS version...

Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650
RE: Pricey
rmhurdman @ 10/18/2006 8:53:41 AM # Q
The reason that it's "pricey" is exactly because of piracy. If no one stole it, the costs would be shared over more people and it would cost less for each user.
Of course, that's only part of the issue. The other part is the licencing costs of the codecs. And you can debate that until you're blue in the face.

RE: Pricey
rsc1000 @ 10/19/2006 11:27:12 AM # Q
What are you people talking about calling this 'robbery'? Nice grasp of reality - if you guys ran things there would be no handheld software market. As it is, much of the commercial software that exists for handhelds / smartphones exists because the developers / publishers did not realize how little money they were going to make - and so many try it out, then leave the market.

I have a friend who spent 10 months of his life developing a game for Symbian s60 phones (arguably the largest smartphone market there is). He finished the game 2 months ago (Aug), got 4 and 5 star reviews, and over 7000 downloads of the trial since.
Do you know how many copies of this well recieved, well reviewed game he sold? Just try to guess?

3 Copies. 3 Copies of a game where over 7000 people downloaded it, not one bad review, lots of great enthusiastic user comments - yet only 3 people purchased it for the low sum of $15 each. BTW: he had so far found 4 different cracks for his game on-line. 3 legitimate purchases, 4 different cracks available. Needless to say, he has given up on any plans to port this to Palm OS.

The message - don't waste your time developing consumer software for handhelds. There are only a few hits out there that make the developers enough money to be able to survive on toast - the rest are complete money losers.

And so - why should this software be cheaper? If my friend had priced his game at $4.95 do you think he would have sold thouasands of copies more? No - he did price drop it - and it didn't make difference (has sold none since then). Not only does it now require a huge effort just to get a piece of software to run on all devices for just one platform, but the market is a fraction of a fraction of fraction of what it is for PCs. Not just because of the number of PCs versus a particular handhled or smartphone platform - but because there are brick and mortar stores where people can buy PC apps and because people are used to buying PC apps.

People who think handheld/smartphone software should be cheaper seem to have a line of reasoning that goes like this: my handled is 1 / 50th the physical size of my PC - therefor the software should be 1 / 50 th the price.



RE: Pricey
Wollombi @ 10/19/2006 1:37:59 PM # Q
There is a discount for Aximsite members posted on their forums.

_________________
Sean

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.

RE: Pricey
joad @ 10/20/2006 4:27:31 PM # Q
I will wager that games sell a lot less than differentiated utilities/programs like this is. And considering how much including proprietary codecs must cost the developer, $25 really is pretty fair - especially if he doesn't jack his customers for continual "upgrade" fees like many developers seem to be doing nowadays (which might be another reason for "piracy" beyond the explanation above).

If this commercial version of TCPMP is well supported, has the CODECs that are missing in the freeware release, and the developer is kind with the "update/upgrade" racket - I'll bet he sells a lot more than 3 copies at this price. He's got one paying customer right here.

But take a swing over to the "Documents to Go" thread to get another perspective on why some handheld users are boycotting and/or pirating applications - when the "market" (i.e. developers) churn and burn up their goodwill with customers by calling every fix or eye candy addition a "significant upgrade" and requiring another $10-30 "upgrade fee" for continued support (in other words - the "only support the current version" game).

Be fair with your customers and they will be fair with you. Stick it to them, and eventually they'll find another avenue in a competitor's product, never upgrading, never considering purchasing, and finding hacked versions.

As for blaming low sales of good Symbian games only on piracy - it's always a factor but probably not to the extent your friend is saying. Over the past 10 years I've downloaded tons of programs for my PalmOS to try out, but when it comes to buying I'm extra careful after being taken too many times by the developers. And I like handheld "games" in theory, but in reality kinda put them on, try them a few times, then forget about them and delete once the nag period runs out. I've purchased a few decent ones just to have, but rarely play them.

To put it in perspective, I paid $19.99 (actually more for the physical CD) for the *virtual* version of Monopoly, when Amazon will send me the entire *physical* board game with pieces and money and box for $10.99. Expecting people to pay $15-30 for every good game you make just because you have selfishly "waste your time developing consumer software for handhelds" probably isn't a winning strategy.

I've said before I think developers can motivate more people to buy by offering better pricing and support (what's preventing them from selling me my choice of 10-15 games for $50 bucks?) and working to retain us rather than pricing the games as though a few of us hired you to program it from scratch? Every box of Monopoly that Parker Bros/Amazon sends costs them a heck of a lot more to create, market, stock and fulfill than any of these downloadable things. And yet the tiny downloads are priced nearly *TWICE* what the actual physical game is priced. I'm no economist, but I know when I'm asked to pay 3-4x the net minimum wage on a single game, it ain't an impulse purchase. If the dot-com braindead could remember their days at the McDonald's counter they may have a better picture why the masses might try out their games but aren't necessarily ponying up nearly half a day's pay in order to feed the continued development and Coke/coke habits of the selfless developers. The delusion that if you can afford a $200.00+ PDA you will automatically buy a large percentage of everything you download is highly flawed.

Try again, Bubba.
The_Voice_of_Reason @ 10/20/2006 8:54:23 PM # Q
Sorry Bubba but your post is absurd. The price paid for software should reflect the skill + effort that went into the application, in addition to how useful the app is day to day REGARDLESS OF PLATFORM. If CES Dewar spends 1000 hours coding DateBk6 + responding to feature requests + immediately addreeing even the most obscure bug reports is his app not worth more than an app - or any item, for that matter - slapped together by some hack?

And please spare us the sleazy justification of warez. If you're going to steal an app at least have the guts to admit it and not claim you were "forced" to steal it because the price was "too high". It's not like PDA software is vital to your survival like food or water. You stel software because you WANT to. Period.

By the way, Amazon can afford to sell that Monopoly board game cheaper than the electronic version because:

1) It costs peanuts to produce the board game.
2) "Development" and support costs for the board game are zero.
3) The board game producer doesn't have to pay licensing fees to itself.
4) Volume discounts.
5) The board game is a lot less susceptible to piracy by hackers.

Please leave the B.S. to the Palm and PalmSource spin doctors.

TVoR

RE: Pricey
Frenchie @ 10/21/2006 10:29:24 PM # Q
I don't know about you guys, but Coreplayer sucks. It is a really poorly released product. The only plus I see is CoreAVC and the AAC support.

There isn't support for AVRCP so it is useless with my wireless headphones, no advanced options page so I can setup a button to turn off my screen, and finally it didn't come with the playlist editor.

I am sorely disappointed with this product. I expected more with such a wait. It appears in CoreCodecs attempt to get out on time (still late) they released a half baked product. Well when I see the program surpass TCPMP rc72 then they'll get my 25$.

RE: Pricey
Wollombi @ 10/25/2006 1:33:49 PM # Q
Something must be wrong with me, but TVoR is making sense.

Software development is not just sitting at your computer for a few minutes, churning out a few lines of code, and voila! a product. Not hardly.

Good software is engineered and thought out from the beginning. You have to problem solve, and sometimes there are no easy solutions to the problem, requiring a lot of time and effort. Then you have to translate your solution into the chosen programming language, make sure it compiles, and then make sure there are no bugs in the compiled code. And that's just the basics.

Try it out sometime, and you will have a much greater appreciation of what develpers actually do. It's not all Jolt Cola and Quake games, guys.

Developing is work, and people deserve to be compensated for their work. Deal with it.

_________________
Sean

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.

RE: Pricey
SeldomVisitor @ 10/25/2006 3:33:56 PM # Q
The last three places I consulted at what you describe for SURE was not the programming paradigm.

The last place - VoIP oriented - developed MASSIVE programs AT THE TERMINAL with no design other than what was in the programmer's head as he/she programmed away.

Might explain why a web-based GUI for a monitoring and control program (to control some distributed processes) took a full gigabyte to install...and did NOT include the controlled processes themselves!

Good design?

In your dreams...

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Sling Player?

ScottG @ 10/17/2006 5:49:02 PM # Q
I thought this was to play through the Internet the SlingMedia broadcast? If so, I hope it's part of the Palm Version which is going to be in high demand for this application.

ScottG
RE: Sling Player?
joad @ 10/17/2006 6:35:39 PM # Q
It's funny - but at the official rollout for the Lifedrive, Palm reps were "officially" looking down on TCPMP as a player because of the wierdness that is legally licensed codecs, pushing other media players instead. That said, many of them unofficially praised the program.

Maybe this is the first step toward replacing Pockettunes in future Treos with the successor to TCPMP. That would be ok (especially if it isn't bolted into ROM!).

RE: Sling Player?
hkklife @ 10/18/2006 12:36:40 AM # Q
There's nothing wrong with "bolting" it into ROM, joad, IF Palm/Normsoft/Core Codec releases updaters for the apps that, get this, lets you update the version in ROM!!

My Treo 700p could have quite a bit of RAM freed up (the 700p's 62mb is much more than the 650's 23mb but still not as capacious as my TX's 114mb) with the updated/purchaed versions of PTunes, DTG 8 etc. that could nicely slot into the ROM and overwrite the factory installed versions.

Due to the anywhere wireless functionality, I'm actually loading MORE programs onto my 700p than I did on my TX. I spent more time reading e-books in E-Reader, viewing pics in SplashPhoto, editing documents in DTG, and listening to music/media in TCMP/PTunes on the TX (ALL of those tasks due to the vasly superior screen size/res and headphone jack of the TX). However, I use a larger variety of applications for shorter periods of time on the 700p. I've actually been surprised at how my usage habits have changed.

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

RE: Sling Player?
joad @ 10/20/2006 5:04:28 PM # Q
I think we'll be holding our breath a LOOOONG time before Palm gives us (official) control over access to the ROM. Beyond the support calls, it's just not in their interest to let us throw away the garbage that they/carriers probably get license fees on for forcing on us (ie: Addit, etc.).

We might get lucky and get a firmware with DTG 8.003 (but they might use version 9 release for denying even that), but I'm just holding out hope that something like the Shadowmite updater becomes stable on the 700p.

Without the ability to throw away and/or update ROM files, I'd prefer all the unnecessarys be relegated to RAM and gimme more DBcache. If I can get safe access to ROM without killing my warranty - then let 'em toss whatever garbage they want into it and give me clear instructions on what and how I can safely remove.

Reply to this comment

TCPMP - a bargain at even twice the price.

The_Voice_of_Reason @ 10/17/2006 7:39:06 PM # Q
How many apps can you list that have revolutionized how you use your PDA?

DateBk3/4/5/6
NetFront
MultiMail/VersaMail
Vindigo
DirectoryAssistant
HandyShopper
McFile/FileMan Resco Explorer
HackMaster
Ultrasoft Money
DA Launcher
Power RUN
BackupMan/Resco Backup...

TCPMP

Is TCPMP "worth" $25? DAMN RIGHT!

TVoR

RE: TCPMP - a bargain at even twice the price.
LiveFaith @ 10/18/2006 10:31:21 AM # Q
VR,
Could you get me a copy. :-) I neeeed it.

Pat Horne
I refuse to pay for shackleware like CorePlayer...
Surur @ 10/18/2006 12:51:05 PM # Q

if there are other alternatives. Maybe Core Player is best, but I'll settle for second best if it means I can use the software on multiple, unconnected devices which dont phone home, unlike Core Player.

Surur

They said I only argued for the sake of arguing, but after an hour I convinced them they were wrong...
Hey!! I made associate writer at PDA247. Come see my nattering over there!!
www.clieuk.co.uk/wm.shtml

RE: TCPMP - a bargain at even twice the price.
The_Voice_of_Reason @ 10/18/2006 4:30:17 PM # Q
VR,
Could you get me a copy. :-) I neeeed it.

Sorry Rev. Out of respect to Picard I can't release my test versions into the wild.

TVoR

Reply to this comment

Stream Bloomberg Radio?

Gekko @ 10/22/2006 3:04:31 PM # Q

Is there a Player out there for the Treo 650 (PalmOS) that will let me listen to Bloomberg internet Radio?

http://bloomberg.com/tvradio/radio/#



RE: Stream Bloomberg Radio?
Ryan @ 10/22/2006 7:27:18 PM # Q
I'd try pocket tunes deluxe

http://software.palminfocenter.com/product.asp?id=491

The deluxe version includes streaming support, but I'm not sure what format bloomberg uses.

RE: Stream Bloomberg Radio?
Gekko @ 10/22/2006 8:32:18 PM # Q

thanks. it's .asx so i think i'm screwed.

http://www.bloomberg.com/streams/audio/radio_live.asx



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